Once you’re married and start a family, life starts throwing you a whole bunch of problems that test your patience and push your buttons. Day after day, the universe is punching us in the gut with some new and terrifying dilemma, leaving us scratching our heads and asking what the? While some problems in marriage are worse than others, it should be easier to handle when you can hand off some of the burden to your partner. But what if you can’t?
More often than not in marriage, we as moms carry so much more than our husbands. Between work, keeping multiple people’s schedules for different tasks, cooking, and cleaning. We really do have to do it all. It’s only a matter of time until feelings of exhaustion or burnout start when you’re not receiving the help that’s needed. When the support we’re asking for from our partner isn’t being given, resentment is inevitable.
Believe me, I’ve been there before.
My husband and I have been married for almost 10 years. Like all couples, we have our fair share of challenges. Unlike most, we have a child with a disability. This brings on a lot of added stresses that interfere with our relationship on a daily basis. Life was rapidly changing, all the while taking us along for the ride. I was trying my best to navigate our son’s diagnosis and figure out what our future may be like. He continued with his work. We no longer had as much time for each other as we used to, and it was showing.
Even though I tried my best to prevent it from happening, things changed between us, and our relationship changed. In order to handle our son and his situation, a shift in our priorities happened. I ended up becoming resentful when he became lazy. To make things worse, a financial issue came to light that had been hiding in the shadows. No matter what problem came our way, our solutions just weren’t working. Things we no longer the same, and neither are we.
If things didn’t change, and fast, we were headed for one place.
Divorce was something neither one of us wanted. The love was still very strong between us. However, an agreement that adjustments needed to be made to make our marriage succeed was a necessary conversation. Both of us needed to admit our flaws and try to become better partners. Not just one of us should be doing all the work to improve, since it took two people to get us to where we were.
Getting back on the same page wouldn’t be easy. It would take time, communication, consistency, and creating a new normal. This new normal would include making more time for one another, remembering why we got married in the first place, going out on more dates, and most importantly, couples counselling.
Having a third-party help navigate our issues with no personal gain was exactly what was needed to help get us back on track!
While in therapy, we’ve learned extremely helpful tools that have helped us create our own marriage language that works for us. For example, establishing boundaries to prevent future conflicts. Learning how to communicate healthily and productively. Relearning how to argue to avoid insults and triggers. Dividing up responsibilities more evenly so that one person is not doing more than the other. Checking in with one another to see how the other is doing has now become a daily occurrence. Implementing these new strategies has made life so much better. While there is still work that needs to be done, I’m grateful for the progress we’ve made both together and as individuals.
Marriage is like a garden. It’s a living thing that needs tending to on a regular basis in order to thrive. If it gets ignored and weeds infest its soil, it could get sick or possibly die. In this day and age, we all have so many challenges or “weeds” in our lives that have the potential to do damage. Especially, once you add kids into the equation. It’s up to us to make sure we nurture it so that it grows into something beautiful.
