Wednesday 14 March 2012

Marriage and Kids. Do we have the right expectations?

I was quite shaken to learn that there were many marriages in my generation of marriages which are / were / going to be in trouble.

Shaken because it seemed to be happening at the same time for all of them, and because my own marriage was also in the same "place" as the other marriages - as in, not married long, just had kids etc...

Shaken because it seemed like no marriage was safe.

Is this a phase everyone's marriage is supposed to go through? Like the 7-year itch?

Is mine going to go through the wringer as well??

The Husband and I were really worried. We started examing the health of our relationship to see if there were things we missed, since life with kids keeps you so busy you sometimes forget to change your underwear, much less remember to check-in with your spouse on their "feelings".

Yeah there are things I'm sure he's not happy with ... like I'm no domestic goddess, and he's lucky if I boil an egg for him and dust the room once every 6 months. And, after 2 kids, I don't look like a Victoria's Secret underwear model. Then again, I didn't look like one BEFORE the 2 kids ....

But I am an awesome person. And I am just plain awesome to be married to. And he was a good match to my awesomeness. He's soft where I am hard, and sensible where I am too emotional. He's my matching jigsaw piece. I am aware of it, and I appreciate it, often.

And we're lucky that we had discussed our mutual awesomeness and lack of awesomeness before we got married, and knew what our expectations of each other, of marriage and of parenthood were before all these things hit us.

And we're lucky that no matter how fucking tired we are at the end of the day, we still look forward to talking to each other in the twilight moments before we fall asleep.

We're just fucking lucky.

We're also always reminded how we were intended for each other by the grace of God. Literally brought together by His hand. And we're not going to waste all His efforts by sniping over who didn't put up the toilet seat.

2 comments:

PregnantMummyCantSleep said...

Found yr blog while googling on vomitting during pregnancy. Reading through yr blog at 3am since trying to sleep while sitting upright (just had a round of vomitting) is proving to be impossible. Thanks for a bunch for that post by the way.

I totally understand about yr worries on the marriage thing. It's like everyone seems to have marital issues. I have at least one friend who got divorced at the age of 27, after 2 kids. Someone once told me that there are several stages in yr marriage that u have to go thru. 1st year, next 5 years, next 10 years etc etc.

I think through the diferent stages, your priorities will also change (kids, career, send kids to college).. So we have to sort of grow up together with our significant other and manage these changes as a team, keeping expactations in line with eah others'. Often times, i see that marriages are in trouble because one person just wants it to stay like when they first got married.

The Phoenix said...

Hi Pregnant Mummy,
I found that sleeping on my side also helped. Just don't sleep on your back. That's a sure puker. Good luck with the pregnancy and birth!

I so agree with you on growing together in marriage, and the issue is when one side wants to be in stasis. :)

It's just scary how many people are going through that, and that healthy marraiges are more the exception than the norm!