With Valentine’s Day right around the corner I know many of us are thinking about love, romance, and our relationships. Especially, those of us in marriages or committed relationships/partnerships.
I know for me during this time of year our sex life usually sees an increase or a change in style and I end up reflecting a lot on what has been going on recently and the last year of my marriage.
For me this time of year is a romance/ relationship reset. I usually am so focused the month of January on New year goal setting and planning that is more focused on myself, my family as whole, and finances etc. With all the holidays focused on connection, romance and renewal this time of year for me it makes so much sense this happens.
This year was different than all the rest.
This past year in particular had been one of the most difficult and challenging years my husband and I have had in the 13 years we have been together.
And when I say difficult; we both had many moments where we for the first didn’t know if we would actually make it and stay together. There were more fights and tears in this one year than we had experienced in the entire 12 before this. The “D” word divorce was even said many times this past year in our home.
For many reasons this year was challenging; life struggles, mental health, still adjusting to no longer being just the two of us, and financial struggles.
But, the biggest reason our connection was just off.
We were miscommunicating all the time.
We both thought the other one was attacking the other one with our words often when the other one had no intention of doing so.
Our sex life had some hiccups and slowed down for the first time, not even having our son had done this.
We both were isolating ourselves from the other one when we could and we were no longer doing things together for connection and fun. We would do things in the same room or home but, not together.
Our fights and disagreements had gotten to the point we were now saying personal attacks towards each other and keeping a tally of rights and wrongs and nothing was ever getting fully discussed or worked thru.
We both felt like we weren’t being heard and that the other was not putting in effort to mend the repairs and move our relationship forward in a more positive direction and frankly for it just to survive.
And we wanted it to survive.
Our marriage and our connection with each other has and will always be something deeply sacred to us. And even though we both had thrown out in frustration and hurt thru tears that we should separate and maybe we weren’t meant for each other anymore and had grown apart.
We both wanted desperately to get to the core of what was going on and find the effective way to navigate it. I don’t know how many times we had conversations about what the issue was, how we were going to work on it together, and what we both needed. We would end up with us just hitting another wall and both of us in tears wondering how we could have gotten here again.
Than one day recently something happened that caused me to reflect.
My little family was playing around on our bed, cuddling, laughing, tickling and by the end of it I had ended up laying across my husband in a cuddling way almost draped on him. And the comment he made next both rocked me and caused me to have to go and reflect on so much.
He said he had forgotten what it felt like to have me laying on top of him like that and it felt unfamiliar now.
Like, I said I was rocked and taken back. I was also sad and bewildered that we had gotten so far disconnected from each other. My husband didn’t recognize a feeling that used to be a very common part of our lives.
I took those emotions and thoughts and really sat with them and reflected on what this really truly means and how it had effected us. And if this could be apart of why we were struggling so much with what felt like no progress.
What came to me was obvious and surprising I had missed it.
The first thing I realized was it was true and how had I missed it? We had not cuddled like that in so long. I could try and blame it on many things; like we are a family who co-sleeps and even at almost 3 years old our son is still in our bed every night. Or that for a year I was working overnights and not even in bed 4 nights a week.
But, as I kept reflecting I knew those things couldn’t be blamed for it because, we could have added it to part of our day at others times and didn’t. So, why didn’t we?
As I was still working on figuring that out, I started to wonder were there other simple things we were not doing anymore in our marriage? And if so, how was that affecting us and how did we let those little things slip away ?
I realized quickly there were other little things we either had stopped completely, or they were not happening as often as typical for us. And even at times there were things that would only happen if we were not fighting.
We were not kissing each other as often or long. Or saying I love you. And pet names weren’t happening as often.
And that helped me realize how we got disconnected.
Our pet names had become mom and dad since we had become parents. We heard those two names from one another more than anything else.
So, they had become solely who we were. We had become just mom and dad now. We were no longer individuals let alone husband and wife. And I knew that I really had disappeared into that part of my identity personally.
Being a mom had become my priority.
For so many moms especially first time moms this is something common to happen. You all of sudden have this tiny little human that is depending on you for absolutely everything.
You are in a state of mind of overwhelm all the time as you try and learn how to both care for your new child and learn who you actually are as a mother.
And let’s not forget the constant physical overstimulation. Which by the way wasn’t even part of my every day vocabulary until I was A mother.
On top of that I have abuse, neglect, and childhood trauma that colors every parenting decision I make especially right in the beginning. I was desperate to the point of it being paralyzing at times to be break generational patterns in my family. The mindset that I am who I am in spite of my parents and upbringing could definitely be used to describe myself and my parenting.
With all this combined, I had become solely focused on being a mom
To the point where I wouldn’t even leave my son. He is almost 3 now as I write this and to this day no one has baby sat him for more than one hour ( 1 time). It took me over a year and half to even leave him alone with his dad.
I spent all day long filling every single moment with learning, developing and creating a healthy attachment with my son and my husband as a family unit.
And I had completely lost sight of not only myself and this new version of myself but, I had lost sight of my role as a wife separate from being a family. And how important daily intentions and small little things helped foster that connection.
I had forgotten how we had been just the two of us for a decade prior.
Which made my husband feel like I was forgetting him on a daily basis. And if you feel forgotten how are you suppose to stay connected to one another?
So how was I going to let my husband know that he was not forgotten and how was I going to make that connection an intentional priority each day.
By kissing randomly, saying I love you just because, making physical contact randomly when you can like cuddling during tv, talking the time each day to check in with each other as partners and not at parents, and more.
Once I realized this what did I do?
I took what I had realized and I made it my main goal to be very intentional with creating those small moments of intentional connection with my husband completely separate from my son and as a family unit.
When he was sleeping in the morning while I was up, I would go in and kiss him periodically and whisper I love him so he could start his day in love and connection every morning when he woke up. I would also make sure to stop and kiss him for 30-60 seconds throughout the day to continue to foster that connection.
I was intentional with noticing when we were alone together and made the choice to be mindful and fully present to simply just be in same space with each other and in each other’s energies instead of going to do on of the many things my brain had on it’s to do list or to go check on my son.
At the end of the day, I started checking in with him to see if there was anything I could have done differently that day to foster connection between us or if there was anything he needed from me to do that.
The difference this made and how quickly suprised me!
Seriously, in about 4-6 weeks our communication started to improve and we were fighting less often. Not personally attacking each other and taking the time to hear each other an apologize when we needed to.
I had some big issues I was working thru with my husband that suddenly were easier to radically accept. ( I will leave the details for another article. )
Our sex life improved in so many ways and now looks so different in the most liberating and cosmic ways.
The feelings of isolation were less.
The feeling unheard and misunderstood by each other was being expressed less and less as well.
We had begun to feel like a team again and like this wasn’t possibly the end of our time together in this life.
The small moments and intentions had rekindled our connection.
They had given us exactly what we needed to reset our relationship and commit to be able to keep working through this patch of growth TOGEHER IN THE SAME DIRECTION!
Are we out of the patch completely? NO. Which is why we are committed to remembering we learned and making those small moments of intentional connection happen each and every day where we are just husband and wife and not mom and dad.