I read a great blog post from Meredith at Baubles and Birds recently about relationships. "5 Ways to Instantly Make Your Relationship Stronger" was filled with great insight and after I finished reading, it got me thinking of my relationship and what I would add, if anything.
Then I thought of the number one thing you see when reading about relationships. How many times do you read a book/article/post about relationships and see this word:
Communication.
I see that and always think--obviously. If you don't "communicate" with your significant other, what do you have left?
But it took having kids for me to truly understand this.
Pre-Kid time in my relationship (I'll just speak for myself since I'm not an expert and certainly don't want to make assumptions about other relationships) was easy. Sure, there were conflicts that came up about money or how we wanted to spend our time or where we wanted to go to dinner...
{There were probably other conflicts, but honestly I don't remember what they were. It feels like Pre-Kid time was a lifetime ago.}
But once kids entered the picture 4 things happened.
- Many of those old conflicts were no longer relevant. We didn't argue about were to go to dinner because we stopped leaving our house.
- Other conflicts were amplified because there were new factors. Money became a bigger stress--mainly because we went from being a dual-income couple to a single-income family of 4 in less than 2 years.
- New conflicts arose. Big ones. Hard ones.
- Sleep became a luxury we could no longer afford. And lack of sleep made all of the above much, much worse.
I feel like I spent mid-2010 until early 2012 (Early-Kid time) in a complete fog. And my husband and I had a lot of arguments (lack of sleep is a cruel thing). Looking back, the majority of them were petty fights...disagreements over the smallest things, but at the time they seemed huge.
I was talking to a good friend back in those sleep-deprived days and we were saying how we wished our husbands would just do some things without being asked. I mean, can't they read our minds?
That was my "aha moment." Because, no, my husband can't read my mind. And I should probably stop wishing he could. If I need something, how do I expect my husband to help if I don't tell him?
This, I realized, was the source to much of my frustration: having to ask my husband to do things. Because I wanted him to just do those things, unprompted. You know, read my mind and respond accordingly.
But, here's the thing. Anytime I asked my husband to do anything, he did it. Every. Single. Time. Middle of the night. The second he walked in the door from work. It didn't matter when I asked him to do something or what it was, he did it. So I was wasting time wishing I didn't have to ask him for things? Wow. That seems kind of lazy, doesn't it?
But, like I said earlier, we were both in a fog. We both wanted our needs met by using the least amount of energy possible because we had nothing left in the tank. We really were running on empty.
And the most amazing thing happened. Once I stopped being resentful of having to ask him to do things--of no longer expecting him to read my mind--a lot of little fights (that would get blown up) stopped. And it worked both ways.
So. Communication. It just took a couple years of sleep deprivation for me to really understand.
And now my husband and I never fight. We are perfect.
Oh my goodness that's probably the funniest thing I've ever written. Trust me--we are nowhere near perfect and we certainly still argue.
But at least we know how to "communicate" what's bothering us and at a minimum don't expect the other to be a mind-reader.
And an update: Current-Kid time is going well...the majority of my conflicts these days are with my 4-going-on-14-year-old. She does not understand that I can't read her mind. Lord knows I wish I could, then I would know if I'm supposed to turn on her light today or if she wants to do it. Because, seriously, if I do the wrong thing it has the potential to ruin her our day.
xo Sara
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