We were best friends from the age of 13, got together as a couple at 18 (married at 23) and now at 31 are wondering if we’re still compatible.
We haven’t been very ‘happy’ in recent years, (hello parenthood) but it’s complicated as we own our own business together, have a child (4), and own 2 properties. On the outside, we look like and have been told we are such a nice family but the connection between us is not there. We’re so overrun by managing day to day life that we’ve lost our relationship with each other and have grown into different people.
There is a type of love between us, we want each other to be happy, we have similar goals in life to be successful and provide for our son.
We are both very stubborn with the fact that we’ve put so much into this relationship and we’ve got to where we are together that it would be stupid to give it up now (sunken cost fallacy)
We’ve been to therapy and the therapist has said there is clearly love here. She can see it in my husband, but I need to figure out how I feel.
We’re just not happy, yesterday we told each other we no longer think of each other as our safe space.
I guess I’m scared because as the time goes on, my husband keeps accidentally upsetting me sharing stupid thoughts (example: “our marriage is like Buckley’s, it tastes like shit but it works”, or “I had a pep in my step before we got married”)
So we continue this cycle of fighting over stupid shit said, questioning that if we feel this way why are we doing it and then trying to push through because of what we’ve built together.
How do you fix a relationship that’s broken when the connection isn’t there but you’ve built this amazing life…
My husband states he doesn’t want us to give up, but after years of this cycle is it worth it to keep trudging through?
I guess I’m left wondering if it ever gets easier, is this part of a long term relationship that ebbs and flows or have we just grown into two seperate people grasping onto what we have because it’s the life we have and know and we’re scared of what would happen if we did call it quits.
We are very honest with each other and aren’t afraid to have these conversations but never make it past the question of would we be happier without being together.
Would love some outside advice.
5 comments
“How do you fix a relationship that’s broken when the connection isn’t there but you’ve built this amazing life…”
There is only one way and that is 2 simple ingredients – lots of time, and prioritizing each other in your life.
One thing about having kids is people sometimes get this idea that the kids always come first. Particularly mothers can get this way.
There are a LOT of couples where when the youngest kid leaves at age 18, they divorce. And I’d guess that probably 50% of them the divorce comes in completely out of the blue to the wife. She has spent all her time doting on the kids and being SuperMom and the husband is being ignored. You cannot fix decades of a wife ignoring her husband in favor of the kids. And most of those divorce wives end up never marrying again and just bitter into their old age.
However it is damn near impossible to tell someone who is firmly convinced that their child must come first that they are wrong.
I don’t know if you are that way. It might even be that your husband is that way – something else in his life is more important than you – and you are sensing it and reacting to it. Or it could be that his stupid shit saying is because he’s sensing your prioritizing something else and that’s his way of reacting to that.
The question I have for the both of you, individually is, is there SOMETHING more important to you in your life than your husband/wife? Maybe it’s the life itself, the property, the kid the image…whatever. But something. I just sense from your post that for you, there is. You said that you need to figure out how you feel and that your therapist senses the love from your husband. (whatever that means) Perhaps you had a bucket list where you wanted to live in the Amazon for a year teaching english to the natives or some such, that got set aside when you got married? And now you are deep down that path in your marriage and a part of you is realizing that you lost something? And you are looking for it, and not finding it in your marriage or from your husband, and are frustrated.
Find an individual counselor I think you have taken MC as far as it can help you, and start talking and exploring just you. Not you and your husband not your marriage – but just you. You don’t want to end up like the guy from the Beatles song “A Day In The Life” 20 years from now. And until you meet and reconnect with yourself, and know yourself, you can’t work on how I said to reconnect a marriage.
You might have to shift focus from being successful to being together. Extra properties and business adds stress and burden.
I think you need a plan of concrete actions about what you will do to strengthen your marriage. It’s good that you can talk about it.
I don’t think it needs to be over, but you do need to prioritize being together. Go on date nights. Reconnect. Swap with another couple if you can’t afford a babysitter. You need to find fun things to do that you can do together without the kids or business.
My wife and I have 2 kids and (now) work together.
It gets stressful! And stupidly, usually, our only fights are about the business!
What helps:
Date nights in: We made a little place in the yard with a fire pit and love seat. Weather permitting, we’ll sit out there and just be together. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we don’t. Either way, it’s just time together.
Date nights out: Now that our kids are a bit older, we can take a night once every few weeks and go to dinner, relax and do our best to NOT talk business.
The best is the most difficult to pull off, but once every great once in a while, we get away for 2-3 days, just us. We don’t have relatives nearby, so arranging someone to watch the kids is difficult. But every 2-3 years we can somehow call in a favor and get someone to watch the kids and we rent a cabin in the woods. At said cabin, there isn’t much to do other than hang out together. We can talk, relax, talk, and do whatever without worrying about the kids walking in on us. That is magic for the relationship.