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How My Daughter Has Affected My Marriage

25 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Erika C. in Results, Uncategorized

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Tags

children, divorce, happiness, marriage, relationships

One of my hesitations about having children was a fear of what it would do to my relationship. I had seen friends seem perfectly happy in their relationships until they had children, then suddenly implode shortly after the birth of their children. I had heard the statistics about marriage satisfaction dropping after the birth of children. I was happy in my relationship, and I didn’t want to lose my closeness with my husband.

Now, I’m not very far into being a parent yet. However, the statistics show that marriage satisfaction drops most sharply during the first year after a baby’s birth, and although we’re over halfway through the first year, I’m happy to say that we have not experienced this kind of sharp decline. On the one hand, it’s true that we are sometimes snappier with each other. Having a new baby is stressful, after all. On the other hand, we have a new shared sense of purpose. We are at the beginning of the most important task of our lives together, raising our daughter to be a healthy, productive human being, and that has deepened our relationship tremendously. I also see new reasons to love my husband every day through seeing the way that he loves and cares for our daughter.

https://i2.wp.com/d33y93cfm0wb4z.cloudfront.net/Lauren/Homepage_Images/child_playing_with_parents.jpg

Source: babydigezt.com

Having taken another look at the statistics, I can see that my experience is not exactly unexpected. It’s true that 67% of relationships show a drop in relationship satisfaction after the birth of a child, but if you look at it the other way, that means that 33% of couples have no change in relationship satisfaction or an increase. We discussed a study by Gottman on Tuesday that showed that couples who improved their relationship skills before the baby’s birth were less likely to show this decline, and another Gottman study that I read today found a similar result, plus some information that explains the difference between happiness in couples with children and those without. First of all, the study found that happy newlyweds tended to become happy parents. In other words, those who tended to struggle with become parents were often those who were already struggling with their relationships. Second, couples without children were less likely to experience sharp declines in happiness, but this was partly because these couples were more likely to divorce quickly, meaning that only the happiest childless couples stayed together, which bumped up the happiness scores of childless couples over time. (For more on this study, check out this article: Parenthood Detrimental to Marriage?)

I plan on maintaining a healthy relationship with my husband for the long run, and what I’ve seen while reading about the topic this week has been clear: in order to have a healthy relationship after becoming parents, it’s necessary to consistently work on building connection and positive communication skills. In other words, I need to keep doing what I was doing already, consistently working toward strong relationship skills and bringing those to my marriage. Aside from wanting to have a healthy relationship for personal reasons, I also want very much to provide our daughter with a model for a healthy, happy marriage so that our example will help and not hinder her when she is ready to develop a relationship of her own. For me, that is more than enough motivation to keep myself constantly striving toward the relationship that will be best for all of us in the long run, even if it is difficult at times, which it surely will be. I believe the struggles will be worth it in the end.

https://i0.wp.com/yannidesignstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/parent_wedding_gifts.jpg

Source: yannidesignstudio.com

Fighting Your Inner Meddler (Or, Why I Don’t Do Devotionals with My Husband)

03 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Erika C. in Results

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Tags

acceptance, advice, awareness, communication, divorce, marriage, relationships

A friend recently posted an article on Facebook about how children from divorced families behave differently than others in relationships. (If you’re interested, check out the article here). While I didn’t agree with all of the points in the article, one stood out to me as being particularly true for me. The article said that children of divorce tend to be very aware in relationships, and this is certainly true for me. I am constantly watching my relationship for signs of problems or potential pitfalls. I suspect that those whose parents remained married but have serious struggles may experience a similar effect. While this awareness is good in many ways, it leaves us open to taking the advice of meddlers more seriously than we should. It also tempts us to meddle in our own relationships, looking for problems where they don’t actually exist.

Source: peopleconnect.com

My husband and I have been blessed with family and friends who generally trust us to make good decisions for our relationship, so it is fairly rare for us to get unsolicited advice on our relationship. It probably helps that our relationship has been quite healthy so far and that we naturally follow many of the societal expectations for how relationships should work. I’m sure that once our daughter is born, we will get a lot more unsolicited advice, but for now it’s rare.

Stumbling on Advice

Does that mean that unsolicited advice doesn’t affect our relationship? Well, no. And here’s why: the internet contains a lot of relationship advice. A lot. Much of it doesn’t work for my relationship, but I find myself worrying about whether there is something wrong with my relationship because we don’t do things the way that a random internet writer or commenter suggests.

Source: mirror.co.uk

Some of the advice is just crazy, and I have no problem ignoring it. For example, I recently saw in internet commenter suggesting that a woman stop having sex with her husband until he gave in and cut his beard. I don’t believe in using sex to manipulate my husband, so while it’s true that I don’t love it when he has facial hair, I have no urge to apply this advice to my own situation.

Other advice is harder to ignore, however. For example, I often see people online recommending having an evening devotional time together with your spouse. Now please don’t misunderstand me. For many couples, having a shared devotional time right before bed works really well, and I’m certainly not knocking the idea. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t make sense for my relationship. My husband and I have different views on religion in a lot of areas. Also, my husband likes to analyze things deeply and to question conventional views, which means that anything related to religion is likely to put us into a long, intense discussion. I love the fact that we have deep discussions about religion, and I feel closer to my husband and to God for having those discussions. Still, those discussions often include a lot of heated back and forth, and we can both get pretty riled up by them. The last thing I want to do right before going to sleep is to get into a intellectually stimulating discussion that will keep me up all night in contemplation. Still, it’s tempting, just because so many people online seem to think it is a good idea, possibly even essential for a long-lasting relationship with your partner.

Fighting Back

When this happens, I have to fight back against my inner meddler, that part of myself that says things in my relationship need to be different because the ways we do things don’t match how people online think they should be, or even how I think they should be theoretically. What I’ve learned from this process is that if something could work for my relationship, then great, I will try it out. If I know in advance that it won’t work, or if I try it out and realize it doesn’t work, then I let it go. There is no reason to cause a problem in my relationship by trying to fix something that isn’t a problem with a solution that doesn’t work for my relationship.

source: roundbyroundboxing.com

Don’t Fight About Stupid Stuff (And How to Tell When You Are)

24 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Erika C. in Strategy Introduction

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

animals, attitude, awareness, boundaries, communication, divorce, fighting, marriage, perspective, Pet Peeves, relationships

https://i2.wp.com/dphclub.com/static/posts/2008-06/dphclub.com_1214589863_girl_child_12.jpg

Source: dphclub.com

According to Emirates News, in 2013 a man divorced his wife because he found a picture on her social media of her kissing a horse and decided that she was cheating on him. Apparently she was fine with the divorce, saying that she was “not upset by splitting from a man who cannot distinguish between humans and animals.” Hopefully none of us would be tempted to divorce over such a stupid issue, but many of us fight over stupid issues that we really should let go.

Not fighting about stupid stuff sounds simple in principle, but determining whether something is worth addressing can be tough. Here are a few questions that I ask myself when I’m trying to determine whether to bring up an issue:

1. Is this situation ever going to happen again?

Some events really are one time situations. For example, imagine that you are getting ready to go on a roller coaster and your husband, who is in front of you in line, gets the last seat in the car ahead of you, leaving you to ride by yourself with people you don’t know. Do you wish he had waited for you? Moved back into the car that you are in? Sure! Are you likely to encounter the situation again? It’s unlikely. In a situation like this, it’s usually better to just let it go. If the situation does ever come up again, you can always address it then. You would be surprised how many of these one time situations people fight over!

2. Is this event absolutely unacceptable to you?

https://i1.wp.com/d1v2fthkvl8xh8.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/there-is-no-force-equal-to-that-of-a-determined-woman.jpg

Source: cloudfront.net

Even if something may never happen again, you should address it if it is a behavior that is completely unacceptable to you. For example, I feel very strongly about not threatening to get divorced, even in joking. If my husband did that, I would definitely talk to him about it even if I thought it was unlikely to happen again because it would be absolutely essential for me that it never happen again. My one piece of advice with answering this question, though, would be to take a break from the situation before addressing the situation. Often, space from the situation will show you that it is not as horrific as you thought, and if it really is a big deal, you will want to be as calm as possible to deal with it anyway.

3. Is this event important?

The opposite of the last question is important as well. If the event really isn’t a big deal, it will probably be more valuable for your relationship as a chance for you to practice letting things go than it will be as a subject for discussion. Most pet peeves fall into this category of stupid stuff to fight about. Pet peeves can be difficult to deal with, though, so if you need a refresher, check out this past blog post. In general, if an event is not important, you should let it go. Unless, of course, question #4 applies…

https://i0.wp.com/philippineslifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/pet-2.jpg

Source: philippineslifestyle.com

4. Is this situation part of a troublesome pattern?

Events that are unimportant by themselves can become important if they are part of a pattern that is important. Not every pattern is important. Just because your husband leaves the toilet seat up every day and it irritates you every day doesn’t mean that’s an important issue. On the other hand, an event that highlights an important pattern should not be ignored. For example, siding with his mom’s opinion on a minor issue isn’t necessarily important, but if he sides with his mom every time you have a disagreement with her, that may signal a bigger problem that needs to be addressed. In that case, make sure you address the bigger issue, not just the specific situation, and take time to prepare mentally for the discussion. The heat of the moment is not the time to deal with a pattern.

These four questions have been really helpful for me in deciding which things to address and which to let go. Ultimately, the biggest question is this one, though: Am I addressing this because I believe doing so will make my relationship stronger, or do I just want to vent my frustration? If you are just venting frustration, you might be fighting over stupid stuff.

Go Ahead, Let the Sun Go Down on Your Wrath

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by Erika C. in Strategy Introduction

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

attitude, awareness, baby, communication, divorce, fighting, marriage, moods, perspective, relationships

“Help! My husband and I just got in a huge fight, and he suggested we get a divorce, and I told him to get the papers. I’m really worried! What should I do?” Seeing this urgent plea on an online forum, my heart ached for this poor wife. How did her marriage get into such a state, and how could any of us really help her?

https://i1.wp.com/www.venusbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/asian-couple-fight-not-speaking.jpg

Source: venusbuzz.com

As people began to respond, the full story came out. This couple had recently had a baby, and were stressed to the max. They had fought before, the wife said, but never as much as they were now. It was late at night, they were both exhausted, and they were sitting in the same room, stewing and ignoring each other. Suddenly the solution was clear, or at least the first step: back away, get as much sleep as possible, and revisit the problem in a better mood.

You have probably heard the saying, “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.” I hate that saying. The intention of it is good: holding onto grudges or letting issues go unresolved is not good for any relationship. Unfortunately, many people take it literally, and think that if they go to bed still upset, they have failed somehow.

The truth is that you should only have serious discussions when both of you are in the correct mood to have the discussion. If you are both tired and irritated already, your mood is likely to prevent you from having a good discussion. As Carlson points out, when you are in a bad mood, “Little annoyances feel like they must be the tip of the iceberg of something more significant… Rather than being able to compromise, you become stubborn and defensive. You remember the bad times, and your future looks bleak!” It is much wiser to wait to discuss the problem until you are both feeling better, and getting a good night of sleep is likely to help with that. In fact, no matter what time of day it is, noticing your bad moods and your partner’s bad moods can be really helpful in preventing destructive fights.

https://i0.wp.com/www.lifession.com/wp-content/uploads/couple-discussing.jpg

Source: lifession.com

So what happened to the distressed wife? Well, when she updated the next day, she was in a much more positive frame of mind, and affirmed that although they would probably continue to struggle at times, she was committed to her marriage and believed they would make it through. The problems in their marriage did not disappear when her mood improved, but she was in a better position to face the problems.

I don’t tell this story to disparage the wife, because I think we have all been there at some point, where everything felt bleak beyond belief, and we forgot the incredible power our moods have to shape our perceptions. Fortunately, she had people to help remind her of that truth when she was in the depths, and hopefully, by being aware of our moods, we can all be in the position to give those reminders to ourselves, and to hold off on the really big discussions until we are in the right mental space to deal with them.

https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/ieBV5.jpg

Source: imgur.com

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Recent Posts

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