Somewhere along the line I forgot about my husband. There is so much push for self care and reinvesting in ourselves (HELL YES) that I forgot about putting that same philosophy to my relationship. I love my husband, most of the time I even like him but I forgot about him. Whenever we are out and about we get a lot of comments on our children, sometimes crude jokes about how many of them there are usually followed by how much we must put into our relationship. My husband is funny, has the patience of a saint (usually), is good at almost anything he attempts (except video games), is the doer (but lacks clean up skills), has people skills I’m utterly jealous of and a great ass. We have been together almost 11 years, at first it was very easy as babies came and our routine rarely shifted. Then we had a surprise fourth baby, a severe vehicle collision and possibly the collapse of my husband’s job. We were not prepared.
Our marriage until that point had ebbed and flowed with very few hurdles. Butting heads with that was my need to find myself again. I felt lost in motherhood and marriage. We had grown together but not necessarily up.
The truth is we barely survived, with four kids we are always on the go, throw in an acreage with more than four handfuls of animals and a job that takes him away more than he is home…well that does not leave a lot of us time.
Where does one go from there? The love was there but we were losing our friendship. We were sniping, cranky all the time (somedays it still happens, we are not perfect) and not communicating at all. Life finally caught up with us and we were so overwhelmed and taking it out on each other. We had stopped taking time for each other, we had not had a real conversation in months. The sad truth is there are never any easy answers but sometimes it is the easy answers that open the lines of communication. It was as simple as actually cuddling on the couch instead of sitting at either end doing our own thing, talking during a long drive instead of playing phone games (me whoops), drinking our coffee together in the morning or shoveling poop in the barn. Did it fix the big problems? Absolutely not but it got us comfortable. We had forgotten small talk and being able to sit and bullshit about the inconsequential so how could we talk about the life changing things.
Sometimes it can seem like giving up is your only option when you are stuck in a shitty cycle. Let me tell you starting simple is hard. In some ways it was more frustrating than the fighting and lack of communication. It was worth it. I remembered where our relationship started and why it continued. I can tell you there are relationships that need to end so that you can move on and grow as a person (yes even with kids involved) but at this moment we are not there and I am glad to be growing with my husband again.
Four Squared Motherhood 