When my husband and I met, we met as equals. We each had a career and our own social networks. We were two independent people who fell in love and decided to live a life in common.
A life in common. That's a life that we both
mutually share in isn't it? A life that is alike. It used to look like this - we meet up and talk about our days at work and our various frustrations and what's going on with so and so and who said what and then we eat rich food at a nice resteraunt and then we have sex and then have sex again and then sleep and wake up the next day in each other's arms and go to work again unless it's a weekend when we stay in bed or catch a movie or eat our with friends etc thank you very much.
Now our "life in common" looks like this: we wake up,drag ourselves out of bed, husband off to work, wife at home with toddler, wife and toddler eat dinner together, husband has re-heated dinner when he gets home, toddler is put to bed, husband tells wife what's been going on at work, wife, stifles a yawn or falls asleep during the conversation, husband or wife decide who is going to get to catch up with their friends next while the other looks after toddler, wife just wants to sleep and has been too tired to catch up with friends for months, husband has work to do so off he goes to the study while wife sits and plans next week's meals - husband and wife crash in bed too tired to have sex only to be woken up several hours later with a plaintive cry coming from toddler's room - then a tense moment while husband and wife each silently beg toddler to call out for the other spouse so that they can get back to sleep - sleep eventually, six in the morning the day starts again.
A comedy sketch? No, just a day in the life of a married couple with a young child. And a few more children and a couple more years and I can imagine sitting across the table from my husband and asking "do I know you?"
I never thought when I married and started a family that instead of our lives being more in tune with one another, what actually would happen was that they took vastly different courses. While my husband's life has run along its usual course - work, career, friends - but with a lot less sleeping and more family commitments - my life has been turned upside down with no career, too tired to see friends half the time, days spent without adult company, thinking only of sleep and when I'm going to get some time alone. And what this resulted in was the two of us having just as much to talk about but less and less in common in our conversations to the point where we both end up blanking out just about when the other person speaks.
Does this sound like your marriage? Do you find that though you love your partner to death your marriage has been sidelined by having children and your own life has taken a definite back seat? If so, then here are a couple of suggestions that I have come up with to try to re-discover myself and my partnership.
(1) Who were you before you married and had children? Find a way to celebrate your "former" identity. I have recently insisted on having my own study where my book collection is kept and my little bits and pieces that remind me of my forner life or the life I've put on hold. It's my little sanctuary and it makes me feel better just knowing that it is there.
(2) Keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings. This helps you to learn to dialogue with yourself more so you meet you for who you are but also so you don't inundate your husband when he gets home with some of the more mundane aspects of your existence as a homemaker/mother. (I only bore my husband with those sort of details when I'm feeling particularly resentful with him. I then make him sit down as I describe my daughter's poos for the day, every thing she ate, every game we played, every book we read. And then, I make sure that reminds me of something she did yesterday and I go on about that. I get a perverse glee out of this.)
(3) Tell your husband to shut up when he keeps wanting to talk about his work. Don't let him dominate conversation time just because he has something to talk about! Be honest, you're about as interested in his work as he is in yours!
(4) Insist on maintaining your own social contacts. Insist on this for yourself. You are probably stopping yourself from doing this out of sheer exhaustion but you are not doing yourself any favours.
(5) Try to keep a hand in the work force in some way (even if it is just voluntary work a few hours a week) or a course or something that reminds you that you too are a member of this community.
(6) Spend time alone with your husband. I don't mean try to force yourselves to sit in silence over a "romantic" meal in a stuffy resteraunt. So, the romance is on the low at the moment. There are other ways of being, just so long as you're together and touching. (The touching is crucial).
(7) Insist that your husband see you for who you are and that includes who you used to be. Presents should reflect this (i.e. perfume and jewellry and all things nice rather than waffle irons and mixers.)
(8) Introduce surprises into your life. This means surprises for you and surprises for your husband. I particularly like to surprise my husband by booking myself in for a very expensive day spa treatment (LOL). On a serious note, surprises bring joy to people's lives and a sense of energy. Energy is what you need to create sparks. Sparks are what you need to start a fire. And you know the rest.
(9) You have to have sex. There it is. It's like sleep. You know how they tell you that sleep promotes sleep? Well, sex promotes sex. Sex releases endorphins in the body that give you a sense of well being and it releases oxytocin which is the chemical that you need to bond you with your loved ones.
(10) Find something new to do in common. So, your lives were in common before and they meshed nicely. Now, your lives are so different that it's hard to meet on any mutual ground. Good. Find something new. It could be dancing. It could be some other course. Start a project together. For us it is "Deep Space Nine." Yes, that's right, the Star Trek episodes. Do I like Space? NO. Do I care about aliens? I think not! But I love snuggling on the couch with my husband so I developed an interest in the "Enterprise". Hmmmm! It's a start I guess!
I hope this gives you another perspective about how to go about maintaining a sense of self as well as togetherness in marriage with children. I certainly would welcome any other suggestions so fire away with the comments won't you.
(January 2007) (
