Hi. So here’s the thing. We are one of those couples who decided to get married really early in our relationship. We got pregnant 3 months after dating and decided to continue our journey together (we were both looking for something serious so we were actually really happy when it happened). But now, almost 2 years later, I’m not so sure anymore. He’s a good person, caring, responsable, a loving father and dedicated husband. What else can I want, right? But I’m just not feeling it. I know he cares for me and loves the idea of a family as I do, but I’m not sure he’s crazy about me either. When we kiss or we hug or we are alone together I don’t feel joy. I just don’t. I know it has to do with him having a busy time at work, feeling stressed for being a family man, his father being sick and all those mysteries that run in a man’s mind that they don’t care to explain. But lately it has even been complicated just talking to him, if I try to reach out I feel like I’m doing more damage than good. Basically we are partners/friends who respect and care for one and other, focused on making a family together, which I found acceptable. But I feel like is missing joy (that deliciously effortless crazy chemistry of being one with another). And I know it sounds stupid and I should feel happy and blessed, but I just feel like there should be more to this.. you know what I mean? I try to put a happy face and not bother him because I don’t think he deserves any negativity from me but jezz… I’m really hoping this is just a phase. Do you think I’m being overly dramatic? Or is this something relatable?
TLDR; I don’t know if I am in love with the man I married after being together a few months together. But I hope I’m building something and eventually everything will fall into place. Am I crazy?
5 comments
All I can say is you might be right. It feels like a marriage of convenience, something that is comfortable so you stay. As a male I didn’t learn to communicate, or how unknowingly selfish I was until my 30s. Met SO when I was 36 or 37 after many failed long term relationships, ad were madly in love. When I get home from work, she’s work from home, I get a huge smile and hug. We go for a walk and talk/joke about our day while we walk a few laps. There’s tons of joy, so my heart aches for you. I personally feel SO MANY PEOPLE get into relationships, get married, and have kids before really figuring out who they are, what they truly want, and how to get those things. I took me a long time to realize my communication skills SUCKED. I had to focus on those and work on them.
I’m just so happy around her. Don’t get me wrong we both love our alone time and some nights she’s in her office playing video games until 9pm ornlater, and I’m on the couch playing mine. Other nights were watching movies while I rub her feet, or she’s giving me back scratches. I just couldn’t be more happy.
I hope you find your way to that. I’ve found most people don’t. Most are in bad relationships that should have ended long ago.
Personally, I think marriage counseling would be a good idea.
Having kids is actually pretty hard on a relationship. It sounds like you only dated a short while, and then you guys rushed through all the exciting stuff in a relationship (choosing to be together, moving in, planning a wedding, the excitement and hormones of the pregnancy, etc). It’s super easy in all that excitement to be focused on the next thing and the next step and lose focus on the foundational relationship building. Then the baby comes. More hormones. Sleepless nights. Then you mentioned his stress at work and sick family (ie: life also happening). I think most couples in these hectic times lean back on their memories and shared experiences from their dating days leading up to that point. You don’t have a lot of that “careless” foundation to lean back on. And it’s again easy to focus on the details of the day to day and all that needs to be done.
It sounds like the two of you have been doing amazing and that you found a good partner. Perhaps what you need now is to get back to that foundation building and “date” again. Of course, that’s harder with a child.
Personally, I think marriage counseling would be a great first step before you go ahead and flush the relationship.
It is well documented through centuries (if not millennia) of literature that that feeling, that effortlessness, goes away. The phenomenon of being in love is just novelty and hormones and lasts just long enough to get us together and get some members of the next generation produced. Everything after that is on us. It’s not the dryness you feel now that’s the phase, it was the bubbly excitement you felt before.
True love is spiritual and rational. It is an act of will. Every day you wake up and choose this other person: “this is my partner; this person’s wellbeing and happiness are coequal and indelibly connected to my own”. It is a kind of discipline which is why we refer to it as a commitment.
If you are truly committed and you do put forth the effort, than it will get easier again. Instead of the involuntary effortlessness you miss now, that of being pulled along involuntarily by a current of desire, you will find a new effortlessness. It will be a kind of zen kung fu mastery, the effortlessness of a well founded habit or well developed skill… and in that is a much deeper pleasure and joy than you are lamenting now.
You (both) chose this by committing to someone you’d known for three months. If you both work hard on it you can probably make a happy marriage together. I’m not sure why you would though when you could actually marry someone who you do love and who does bring you joy. If you stay together your child will grow up not knowing what actual love looks like. This can set them up for a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships – I know this from experience.
let him go be good, caring, responsible, loving and dedicated to someone else. you go find joy.