Reconnecting

Dec. 22, 2004 He had just asked me to marry him and I said yes!

Marriage. First, why am I sharing something personal that no one really likes to bring up? Because this is my blog and I like to write, especially if something has been on my mind and if I can end up encouraging someone along the way. If you look on Facebook you see plenty of happy, peppy, upbeat status updates like "Date night with my hubby!", "Cuddling, watching a movie with my love!", "My husband brought me breakfast in bed I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!", etc. It's rare that you actually see "My husband is driving me crazy!" or "Who is this man that I share a house and kids with?!?" It's a faux pas to admit that you're having problems in your marriage. Obviously it's none of anyone else's business, but these days what ISN'T anybody's business on Facebook?! Then you hit a rough spot in your marriage and you start wondering, is something wrong with us? Everyone else seems like they are so happy! Stuart and Martha are on a romantic getaway to St. Lucia this weekend, but my husband would rather watch a hockey game with his buddies than set up a babysitter and take me out on a date!? What you didn't see in Martha's Facebook status or in a "Places" update is that the perfect couple Stuart and Martha got in a fight trying to get out the door and to the airport on time, Stuart forgot to pack the sunscreen, and they spent the first leg of their "romantic getaway" giving each other the silent treatment. No, nothing is wrong with you. Marriage is HARD and we all hit rough patches. It's so effortlessly fun and exciting in the beginning and then as the years go on you really have to work to maintain that spark or it will fizzle out. You newlyweds reading this are probably thinking, *gasp* "That will never be us!" Oh just you wait my friend. It's inevitable.

Life is busy. Work is demanding. Marriage is hard work. Life with kids is chaos. While some areas of your life flourish others often become neglected because it's hard to do it all and be it all to everybody. My husband and I have been married for 6 years. We have the perfect love story - best friends then high school sweethearts, parted ways pursuing careers, found each other again, eloped, waited for him and wrote love letters while he was away at war, he is the love of my life. I didn't love anyone before him nor will I ever love anyone after him. Fairy tale material. Marriage was pretty manageable with one child. We didn't really have to do much maintenance. We still were able to find time to connect without having to put a lot of effort into it. Then along came number 2. The hustle and bustle of the evening routine has became a lot busier. Our time and attention for each other has to be divided by two, and we are tired. I mean we have lots of fun together these days, but a lot of focus is on the kids and meeting their needs. We work strategically, you take this kid and I'll take the other. By the time we have both kids fed, bathed, and off to bed we are both exhausted with little left over for each other. Not to mention one of the kids is an emotional 2 year old developing her independence and testing our authority. Daily stress levels are quite high once you factor in work, finances, random annoying incidents, and other miscellaneous relationships. At the end of the day quietly zoning out in front of the TV together is absolute heaven. However, this obviously isn't enough to maintain a healthy relationship with your spouse. Slowly over time our relationship started deteriorating. Then there is The Deadly Cycle. A woman needs to connect emotionally in order to desire to connect physically. A man needs to connect physically in order to connect emotionally, thus the deadly cycle begins. For example, if my husband doesn't make time to connect emotionally with me, then I don't necessarily feel like showing him physical affection (hugs, kisses, cuddling ... yes, believe it or not a guy needs and wants all those things not just, s-e-x). If he doesn't get physical affection, which is often how a guy begins connecting, then he shuts down and won't make an effort to connect with me emotionally (talking, opening up, quality time, love, feelings, etc.). This goes on and on until someone decides to break the ugly cycle and meet the other persons needs even though their own needs aren't being met first. The thing is though, you are so busy with the demands of this new life with two kids that you don't notice how little you are actually connecting with each other until its gotten bad! All the sudden you're irritated with each other over everything. You're daily conversations consists of only that which is necessary. What's for dinner, who's going to change the next diaper, a request to take out the trash, and other pressing issues like bills. You don't feel like making up after a fight because it's too much effort, especially if you have to initiate it, so you end up going to bed with as much distance between you two as a king size bed can allow (and some time even that is not enough). Fights, disagreements, miscommunications get pushed under the rug and suddenly you become two ships passing in the night BUT WITH CANNONS RAISED AND READY TO FIRE!!! It's not that you don't love each other because you do, but you're just not connecting like you used to. You love each other, but you're not IN love any more. Words like stale, boring, stagnant, routine, disconnected, stuck, silent, or challenged could describe your marriage. Anyone else feel me?!?

So this was us, after our big move to Columbus. Factor in a new baby, moving to a new city, change of jobs, financial stress of two house payments, trying to sell the house, settling in to a new place ... stress, stress, stress pushing us apart. It was the most stressful period of time our marriage has ever had to pass through. I saw where we were headed and I didn't like it. I think a lot of people think they don't need to work on or put effort into their marriage unless they are headed for a divorce or at least only if things are going bad. This is not true. Your marriage needs a good workout every day. It's also very hard for a man to admit that their marriage is lacking. It's like a punch to the gut. Though both of you are responsible all they can hear you saying is, "You are a bad husband." They look at themselves as failures for allowing this to happen to their marriage. The first step to fixing it is admitting that there is a problem. 

Now, what in the world do you do about it?? Some thing that really helped us reconnect, rediscover our love for each other again even, was this couples devotional called, Extraordinary Marriage: God's Plan for Your Journey. You do a week by yourself and then you connect together for a "group session" and talk about what you learned that week. They also have questions and activities to do together to help reopen lines of communication. You find yourself actually talking again! You set goals for your marriage. Where would you like to be (in your marriage) 30 days from now? 60 days? 90 days? Thinking about these goals together cause you to start talking about things you're unhappy about and then you begin taking steps to fix it. As soon as we got on the same page and committed to spending time on our marriage the walls started coming down. Date nights are nice, dinner and a movie are fun, but this devotional really gets down deep where it makes a difference. We're still making our way through the book, but it has really done wonders in our marriage and helped up get past this hump - The Two Kid Curse, as I like to call it. We still have bad days every now and then, as do all couples, but now we have a place to go back to. I can't recommend it enough! Marriage isn't perfect and as the years go by it get's harder to maintain because you just get so caught up in life. You see marriages fall apart and end up in divorce all around you. It's like a garden requiring hard work, daily maintenance, sweat, and tears. The fruit of your labor is directly reflective of how much effort you put into it! 

Yes, I did it! I admitted that my marriage isn't always perfect, but we've got love and are both committed til death do us part. You are not alone. I encourage you to get this workbook if you've hit a wall in your marriage. Don't give up. Work on it, it's worth saving. Communication in a marriage is key and this book gets you talking again.

For Women Only is another fantastic book I recommend to help you get inside of a man's mind. It explains the way they think and the way they function. This should be titled, "Men for Dummies" it's so good. It definitely helped me understand the way my husband thinks and how I could love him better. There is also a "For Men Only" that supposedly explains the complicated mind and emotions of a woman. I haven't read it yet, for obvious reasons.