Recently, we celebrated ten years of marriage. I am so grateful to be doing life with hubby by my side.
We are not a perfect couple. We are far from perfect individuals.We are just doing our best to keep loving each other despite the chaos and challenges that come with raising young children.
In the early days of our marriage, it was an adjustment. Things were so new and exciting but as we had never lived together before, it was a shock to the system. I remember crying when I realised that my new husband hadn’t made any space for me in the wardrobe. I think he realised just how scatterbrained I am and how messy I can be.
I was so determined to keep seeing my friends that I probably went out too much. I didn’t want to be that person who ditched their friends for a relationship. Instead of cozying up on the couch with hubby, I went to moonlight cinema nights with the girls.
Instead of having lazy Saturday mornings in, I went to Zumba classes. I took up weekly guitar lessons. Instead of spending time together, I scheduled lots of time playing sport and seeing friends.
Although there’s nothing wrong with having friends and going out, in hindsight I didn’t need to prove anything. It would have been ok to stay home more and enjoy the season.
When we were dating, I used to love cooking together. Once we were married though, cooking became a chore. We had a tiny kitchen with small bench space. Without a dishwasher, we had to do dishes regularly or else we had no bench space left. I was so tired after work and cooking was the last thing I felt like doing.
My husband would often come into the kitchen on my night to cook and enquire about what I was making. It was a kind gesture but honestly, it just felt like he wanted to tell me what to do, how I should be cooking it. I felt defensive and no longer wanted him in my space. We learnt to stay out of the kitchen whilst the other was making dinner.
Coming from a big family, I was used to making large quantities of food. I had the mindset that if you have the oven on for one dish, you might as well cook other dishes at the same time. I cooked far too much shepherd’s pie one night that we could have fed twelve people. I gradually got used to cooking for two but always made enough for leftovers. That’s just being smart, right?
After ten years. we’ve learnt things along the way.
Things like:
– Sometimes it’s better to pay to get a professional in to get a renovation done faster. This stops me feeling irritated that tasks are incomplete and means hubby has less pressure on him on his days off.
– It’s a good thing to be flexible with work arrangements depending on how your spouse is coping. This might mean working more so they can work less for a season.
– Working to our strengths means our household roles look different to others. I mow the lawns, do gardening, landscaping, painting etc. I do the cooking and cleaning during the week but hubby will do this while I’m outside doing jobs on weekends while parenting our children. It makes us both happy.
– We acknowledge that every stage is a season. We love our young children but gosh it’s hard. We try to remind ourselves that it not us, it’s this season that’s the challenging part. We are a team.
– We carry each other when life gets tough. This goes in waves. Sometimes the other person needs more breaks, care and understanding.
– We enable each other to have rest and fun outside of the house, things like weekly sport, girls’ nights and guy nights, nights away, golf afternoons, op shopping trips etc. When we have a chance to recharge, we come back a happier version of ourselves.
– We enable each other to have rest and fun outside of the house, things like weekly sport, girls’ nights and guy nights, nights away, golf afternoons, op shopping trips etc. When we have a chance to recharge, we come back a happier version of ourselves.
– Have date nights and nights away. This hasn’t been as often as we’d like due to Covid, breastfeeding babies, lack of babysitting options or being too tired to organise anything. We are making an effort to do this better moving forward.
– We are not perfect individuals so don’t expect our spouse to be. This sounds obvious but it is easy to fall into the trap of expecting that our spouse will meet our every need. This is not realistic or healthy.
Here’s to the next ten!
What else would you add? What has helped you on your marriage journey?
Melanie Wegener
