If you follow me on Instagram, you already know that Jay and I started going to marriage counseling very recently. And today was week 2. Week 1 was basically just us talking about how we met & got married. It’s such a complex, long story it took over an hour to tell the story!
I know I’m super open about my bad days and hardships as a stay at home mom, and just life in general, but I also want to be open about the hardships of marriage. Because if you put any man and a woman together in the same house and give them the huge responsibilities of a mortgage, bills, raising human beings, teaching them necessary life skills and lessons, happiness, expectations and trials, they are bound to have disagreements and hardships. EVERY COUPLE DOES. Do you realize that? I’m genuinely asking because I don’t know if everyone realizes that.
A few years ago, I was driving with one of my sister-in-laws when she asked, “I bet you and Jay never fight huh? You two seem so perfect for each other.” I looked at her like are you serious right now? And told her that we love each other but sometimes we annoy the crap out of each other and can’t stand each other! I continued to tell her how after we had our first child, I read an article in a parenting magazine about how if you said the “D” word(divorce) a dozen times the first year of your first child being born, it’s completely normal. I remember feeling so much joy after reading that and making Jay read it and me exclaiming, “See hun? We are completely normal! We are doing better than normal since we’ve(as in I) only dropped the “D” word only once!!!” I thought I must be the only one who was finding the marriage relationship difficult as we brought a child into it.
But when I found out I wasn’t the only one, I felt so much better knowing that we were normal! We’re not the only one who thinks marriage is hard! Or fight! No one ever talks about marriage being difficult or admit they fight, people only post about how they have the best husband ever, how lucky they are, how much they love them or how much they make them happy, so I thought we must be the only ones who fight.
As I was telling my SIL, she started to cry. With a huge rush of relief, just like how I had felt when reading the article, she told me, “This makes me feel so much better. I thought I was the only one who felt like this. Thank you so much for telling me this, this has helped me so much.”
So this is the reason I’m sharing this with you. To let you know that you’re not alone. To stop comparing your marriage and your relationship to what you see on social media, of only the happy, best-foot-forward moments of their relationships. You don’t know if they just had a huge fight and just had made up, therefore the romantic gesture or the roses. When they say the qualities they love in their spouse, what they’re leaving out in between each quality are the other traits they find annoying or dislike. It’s easy to focus on the qualifies our spouse doesn’t have that we wish they had, and finding another husband who has that quality and feeling envious, some may even regret marrying their spouse, but we have to realize that the other husband has traits their wife wished he didn’t have, and qualities the wife wished he’d have. I heard once that we marry someone with 80% of the qualifies we want in a spouse(because no one has 100%), and you get married and instead of focusing on the 80%, we focus on the 20% they don’t have. Some leave their spouse to find the 20% and when it’s too late they realize, “Oh, crap! I left my 80% for this 20%!”. We might find someone else with the 20%, or even another with the 80%, and it may not be the same issues you had in your previous relationship, but I can guarantee you that new and different issues will arise, a different trait in your partner that will annoy the crap out of you. No one has a perfect marriage. Every marriage has difficult moments.
So I’ll be sharing with you things I’ll be learning in marriage counseling, as we attend.
I’ll keep this tip short since this is already a long post, we learned that “Sharing our feelings is not whining.” This insight was given to us after sharing with our therapist about how I vent to Jay about the hardships of being a stay at home mom and he gets stressed out when I do because he thinks I’m whining and he feels he needs to fix the situation. So he’ll say things like, “Then go to bed early. It’s because you go to sleep so late.” which doesn’t validate my feelings and just makes me more pissed! But if he realizes that it’s not whining when I’m sharing my feelings and I just want to feel heard, understood and validated, then he doesn’t have to stress out and just listen and validate, and I feel better and the problem is solved! And now I can forget about it and move on! And even if I had told this to Jay, he would just brush it off, but there’s something about the unbiased, neutral, professional therapist telling your husband that it actually registers in his brain and he trusts and takes what the therapist is saying as fact.
Oh, marriage. It’s very tricky isn’t it? Haha. But it is so worth it. I’m determined to make our relationship even better and stronger and make our relationship flow as smoothly and easily as possible. Because we all know marriage is hard. So why not go to counseling to learn to make it easier? 😉
Stay tuned for next week’s marriage counseling tip! And tell me, are we the ones ones that have this issue?
KayEla says
I love that you are open about this topic because it really isn’t talked about much. During the beginning of my marriage we had a few fights and it killed me iNside because I thought we had already failed. I really had no idea that other couples fought and even sometimes questioned their choice in getting married. Once I realiEd that, It was so much easier to deal with our differences because fighting didn’t feel like a threat to our marriage anymore, It was just part of figuring each other out;)
Marriage really is hard, but I have come to find that each little stumbling block we overcome brings us closer together. Its a lot of work but so is anything worthwhile;)
Liz says
I love this! I love the advice, the candid way you share your life. It helps me feel more confident in being real myself. I love beautiful and happy things, but I get frustrated when people pretend that that’s ALL life is for them. When we can be real and share our struggles, then we can help each other. Thank you for sharing! Xoxo
Jessica says
thank you so much for writing this post. I have been struggling with my marriage and everything you said reminds me of myself and the things your husband says reminds me exactly of my husband! You are definitely not alone and i too feel relieved. I really admire how open and honest you are. I look forward to reading this series in your blog. I was considering counseling but My husband does not agree in it. 🙁
Genya says
One needs a courage to share that intimate details of the hard moments, I salute you! And strongly advice to read the “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from venus” and everything will click- women need to share, men need to fix, that is the natural instance of each sex.
dominique says
Your example sounds eerily similar to a situation that happened on ‘modern family’, where Phil is at a Spa and Claire is running around like a mad housewife.
Phil realizes that when Claire vents, its not so he can fix her problems (ie go to bed earlier, reorganize your schedule, don’t take on too many tasks) but rather just to be heard, understood and supported (I agree, Mrs X shouldn’t have been asking you to organize the whole bakesale, I mean, she has a nanny!).
Anyway, it seems to be a common theme of communication between men and women.
Nicole says
I Am proud of you for getting help. That will make such a difference in everything. Ket and I have gone three different times! Once at 7 years then 9 and 13… something about those odd numbers for us. I have found that marriage is like a roller coaster ride… up and down.. up and down. I used to want it to be smooth and evan… but realize now you have to have the downs to bound and grow together and enjoy the ups. I am always the first to admit that it is hard work. Thank you for sharing.
Katie Derrick says
Yes, yes, yes! Thanks so much for sharing this. Especially after my last baby, I’ve realized how much stress it has put on my marriage. Love ya!
Phyllis says
As a 70 year old woman who has lived through it, I REALLY feel you need to find some satisfaction outside of the home. Staying home is the hardest job one can have. My husband made a lot of money, so he had little sympathy for me. He felt since I did not have to work, I should be happy. I craved adult conversation and when he came home, I needed for him to talk to me and he was too tired to care. I went to college at 35 and started my own business at 38 and found out I was smart and interesting to other people. But, it was too late, his 17 years of in deference had killed our marriage. We divorced and I found a man who made far less money, but loved and respected me and WANTED to hear what I had to say! We have been together almost 30 year now and I am sorry I spent so many years staying home instead of investing in me. My children do not even care that I spent years being lonely and under stimulated at home with them. I was a girl scout leader and jointed many activities for the kids, but still did not feel happy. So, find a way to do something that makes YOU feel good about yourself and the kids will still grow up to be good people, but with a happy mother.
ps. is there a reason this comment section will not allow me to use capital letters?
Phyllis says
I copied and pasted my message from Word and see it did allow capital letters in my message, but not my question. Very strange!
ourlifeadmin says
Thank you! I feel like the culture of the church actually discourages us from talking about anything that’s not “perfect” so they teach us not to talk about the bad things of marriage, the imperfections of Joseph smith or church leaders, etc. And yes, that was like me too! I was so discouraged because I thought I must be the only one feeling this way. Thanks for sharing Kayela!
ourlifeadmin says
Thank you liz, that means so much to me! That is the whole point of me sharing this, so others don’t feel alone in this!
ourlifeadmin says
Haha, yes, this sympathizing or the lack of seems to be very common among husbands and wives! Thank you so much for your comment, it means a lot to me!
ourlifeadmin says
You know, I borrowed that book a long time ago and tried to get my husband to read it with me but he just laughed it off and said you read it and tell me what it says! haha! I want to read it now!
ourlifeadmin says
hahaha, that is hilarious! I need to find that episode and watch it!
ourlifeadmin says
Good for you and Ket, I think that’s great! And yes, it’s a rollercoaster ride just like motherhood and life! Thank you for your comment!
ourlifeadmin says
Having kids definitely make the marriage much harder! And also so much closer to your husband at the same time. I love you too Katie!
ourlifeadmin says
Yeah, it’s weird, it doesn’t show as I’m typing but once I click post comment, the capital letters show up! I’ll have to see if I can fix that, thank you for letting me know! And I totally agree, every mother should have a life outside of being a mother, because even though it’s a huge part of who we are, it’s not the whole part! And what happens when the kids are grown and leave us? What will our identity and happiness be then? Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom!
Jean says
bEING MARRIED IS HARD WORK! tAKE IT FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN MARRIED 40 YEARS. sURE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE BAD DAYS/TIMES…. BUT THERE WILL ALSO BE “GREAT TIMES” TOO. yOU FIGURE THAT WHEN TWO PEOPLE GET MARRIED, YOU HAVE TWO PEOPLE WHO GREW UP WITH DIFFERENT FAMILIES… HE LEARNED THAT WHEN YOU WASHED THE DISHES, THE COMPLETELY CLEANED THE SINK, STOVE, COUNTERS ETC…. (HIS DAD HAD BEEN A nAVY COOK… AND SO THE KIDS WERE EXPECTED TO HAVE THE KITCHEN SPOTLESS BEFORE THEY FINISHED THE JOB!) ON THE OTHER HAND ME, WELL WHEN i WAS DONE WITH THE DISHES, WE WIPED OFF COUNTERS AND LET THE DISHES AIR DRY (MOST OF THE TIME) TO COME BACK LATER TO PUT THEM AWAY. liFE IS DIFFERENT IN EACH AND EVERY FAMILY.
HE GREW UP LDS…. i DID NOT. (ALTHOUGH i CONVERTED TO THE CHURCH A YEAR AFTER WE WERE MARRIED.) UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE BOTH A BIT STUBBORN ABOUT THINGS SOMETIMES. SO OF COURSE THAT DOESN’T HELP EITHER. BUT, WE LOVE EACH OTHER. WE TELL EACH OTHER THAT EVERY SINGLE DAY! WE DON’T LEAVE THE HOUSE AWAY FROM EACH OTHER WITHOUT SAYING THAT WE LOVE EACH OTHER OR HANG UP ON THE PHONE (YES, WE STILL TALK ON THE PHONE…. MORE MEANINGFUL THAT TEXTING i ASSURE YOU!) BEFORE IT’S SAID. mIGHT i JUST MENTION, THE CHURCH HAS A GREAT CLASS (SOME WARDS ARE TEACHING IT DURING SUNDAY SCHOOL) (SORRY FOR SOME REASON MY COMPUTER ISN’T ALLOWING ME TO CAPITALIZE… GO FIGURE!) CALLED MARRIAGE AND FAMILY RELATIONS; IT’S AN EXCELLENT CLASS. THE BISHOPS WIFE AND I ARE TEAM TEACHING IT. CHECK IT OUT IN YOUR WARD IF YOU HAVE A CHANCE. I HOPE YOUR counseling SESSIONS ARE TEACHING YOU LOTS.
Jean says
sO SORRY, NOW IT SEEMS EVERYTHING GOT CAPITALIZED; WEIRD.