Does marriage recover after rough patch (when kids are young)? (date, wife)

[newnewyorkers]

A friend of mine has two kids age 4 and 8... Ha ha ha, okay it's me... The thing is ive been with my husband 20 years, and love him but i get stressed with the kids and full timework etc... I also feel like he is always on his phone and tends to not live in the moment because he is in his group chat with h his childhood friends vs. paying attention to the kid who is about to spill his cup, etc...

Point is we bicker and sometimes we fight, and i hate it. He is not very capable of overcoming his emotions or gettin "over things". Before w ehad kids, our relationship was smoother. Some times i think we need to find a marriage counselor, and sometimes things seem just fine. I dont have family around so we can't really go on a weekend getaway as a couple.

Please city-data, tell me you have been through some rough times and things worked out! P,ease tell me if you ever considered couples therapy or whether thingd just got better after kids got older.

Thanks. Only constructive comments please.

[ClaraC]

I don't think a weekend getaway or two would help. What you need to do is get in the habit - at home, around your kids - of making things better for each other.

It sounds like your husband is a little "checked out". He's playing on his phone instead of being present in the family. I wonder if you could set up some kind of thing where he does group chat after the kids are in bed? Or at least have a couple hours in the evening (like, 7-9 p.m.) where phones are put away and it's family time.

I don't want to come off as a negative nancy, but no, when kids are in middle and high school it's not easier than it is now. It's harder unless you have the rare kid who never gets in trouble of any kind, and who you can absolutely count on to be where they say they are and not pushing boundaries.

So what do you do when the kids go to bed? My husband and I used to play cards, or sit with a glass of wine on the back deck and talk. It doesn't have to be a whole weekend - an hour is good.

Best wishes.

[newnewyorkers]

That's good advice. Thank you.

[ellie]

Maybe you need to go out of town and leave him with the kids for a night or two. He'll probably snap out of it.

[BirdieBelle]

It's possible, but you both have to want it to be better.

You need to have a sit-down with him and explain your feelings in a non-accusatory way (i.e. "I miss our time together," and "I feel overwhelmed the way our life is now, like we aren't a team but two people co-existing in this house with the kids.") Let him know that he feels checked out and that you need him.

I like the idea of phones being put away, and it's not an unreasonable request. It also sets a MUCH better example about engagement for the kids.

What he may not realize is that his actual life is passing him by while he sits on that phone. He won't remember most of the stuff that is happening around him in the house because his mind is elsewhere.

That's probably the plan, though. He also probably uses it to escape the pressure and tediousness of family life.

One more thing: Are you certain he's chatting with his "childhood friends?"

[rrah]

The problems we experienced in our marriage were when our children were older. When they were young we worked really well as a team and as a couple. At those ages we made a decision that we would go on a date every other week. We found a teenager we trusted to babysit and when the date night came to an end we scheduled the next date with the sitter as we drove her home. If finances don't allow this, then you make a weekly "at-home" date. The children go to bed and the two of you have a special dinner, a movie, or whatever together. You schedule it on your calendar just as you schedule other things. It's that important.

How do you reconnect at the end of the day? Before you start dinner or childcare or whatever happens in your house do you take a minute to just say to your husband, "I'm glad to see you?" A simple hug or kiss and a few words is all it takes to reconnect, but having this type of ritual is important.

I often agree with Wmsn4Life, but I'm going to disagree to some extent now. Sometimes it just takes one person making an effort to improve things. We get what we put out there. It might not seem fair to put all of the burden on one person, but if the relationship is important to you, than you do the work to begin. Chances are your husband will pick up on changes and effort by you and begin reciprocating them. Love is verb and a decision.

And yes, I've been in the position where I was the only one carrying the relationship. The love I showed during many difficult months has been returned to me 100-fold. Love and marriage isn't a game with score keeping. It's more like the story of geese flying. As one goose tires of leading the flock another flies up to take over.

Yes, we have been through some very rough times; far worse than you describe actually. We saw a counselor who was very wise. More importantly we each eventually put in the effort required to improve and save our marriage.

[BirdieBelle]

"Love is verb and a decision."

Beautifully stated, rrah.

OP, this is kind of like, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

You can model the kind of behavior you want from him.

[SWFL_Native]

I can attest than children challenge the very foundation of commitment and dedication to a marriage. We're only 4 months into our first child and it has been a significant strain on our relationship. I hope you get through this rough patch.

All I can say is that the constant bickering gets old quickly. Maybe next time you want to make a rude comment bite your tongue and follow it up with a comment he would be interested in (e.g. his group chat). I think it's easy to get lost in having kids in that your life begins to revolve around them. Remembering that you are both individual people that have your own needs and interests that is equally important to your children is critical. Once you start treating yourselves and each other as subordinates to your kiddos then its a nasty spiral downward.

[lucky2balive]

Ours didn't
we were best friends...soul mates...great sex...no issues
we had children...after years of infertility though...and after raising 2, third is still young, we are kaput

we wont split while youngest is young...older 2 know we are in a very very rough patch...no cheating or abuse...just nothing there anymore...we both ignored our relationship until it was gone...I blame us, not the kids...however it happened because we became parents and didn't focus on us enough

I love my kids so I wouldn't change becoming a parent...but if I could go back I don't know what Id do...I tried but my wife put her wife hat on the hook and would only wear the parent hat for almost 16 years...now the wife hat don't fit

[weezerfan84]

Originally Posted by lucky2balive

Ours didn't
we were best friends...soul mates...great sex...no issues
we had children...after years of infertility though...and after raising 2, third is still young, we are kaput

we wont split while youngest is young...older 2 know we are in a very very rough patch...no cheating or abuse...just nothing there anymore...we both ignored our relationship until it was gone...I blame us, not the kids...however it happened because we became parents and didn't focus on us enough

I love my kids so I wouldn't change becoming a parent...but if I could go back I don't know what Id do...I tried but my wife put her wife hat on the hook and would only wear the parent hat for almost 16 years...now the wife hat don't fit

I have a friend that went through the same thing. She had quite a bit of trouble getting pregnant, and when it finally happened, the marriage was starting to crumble. I've asked her about it and she said they spent so much energy trying to conceive, that there was no energy left to focus on themselves. She's been divorced almost 8 years and she really wishes that she would have worked on her marriage more. Kids are time and effort and when you can't make time for yourselves, it only adds stress to the overall dynamic.