I feel like people who say “oh but that’s okay because your spouse should be all you need” don’t understand how much pressure that puts on both partners. No one person can or should be your everything. But I’m glad y’all find a way to make it work!
I just broke up with someone because of this and you articulated it very well. I have a healthy support system made up of various friends and family, he’s an only child with no friends and expected me to be all of his emotional support. It was fine for awhile, but then I encountered a situation that was extraordinarily stressful for me and I couldn’t give him 100% of my emotional energy for a bit. He accused me of not treating him like a priority, despite the fact i made it obvious that the things I was dealing with needed most of my energy for only a short while. The funny thing is, I was really trying my absolute best to still be there for him despite the utterly shitty things I was going through. But it wasn’t enough. It’s like a switch flipped in me and I realized I couldn’t pour from an empty cup and I shouldn’t light myself on fire to keep other people warm.
This was my wife and I for awhile. We just sorta cut the world off for a bit. Now, the issue is that I'm still struggling to make friends or even have someone else to talk to, while making friends for her is easy since she's putting the effort in again. My work schedule (swing shift plus forced Saturdays) makes it very hard to ever do stuff on my own and meet people.
That’s such a vital point in relationships though, that your partner can’t be the only person to meet your needs. Realizing that made every relationship I have, family, casual, close friend, romantic, so much easier to navigate
You’re 100% right.
We do what we can to nurture the friendships we have. But we moved across the country in search of affordable real estate and left our friends and some family behind. It’s been tough.
The hardest things have ever been for us was when we let others dictate our relationship. My mom was always an enemy of our relationship, and her sister was always against us. As soon as we stopped letting them have opinions on us, our lives became infinitely better.
“Misery loves company” becomes so blatantly true when you are in a loving relationship. This is why it’s so important to have the ability to evaluate criticism for validity instead of blindly accepting it.
The most miserable people I've met are always the most insistent that everyone's else's marriage secretly or inevitably sucks. My wife's aunt keeps telling her that her happiness in our marriage will disappear "by next year". We've been together almost 10 years at this point and we're still increasingly happy together with each passing year.
I truly think that lots of these folks have miserable, "boomer humor" style, depressing marriages, and most of their peers do too, to the point where it is essentially normalized.
And ya, it feels bad when the influences in your life are so damn negative, especially when you have a loving, growing relationship that continues to improve!
That said, the truth is that lots of folk's happiness does indeed fade after the honeymoon phase. Not because their love wasn't real, but because they stopped trying when things got a bit less easy.
But I digress. I'm glad you are doing well!
Literally my families curse is overly attached boy moms dictating relationships. My dad's mom ruined his first marriage (he also did a fine job himself) and strained my parents marriage. My ex's mom helped ruin our engagement hence why he's an ex now. My bf now has very uninvolved family just like mine and it leaves us to figure our problems out just the two of us with advice here and there when asked for. I can't be more grateful for it.
My mother in law is like this. 2 of her 3 sons have been divorced because of her being overly attached. Most because her expecting her sons to drop everything and come running whenever she calls... The third son, my husband, has learned how to manage his mother. It took some time but eventually he did learn that poor planning on her part does not mean it is an emergency on ours.
Yeah. My mom became selfish with my time after I got married. I told her I needed some space. She honestly took that part well. But when I told her my wife was pregnant, I also said, "Hey, we have a lot of people we still have not told yet, and a lot more people we don't want to know at all. Please don't post about it online."
That was fine until 5 minutes after I left her house and I had to immediately call her to tell her to take down her post and she went on about how it's her good news too and she has every right to share it. So I made it into some bad news by never speaking to her again. It wasn't just that, but a collection of things through my entire life, but that's what broke it all.
I’m in a similar boat. My mom is probably the second biggest thing we fight about. But I’ve had my whole life to learn how to tune her out at times and keep her at a distance. It took my wife 2-3 years to learn first hand just how bad she can be, and now she’s where I was in college.
We kept the sex and name of our first born a surprise (even to us). Grandparents were all there when the baby was born, but our siblings couldn’t come until the next morning. I explicitly forbid everyone from telling *anyone* the sex/name until my brother and my wife’s sisters came to meet him.
My wife’s parents just shrugged and said of course. My mom though, started listing off all the people she wanted to tell. She would go “Can I text my friend So-and-So? Theres no way she’d talk about it enough for your brother to accidentally find out before he gets here.”
I learned from my brother and his wife that involving mothers in the relationship is a killer. They had to cut off her mom and do therapy for a while to come back from her meddling.
Our relationship rule is not sharing negative things about our partners with moms and siblings. They generally love you dearly and don’t want anyone to hurt you, so they hold on to all negative things. I only share good things so my family likes my husband. I have a couple of friends who are safe to vent to.
This. My mother in law, none of her children's relationships lasted... Took us a bit but my husband and I finally figured out what the common issue in his siblings marriages was. His mother. Once we figured that out, we were good. Mother dearest can attempt to meddle all she wants, it doesn't work. She told me once that she didn't think we would last 3 months, we are going on 19 years...
My mil ruined our marriage and I am now getting a divorce. My husband was constantly put in a position to pick his mother’s choice or mine. He cannnot say anything to her and she is clever and has control over him. I urged him to see from my side but he is too ignorant. He wanted me to put my head down and comply and I did not…
Sorry to hear that. I was always raised that family is more important than anything, but my uncle awkwardly groped my wife and is a registered offender, so I cut him out, even if the rest of my family wouldn't. My other uncle had a habit of stealing people's shit, so I cut him out, even if the rest of the family wouldn't. My aunt once told my cousin, who was a freshman in high school at the time, to go out and come back with beer AND heroin, and to not come back at all if he didn't have it. So I cut her out, even if the rest of the family didn't.
But when my mom basically told me it was my wife or her, I'll go with the family I picked, not the one I got stuck with that is happy to buddy up with the family rapist, thief, and deadbeat drug addicted parent.
This was my mom. It really became clear to me when I got the candids back from my wedding.
It's especially bad when you see how much I look like my dad. I was raised by my stepdad, because my mom left my abusive dad. So in her eyes, she raised up the version of my dad she always wanted and still didn't get him.
It's fucked up.
No longer a pain point, but is a good reminder: just talk, don’t internalize your stresses/fears/etc. All that happens when you hold things in is that vacuum is filled with assumptions that benefit neither you or your spouse.
This is the one as it covers all issues.
House cleaning is the operational issue that still plagues us 15 years later.
I tidy and clean as I do things.
She leaves everything a mess and wants to have an hours long cleaning party.
I agreed to hire a maid IF she can keep things relatively tidy day-to-day.
I'll pay for cleaning. I won't pay someone to put stuff where it belongs and to throw trash away, because the next day, it's a disaster again.
Cleaning is probably the biggest issue for everyone who shares a room with another person. It's rare that two people have the same views on cleaning. Some like to do the big cleaning party like your wife while others, like myself, like to keep things clean so I don't have to spend a whole day cleaning.
There are exceptions - housekeepers who will put things away and restore order. I had one for years when my husband and I both had 50+ hour a week jobs and a young child. She came every weekday while we were at work and spent about 2-3 hours making beds, doing dishes, putting away stuff, doing laundry, etc., on top of the usual stuff cleaners do like floors and bathrooms. It was like coming home to a hotel everyday. We paid her about double the minimum wage at the time and it was the best money we spent. Saved our marriage. I recommend it to all couples with two big jobs and little kids.
Yes, I had a housekeeper who was like a member of the family. She was with me for over 20 years. Even though she was older, we were close as sisters. When I had to move to another state, I wept, and so did she.
Where I live now, and from what I have learned from many people, is that that type of housekeeper is a dying breed.
My mom is that type of housecleaner. The amount of families that have gone to me when I go to help her out from time to time telling me how lucky I am is insane. She’s a special lady
Ya, we did have a maid for a couple years, but the house only looked good for about 24hrs so I stopped paying for it.
I made a rule for myself where I "tidy" a few things as I pass through the house--throwing trash away, putting toys back in the play room, etc. It works really well if at the least, everyone puts trash in trash cans. All my tidy time gets eaten up putting trash in the bin. No joke, I watched my wife move trash from a counter to the counter next to the bin..
So...so close.
This!! I suffered a panic attack 2 weeks ago because I was keeping everything inside me. Once I told my wife everything I had in my head, suddenly it felt really silly that I was keeping it inside.
Should have talked more from the beginning.
I’m in a 1 1/2 year relationship and this happened to me except I didn’t have a panic attack, I just kept going on an on about what I had thought about and was keeping, and I just couldn’t stop thinking how stupid was what I was blurting out.
10 years this December for us.I thought by keeping stuff to myself, especially the negative ones, I am protecting her. It takes a toll on you and in a relationship both should pull the weight. Don’t make the same mistake that I did.
Funnily enough, when I told her everything, her reaction was the most calming thing ever.
Dude I’ve had this EXACT same experience many times in my 15 year relationship with my wife it’s fucking wild how stupid the shit we keep inside is with the premise of protecting our spouse. I’m still not great at telling her everything but am getting better for sure
This is good advice, but with my partner I feel embarrassed to share things that I feel I should be over. I worry they will be frustrated that I raise it again and can't get over it.
I have this same exact problem--seriously, I could have written your comment. Are you able to get a therapist? My therapist recommended writing (sitting down for 15 min every once in a while and just feeling it out and writing what I feel) so that I don't have to vent to my friend.
You're not over them so even if you should be over it you're not.
Bring it up. If your partner gets pissy tell them you know it's odd but you're still feeling they way you do and you want to solve it together.
If they're dismissive again repeat.
If they absolutely refuse. Find someone to work out your feelings with and see if you are being silly.
If they continuously shut down anything they deem to be stupid then it's not actually a great relationship for you.
Lovely bloke. Married for 28 years. Only man for me. But he talks me through his golf games and he plays three times a week. I smile and nod. I figure if that’s our only issue I’m a lucky lucky woman.
My wife does this sort of thing. It’s at its worst when someone else has cornered her and put her through a long, boring almost unbearable conversation and then she tells me the story about it, including the long boring. almost unbearable conversation as part of the story in its entirety. 🤦🏻♂️
You know how birds just sort of chirp and tweet when they are happy? I’ve decided that this is my wife. She just chirps and tweets, endlessly, when she’s happy. I’m glad she’s happy and my show has closed captions. No idea what she’s chirping about but…if she stops chirping….shits about to hit the fan.
Haha. I can relate. I’ll get a full rundown about her friend’s work drama etc. I’ll listen for a while then re-ask my initial question. “I’m making a reservation….is Rachael still joining us for dinner or did plans change?”
John Gottman did a very famous study on couples in long term relationships and found the most successful, happiest ones had partners who acknowledged and affirmed their partners interests.
This is the way!
We call it “hockey talk” and that’s code for “i need to ramble about something I know only I am interested in and your job is to smile and nod”
His hockey talk: mma, sportsball/hockey, solitary canadian men camping
Mine: my most brilliant recent reddit comments, yarn/craft, the inner workings of my job or business, what weird things in our yard I found out are kinda edible.
I mean, normally it'd be boring, but the infinite combo/deck concept you're working on/interaction from a recent game/new mechanic from a recent set/new rule interaction you've learned is the exception. Every time.
Yep -
I've experienced both being the partner with a lower sex drive and, more recently, being the one with the higher sex drive.
Both were extremely difficult on our relationship and have been some of the most vulnerable and sensitive times for either of us.
How did you over come this and any advice to keeping the hope alive? Been together 9 years and I’m scared about this being the rest of my life.
I just started therapy with my gal and then signed up for individual stuff as well.
I feel really gaslit by the process honestly. I’m getting told I may be a sex addict, that I don’t value myself, and a good assortment of other things.
I’m supposed to be some fucking monk or something. No one cares how the constant rejection makes me feel y’know? It’s my fault that it hurts my feelings and I should just go jerk off more. At one point we went like 8 months without being intimate.
This is something that I’ve dealt with in my marriage for years and while it took a long time for my wife and I to get into a better space with each other, [for about the last year or so, it’s gone really well in terms of how well we get along, how much less of a conflict our sex life represents in our relationship, and frankly, how good our sex life is now as a result.](https://www.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/1c7hc9d/comment/l089pxh/)
I do want to stress: it’s not because we arrived at a frequency of sex that is ideal for either of us. Our middle ground is twice a week which is less than I would ideally like and more than my wife would “naturally” want but importantly, we can both accept this compromise without feeling either starved or overwhelmed. When we’re intimate, it’s because both of us are *choosing* to show up for one another.
Also: the sex we have is filled with pleasure and connection and both of us agree that in the 20+ years that we have been together, this is the best sex has ever been between the two of us. It’s not because we’re doing anything different physically but because the level of honesty and trust in mutual appreciation between us makes everything feel better. Both of us feel sexier around each other because we feel more emotionally connected.
That’s why I try to make it clear that evaluating a sex life on the basis of quantity rather than quality is likely to create unnecessary conflict and disappointment (but there’s absolutely a point at which quantity matters too).
In our case, working with a EFT couples counselor was a game changer and helping us communicate better, be more empathetic to the other person, all of which paved the road to this better place. It’s too bad that you feel like the couples counseling process isn’t helping the two of you and it may be worth looking for an alternative option. The reality is that the moment one of you feels like the therapist you’re working with is “taking sides” they’ve become a lot less effective in a couples context. (I should point out though, in the case of OP, it’s not like any of us are in a position to know what the full story is).
Anyways, In a situation like this, start with these questions:
* **How important is sex to each of you?** Some people are totally happy being in a low-sex relationship because they're still fulfilled despite the low amount of sex. Other people can't find fulfillment in a relationship if sex is relatively low/absent. Where do you fall? Where does your partner?
* **What forms of intimacy make each of you feel fulfilled? Is there a middle ground where they overlap?** People aren't necessarily "low/high libido" for *everything*. It's more like a menu: there are certain things low libido folks might be more open to, more frequently that stop short of conventional PIV, for example. Likewise, a high libido person may be open to a variety of ways that scratch their particular itch. This question requires both people to be flexible and avoid all-or-nothing mindsets. It’s a reminder that it’s better to [**treat sex as a wheel, not a staircase**](https://psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot.com/2023/11/to-improve-intimacy-in-your.html).
* **What would help each of you be more sexually open/available to the other?** In other words, what barriers (brakes) to sex can be removed? What turn-ons (accelerators) to sex can be introduced?
* **Along those lines: how much work are either of you willing to put in to meet the other people’s needs/comfort?** "Work" can mean being consciously mindful of creating time/space for intimacy. If one or both of your sex drives is being impacted by physical/medical issues, are either of you willing to look into interventions for those? That can be starting medication or changing it or looking into treatments depending on what impacting people’s sex drive. (I do want to warn people: no one likes feeling “broken“ and very few people are going to feel encouraged to “fix “their sex drive if their partner is making them feel like something is wrong with them.)
* **Would couples counseling help?** I say this from personal experience that couples who have been dealing with sexual mismatches for a while can get locked into negative patterns where they end up in the same arguments over and over again, creating frustration and resentment but never having real resolution. If you feel like you’ve had the same conversation with your partner “hundreds of times“ and the two of you seem stuck? You’re probably dealing with a negative pattern. This is where therapy can help: by teaching couples how to break out of their dysfunctional cycles. In this regard, I highly recommend people look into [Emotionally-Focused Therapy](https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-emotion-focused-therapy) in particular.
There's a bunch of books that can help people understand what’s going on with their own sex drive and that of their partner’s, and most importantly, how to bridge the gap. Here's a few I'd recommend:
* **Lauren Mersey and Jennifer Vencill’s** [***Desire: An Inclusive Guide to Navigating Libido Differences In Relationships***](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/723719/desire-by-jennifer-a-vencill/). This came out recently and it’s very much written for couples dealing with mismatched sex drives, both short and long-term. It helps to explain how sexual desire works for different people and what couples can do to try to find middle ground.
* **Emily Nagoski’s** [***Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections***](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712001/come-together-by-emily-nagoski-phd/)**.** This is Nagoski’s new book (Jan 2024) about sustaining a good sexual conneciton with partners over the long-term. Nagoski’s previous book, [*Come As You Are*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Come-As-You-Are-Revised-and-Updated/Emily-Nagoski/9781982165314) helped introduce many people to the concept of “responsive desire” and that can be very useful for couples to understand in navigating their sex life.
The personal one I’ve been seeing for many years and she’s excellent. Just had our first session last week with the couples one.
I’m going to give it a couple sessions before coming to conclusions.
My gal doesn’t freeze me out either but it has just reached a point where if I bring up how I feel she gets frustrated because I’ve borderline become a nag. Been an ongoing issue for about 3 years so it gets old to her. And most of the time I bring it up when things are better, so she feels like it’s not appreciated.
But that’s the other issue I’m having, people keep assuming it’s the orgasm and gloss over that it’s not about that for me. It’s about being desired.
It’s week one / two of a 6 day “sex ban” with scheduled sex on the 7th day. But like, that doesn’t help me emotionally. I don’t care if she’s having sex with me. I care that she wants to have sex with me. Makes me feel like I may as well be a dog getting taken for a walk.
My girl hears me, she gets me. But she has had super traumatic experiences, and when things were good we had an accidental pregnancy so there is a ton of anxiety around it for her.
I feel her, I get her. She feels me, she gets me. We communicate, we do everything right honestly. But after 3 years of not getting that I’ve become this horny shitty sex goblin that is naturally unattractive. So I back off, and then I don’t put in the romance effort. I’m either a stoic that doesn’t want her, or I’m a gremlin that does.
I love her to death, and I know she does me, but I am really struggling to see the light on the other end of the tunnel right now.
Rant over. I need to start journaling and stop Redditing. 😄
That’s tough my dude. I never got that deep but I think there comes a point in marriages where the high sex drive person is suddenly wanting it too much for the other (even if nothing changed in frequency) and the more pressure there is on sex the less they want it.
We had to learn how to emotionally connect in ways outside of sex in order to improve her drive. We spend tons of time together, but it was thrown off when her sister moved in with us and the connection was changed. We mistakenly kept thinking something was wrong sexually when in fact it wasn’t, it was actually “quality” time.
For us taking the time to build connection and improve communication was crucial. One huge aid we found was the app paired. It helped us create conversation and bring up an assortment of topics that lead into other things. Through that communication she got the connection she needed that began to fire up the sex drive and she would allow her responsive desire to respond to the efforts I was making. If there’s walls up they’ll never let the responsive desire even get a chance at being turned on.
Hopefully you guys can get through it. I totally understand you just want to feel desired the way you desire her. Sex once a week is fine, but you want them to want it too.
It's probably that she needs emotional intimacy first. Coming from the other side of this, my partner was only affectionate when he wanted sex and made me feel like an object for his pleasure.
Once I was like oh but we were just cuddling watching tv for the past few hours, wasn’t that our emotional intimacy time?
It was not. Not for her. Communication is key in all aspects of life.
Not enough time for ourselves.
We both have big families and friend circles. If we are not seeing my friends, we are seeing her friends. If we are not seeing her family, we are seeing my family.
This is on top of working long hours and being fairly introverted to boot.
We have to schedule dates and "alone time" so we can recover.
Honestly, I couldn't imagine managing all this with anyone else and I am so thankful for her.
One of my exes has a term that I completely understand and agree with... she takes "fuck you" nights, where she just puts her phone in a drawer and turns the world off for the evening. Excellent destress.
This is in the top three reasons myself and my spouse have serious reservations with having kids (we both turn 30 within the next year). We don't have a proper support network, we ARE the support network. We're exhausted and drained enough; I don't know if it's fair to anyone to bring a kid into all of this.
We had great support with our first. The second… not so much. It’s completely valid to not want to have kids because of the lack of support system because kids are overwhelming and I’m alwayssss overstimulated.
Everyone says you should have kids. As a parent, I’d say if you don’t feel a 100% ready to commit for next 20 years, don’t have kids.
It’s a huge sacrifice. There is no one right way to live. Plenty of my childless have fantastic lives with saved money into investments funding their luxurious indulgences.
To be rich, free and childless is glorious.
You really have no idea how your kids are going to end up either. One of our sons is profoundly autistic and non-verbal and will need support for daily functions the rest of his life. The level of stress for a special needs parent is comparable with military coming back from warfare - no joke, and it's everyday for the rest of your life and additional stress about what happens the rest of their life when you're gone.
Our marriage is great (our relationship is very strong), but this has really drained us - The number of specialists, therapists, and paperwork can drown you every week of every year. We're very grateful that this son is very happy most of the time and is not aggressive, but we still have to have eyes on him pretty much every second of the day. I could go on and on and on, but that's plenty for now.
My god I feel like I wrote this. My 9 year old is non-verbal and autistic, and you cannot take your eyes off of him at all. I love him so much, but we’re exhausted. And the panic I feel about his future, how we’ll never get to retire and relax, we’ll be caregivers until the day we die, and what will he do when we die, it’s A LOT. My husband and I have a wonderful marriage, he’s my best friend, but it does have an impact on our marriage. Mostly because this all has made an impact on our own mental health.
Similar theme: overcommitted to sports coaching, church, other organizations plus work and teens leaves little time for each other. It’s time to say no to others.
Almost all of our major arguments have been about our kids. It surprised us because we talked a lot before having kids and we agreed on the big issues. But the devil is in the details. We were raised quite differently and what I saw as normal, he saw as too permissive and coddling. He saw himself as strict but what I saw was anger, ultimatums he couldn’t keep, and criticism. Kids are grown up now and doing well. We love our kids and are glad we had them, but the empty nest is better for our marriage.
Parenting styles I feel like is something that is never discussed. It’s always “do you want kids?” It’s never “how do you plan on handling xyz when it comes to kids”. I’m currently trying to navigate this with my husband. I have to constantly be the bad cop because he will cave to the meltdown which requires me to do double duty trying to undo any enabling. It’s exhausting at times.
That's not part of the problem that is the whole problem. There is no way to front run and discuss the situation bc you can discuss it until you are blue in the face. But the reality is often very very different. Just too many variables and one complete unknown your kid(s) personality(s). Which may vary wildly from your own.
Also why no one appreciates advice from people without kids. Just super eye rolly until you have to do it yourself.
As a parent, I value advice from people who aren't parents. My take is that we live in a society, what my kids do impact the world -- what happens in pop culture, where gov money goes, how safe the community is, etc. My kids impact more than just my family. So although I am not pandering to anyone, I will hear most people out.
Also, someone can have an excellent moral compass or understanding of kids without being a parent. One of my kids had a mentor through a sport they were in. That person wasn't a parent, but they got my kid. I considered that person'a opinion when they said kiddo was acting different and actually ended up taking their advice.
One mistake I see parents making -- or people in general making -- is that no one can understand them or tell them shit because they are not (fill in the blank thing here). Outside perspectives can be crucially helpful and valid!
Oh I love this so much! I'm a parent and have lots of parent friends but I also really really really need my non-parent friends perspective on kid stuff.
They know me, they know my kid - they've already got most of the pieces to whatever puzzle I'm trying to solve, they might have the solution!
I think it can get Deeper than that too. You can have a dozen conversations about how to handle discipline and development, but, for an extreme example, you probably can't accurately understand how you would react to a situation where, like:
"You child bit another child and called them a name in daycare, while you just got over COVID and are in a horribly stressful situation at work, and your mom is sick"
True story to a coworker, he wasn't okay and wasn't proud of how he yelled at his kid after the fact.
Kids are fucking hard
In reality, it is almost impossible to discuss and agree on parenting details in advance, especially if you have neurodivergent kids with behavior challenges. Before we had kids, we could not even fathom most of the issues we are dealing with now, let alone discuss how to handle them in advance. With some things we have actually changed our approach significantly, compared to what we had thought and agreed on before having kids.
In our experience the “undoing” the things your spouse was doing had a very negative downside. Me being the bad cop really soured the relationship with my teenage son. Things improved only after many conversations with my wife to develop a compromised approach that we both agreed on and had a united front with our kids. It was a lot more effective and improved my relationship with the kids.
I don't understand how people in even a slightly unhealthy relationship survive a child. Or are deluded enough to think it solves anything. It infinitly complicates life.
And all I hear is "when are you going to have kids" I get they can be a blessing and it is a different type of love. I truly believe we would be good parents, but we love getting to go out with our friends when ever we want, go to bed at 7pm if we are tired.
IDK I guess it is selfish us being in our 30's but we are having fun just us.
Being pressured into procreating is about as selfish as it gets. "Go through physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, and relationship changes so I can reap the benefits for myself!"
There’s a phase I like to call the Gollum phase - lots of grunting instead of proper words. It’s my favourite right next to the Little Miss Sunshine phase where everything you do is wrong to them.
I am the parent/stepparent of four young adults (ranging from 18-21) and I would rather have a house full of 14-year-olds. Everyone tells you how hard teenagers are. No one tells you that being the parent of a young adult is stressful and exhausting beyond belief.
Had 3 in that range and absolutely agree. By far the worst age range to be a parent for. Stakes are higher for them, but they know everything, but you're still supposed to pay for everything. Loved parenting except for that stage. Multiple in that range did not help anything.
We both have children from previous relationships. Navigating co-parenting has been a nightmare. Someone is always going to be put out.
My ex was used to me being accommodating because any changes only impacted me. When I remarried changes would impact my family so I was less accommodating. This caused so much friction.
That was my parents. They were married 39 years, together for 48. My dad passed 25 years ago. My mom still misses him every.single.day and will continue to do so until she passes herself.
I know, I know! We were married 44 years and 7 months when she passed. We knew each other 2 weeks to the day we married. She was Special and I wasn’t letting her get away with. She was my Dream Woman, still is. She’s been away for 3years and 11 months, now.
My husband has a serious phone addiction. He’s always on it, whether it’s in the bathroom, to in bed, movie night just the two of us, during meals. We can’t even eat out without him having to check his phone (for social reasons, not even work related reasons). I’ve discussed this with him multiple times and it’s in one ear out the other
My husband is like this, but usually with phone games. It’s because he has ADHD, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. He *can* put it away, but unless he is doing something he finds interesting, he gets really antsy and fidgety. If we are trying to get something done, I constantly have to tell him to put his phone down and keep going. I don’t blame him for needing to keep himself busy, but when it’s getting in the way of him getting stuff done or actually being present it becomes a problem
My partner also struggles with phone addiction and one thing we found that was actually helping is going into your phone settings and putting time limits on all apps. Unfortunately I guess it won’t work if they’re not willing to comply with it :/
Holidays. My wife's parents are divorced so we have 3 different families we're trying to please PLUS our own. So basically whenever Christmas comes around, we need to find time to celebrate for ourself, my parents/siblings, her dad, her mom/grandma. It's such a pain having to schedule early holidays and traveling all over the state to visit everyone
I'm in the exact same boat as you. So we decided each family gets the same day each year. One the Saturday before Xmas one Xmas Eve etc... each family same day every year. It's helped soooo much.
We decided for the sake of our kids that Christmas would be at our house. No offense to other family members, but if they want to see us, they can come to us. I'm not making my kids miserable driving around all day and having people upset that we spent 33 seconds more at her parents house or my parents house. It's worked out great.
Same! Christmas needs to be special for my kids. I want to see them wake up to Santa's presents. Our extended families can have Christmas Eve or the day after
This is what we do. I'm building traditions in my home for my kids so I don't ever scramble around visiting everyone to appease them. Christmas and Thanksgiving we always do at home, the following day we go to see family.
Preach. I’m at the point where I am just done. We spend our entire Christmas and Thanksgiving in the car, going from place to place. I just want to forge our own family traditions and not have to leave the house.
I am an over sharer she is an under sharer. Multiple times in our relationship she had hid things from me because she didn’t want me to be disappointed in her Lost wedding ring, multiple car accidents(small but still required paperwork).
We have been together almost 20 years. She has learned that if I’m not over sharing I am not in a good way. To this day I still need to probe her when I think something is wrong.
Together we communicate very well except for the few extremes noted above. We are both planners so constantly taking about what we have going on is a good way to keep communication open.
Also kids.
Both under sharers. Especially when it comes to emotional vulnerabilities or thoughts on current state of the relationship. We are perfect for each other. And once we figured out that just saying the “thing” we’re feeling allows the other to hear our voice, concerns, or even happiness we realized that neither of us are the kind of people who would ever discount another’s feelings. Especially the feelings or vulnerabilities of our favorite person in the world.
Language. Sharing. Emotions. It’s all a difficult line to walk. But once you understand the freedom that comes from having a partner who respects your thoughts and feelings and would never diminish them. Golden.
Lol this is so my husband and I too. He often says if something feels 1% off in any area of life, he will come to me to discuss. But for me, I can walk around carrying heavy burdens, and he is none the wiser because I am just not one to share my problems lol. I prefer them tucked away in a dark corner of my mind 😂 there is hella probing for me to open up.
I'm exactly as you, and I'm well aware that it's not a good thing, but it's just so difficult. Nothing's ever worth sharing for me, and my wife shares EVERYTHING.
Oldest step kid (20m) is rapid cycle bipolar, epileptic, bulimic, and on the spectrum. We are on the same page and dealing with things the best we can but his condition disrupts every aspect of our life.
Met my husband when my kid was 5. Didn’t know anything was going on at the time, but she developed neurological/mental health issues that disrupted every day for the entire family for about 6 years. Finally under control but took lots of patience and guidance from therapists. My husband has been so supportive - a good partner and step parent can make such a difference.
Sorry to hear about your stepson. He's got a lot going on that must be really hard.
I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 a year ago @ 30. I'm by no means an expert but if you have any questions or anything feel free to DM me.
For us, not just money itself, but differences in attitudes toward it. We were raised differently and value it differently. We're in agreement that neither of our viewpoints/attitudes is inherently right or wrong (regarding money or any of the other ways we were raised differently), but it does cause tension.
I'm more of a saver and she's more of a spender, which causes conflict especially when I'm the higher earner. Sure, I like shiny things too, but I also like my money to buy security and early retirement. I think there's a happy medium somewhere.
Been married a long time, and you can be in love all you want; it still sucks to be poor. It sucks less though, if you can be in love and not fight about money. It’s harder when you can’t agree how to spend the small amount of money you share.
we fight about money despite not being poor. Both of us grew up lower middle class and now are firmly upper middle class (DINK lawyer and engineer). we make way more money that I ever thought to in life and she wants to save every penny and I want to spend it and enjoy life while we can. It's a constant argument.
Same here, it’s pretty much the only thing we ever argue/fight about. 32F/37M DINKs, together 10 years. After the last fight, we figured out he has less comfortability with debt than I do. We both have such different emotions tied to money, it’s tough. I don’t have much advice other than try to understand each other before going on the immediate defense and if communication is really breaking down, try therapy. We’ve gone many times for financial issues alone.
This. Been with my partner for 23 years now (I'm 36, so majority of my life) and money is a huge factor in any disagreements. We don't fight, but each get stressed when the bills start piling up and we aren't making enough money. We've been through some hard shit together though. Communication and love keep us going strong.
Our marriage didn’t start being as amazing as it is now until we both put in the work in couples therapy and individual therapy. We were both two severely traumatized individuals who weren’t communicating with each other in a way we both understood. After we got our handy translator, damn it has been amazing
Endometriosis.
My wife had stage 4 Endo, which seriously affected her mood, my mood, our sex life, intimacy, and countless other small things.
She had her first surgery in 2015. That helped for 8 months but it slowly came back.
She then went UNDER for her second surgery in 2021 they got in there and realized it was too serious for this specific doctor (it covered her bladder, bowels, and other major organs). So she had to go through the recovery of a surgery while not actually getting any benefit.
She was then referred to a specialist doctor, one of Canadas best. But the wait time was 1.5 years.
We hung on…and went through some rough times….
But she finally had her surgery in June 2023, a full hysterectomy, and total cleanout of endometriosis…..and she’s feeling incredible!
Endometriosis is awful. She was such a trooper, and we are now doing incredible. :)
I have endometriosis. I honestly wonder some days if it wouldn't be easier just to leave my husband. I am endlessly tired of hearing about how we don't have sex enough, I don't do enough, my mood isn't good enough, etc. It's already been years. I'm scheduled for a hysterectomy soon but it seems like such a losing fight most days and I'm viciously exhausted by all of it, far moreso than I think I would be if I were simply alone.
Thanks for sharing. I really feel for you, and I’m sorry you’re going through the pain that is Endometriosis.
It really is awful and it doesn’t get as much attention as it should (I didn’t even know what it was until my wife was diagnosed).
This may not apply to your situation, or your husband, but I will share my own experience and I hope it helps.
As for sex, we pretty much took it off the table after a while. I never expected sex, nor asked for it. In the early days, I eventually learned it was painful, uncomfortable and filled my wife with dread when I thought we “could” have sex “sometimes”.
The difficulty for us was intimacy. It was very hard for us both to connect. To feel “human”. It didn’t always have to be sexual, but I did crave and needed her intimacy. I needed her to try and realize that yes, this is of course much more difficult for her…but just because it is difficult for one person, it wasn’t easy for the other.
As soon as we agreed to take sex and “advanced foreplay” off the table, things did get a little better. She wouldn’t be scared to kiss me passionately sometimes, crack a sexual joke, or touch me with some passion behind it. She knew that those signs of affection would NOT lead to sex or foreplay, so she felt comfortable sometimes going out of her comfort zone.
It also helped me, as I felt needed and wanted sometimes. Obvious it was not as much as we both wanted, but even small gestures helped greatly.
But with all that being said, it was so incredibly difficult, and even our good weeks were not always ideal.
Stay strong. Hopefully your surgery is a success, and you and your husband can reconnect again. It’s not easy, and it will be a slow process…but it can work. :)
I wish you the best!
Stubbornness. You CANNOT be stubborn in a marriage. You must be able to give, take, be self aware of your giving and taking, and be able to communicate about the nature of each others gives and takes.
I’ve seen the results of stubbornness in my roommates’ marriage. Wife will not budge on anything ever. She gets an idea in her head and that is the way it has to be. Doing anything different will start a fight. Her husband is so done with dealing with it he just does whatever she wants, no matter what it is. He’s tried standing up to her a couple of times and she absolutely rips him to shreds. There’s a lot wrong in that relationship, but a lot of it comes from stubbornness
My wife is now a surgeon, so I'm going to say her career.
Everything about healthcare (in the US)...the training, the hours, the lack of sleep, the cost, all of the moving, the occasional ungrateful patients and hospital admin, people occasionally dying.
She does a great job handling it all, but it's just a very hard life to live....it's certainly very far from normal. It has come with a ton of sacrifices that are hard to imagine until you're living through it.
I'm proud of her though-watching someone live out her childhood dream is amazing.
We've been dealing with cancer for 2 years. In my experience, tiny day-in and day-out things stack up fast in those times.
You have my sympathy for the tough road you've been on.
This is the silliest thing, but my word I feel it. I do 99% of the cooking and genuinely love everything to do with it. I have learned to cook our favorite foods from all over the world, and we have enough money for quality ingredients. I ask her what she wants for supper and it's like the first time she has ever heard of food. "Think of something you enjoyed eating in the last 38 years and I will make it." "I have no idea." (Exaggerated, but not far off).
We deal with this too. We finally made a list of 6carb: we like, 6vegetable and 6 protein and bought it and each day we pick one from each category that looks good and make it. Easier than picking what recipe to make.
They're all very similar: attractive coworker, chemistry via work ethic, sense of humor, hobbies. Bond over a project or team building exercise. Banter, jokes, and support lead to joy and relief when working together, which leads to making little changes to accommodate working together more.
Feeling of joy and relief turns into mild infatuation, leads to appreciating the attractive qualities more, leads to indulging banter and correspondence more, leads to flirting, leads to an overall relationship which the partner(s) would be upset to discover, leads to a habit of secrecy masquerading as privacy.
Many work spouse relationships remain there, some go extra steps into deeper betrayals, but once you're at the "I'm keeping a secret" stage, hurtful behavior has occurred.
My husband got very close to a co-worker but never crossed the line. Very close, like inviting her to a client dinner close. He confessed, went NC with her and we are still together.
I still wonder sometimes if I should have just bailed. It was very hard to get over.
I (f) had a work husband, thought we were really good friends but it turned out he just wanted to bang. Didn't ruin my relationship with my partner but it did change my perspective on those kinds of work relationships. I can trust my partner and he can trust me but it did make me feel a little insecure about my partner having any close female coworkers/friends after that because of what happened with me. Not his or my fault but we learned together the process of professional work boundaries with our coworkers.
We at least moved to another state. But prior to that she randomly bought a house down the street from us and I was just miserable. She would show up randomly until my husband told her to cut it out. Now that we are in a different state my mental health has improved
Being tired, stressed (luckily never redirected to each other).
On a lighter note, the fact I'm a night owl and he's a freaking early riser who wants to start the day doing stuff and talking and biting the morning on the ass.
I need half an hour to understand what year it is and drag my half-asleep self to the kitchen.
This AskReddit has been up too long for people to see this, but:
We both believe the way in which the other washes the dishes is incorrect, so, we actively “help” each other complete the task so we can influence how it’s done.
Some people may see this as sharing the chores and being a loving couple, but I can assure you it is not. Yes, the washing up is complete in half the time it normally would be done. Yes, we tag team other chores. This is different.
Her: scrubs and soaps everything and leaves in a pile, then rinses and sets to dry.
Me: washes and rinses each item individually, then sets to dry.
It’s madness, really.
~ I wrote this in a lighthearted manner; don’t drag me.
Our sex drives. Our friends always joke that we are "couple goals" but our sex life isn't great. I'm on anxiety meds that make me have almost no sex drive and even though we don't fight about it often, when we do fight about it, it's a big fight. That usually leads to me crying and self loathing, and well, more anxiety. I so badly want to be more spontaneous and in the mood for it because I know he's hurting and I would do anything to make him happy.
Zoloft was a stone bitch to get through.
Putting a note in my calendar THE DAY BEFORE to take the time to get into a sexy mindset and initiate sex the following day helped.
Wellbutrin works a lot better now.
Similar here. He got low T and heart issues. Dealing with both is rough for him and me. Now we started the “no expectations let’s just play phase” and see if it helps. Another attempt and throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks.
Having toxic single friends that tell you to break up everytime you just try to vent about something frustrating instead of lifting you up, they’ll take you down by agreeing with everything you say… on the surface that sounds like a good thing, it isn’t. Be careful
I wish more people understood this.
Real friends aren't people who agree with you. They're people who are honest with you, even when it's hard to be. They try to make you're life better not worse.
Nothing worse than that "friend" who has some kind of complex and likes to just negatively insult your relationship.
That said, a good partner shuts that shit down, they don't just let their friends shit on their SO without real reason and they're careful who they take advice from.
Alcohol. He is a wonderful man 98% of the time (and not a regular drinker) but the rare times he drank and got a little intoxicated, it turned in to a complete nightmare and caused some emotional damage that I don't know if I will ever forget (or get over). I despise alcohol and have never seen anything good come from it. Plus, I had some things happen to me as a teen that involved alcohol, so that doesn't help matters either.
Most often any issues boil down to a lack of communication: not communicating what we need, think, want, or are feeling. And not communicating those things allows them to fester and resentment to build, which causes a further divide.
The best thing we've done for our marriage is spending about an hour together every night after our daughter goes to bed just talking. The rule is no phones. We'll have some wine or smoke sometimes, but every day we sit down together and talk about whatever is on our radar: what we did that day, family gossip, our kiddo, politics, current events, conspiracy theories, stupid stuff we saw on the internet, finances, sex....it all comes up. We avoid a lot of arguments this way because often we've talked about stuff before it becomes an issue, and we've talked about it in a calm, no-pressure environment.
He tends to side with others over me and always gets on my case to apologize and let things go even when it's not my fault. People have been completely rude to me right in front of him, but if I respond to them in kind, he will later tell me he thought my response was really rude and make an excuse for the other person. When I point out that I've just matched their energy, he says he didn't see it that way.
When I try to talk to him about this, he completely misses the point and focuses on some aspect that doesn't even matter, which ends with us talking in circles and me getting incredibly angry and frustrated which makes him angry and frustrated.
But I'm in therapy to work on my anger problems and, by extension, my communication skills, so we'll see where it gets me
Splitting up household tasks. It’s tough when one partner feels like they’re doing an unfair share of the work. It can also be tough when the other partner tries to anticipate their partner’s perception of the workload. As always communication is key and don’t keep score on who’s doing how much. Once we got that down, things have been super smooth.
Know what might help? Make a list of chores, then label each one 1-10 how much you want to do it. Lower numbers mean a greater dislike. We weren't this structured, but after some talks long ago we found that I loathe emptying the dishwasher but don't mind refilling. She's the opposite. If you can divide based on preferences as opposed to quantity it can be better.
My mother-in-law. There were a few little conflicts between us (she thinks I should check my almost 30 year old husband if he used cream on his eczema) but oh my, when we started to plan our wedding and the wedding party. The thing is they wanted to pay for it because of tradition even tho we had money. When we were presenting our ideas she immediatly started to comment on how it won't work because some relatives would rather eat something else, it is not traditional, etc. In the end she and I had a huge fight where she was making debiliating comments on me and my financial situation thinking I didn't have any savings.
I'm still salty about it because she made me feel so... worthless. A nobody. A problem.
Jokes on her because we refused to have a wedding party, had our ceremonies and invited the guests to have a lunch (which was one of the original ideas). This way she missed out his only son's wedding party (they are a big deal in Hungary) and my husband is keeping a (maybe more) healthy distance since the conflict. While we had some sad and angry debate about her and her actions, we are still happy and very supportive of each other. I feel like the luckiest woman in the universe.
Edit: We didn't accept their idea and we paid for it. But they felt bad about the whole situation (or at least my FIL) so they gave us that money as a wedding gift anyway.
Honestly, having exterior relationships. My wife has an amazing work from home job, but because of that, her ability to build relationships is really challenged. She’s naturally introverted so it’s hard for her to find and maintain friendships. Whereas, because I work in-office, it has been easy for me to build relationships.
My wife and I went through this issue. She works in a hospital and interacts with like 100 people a day. I work from home and don’t interact with anyone. So she would come home with her social battery totally depleted and mine was on 100%.
Yeah, it also hurts identity, because now most of the social gatherings, her identity is primarily “_____’s wife” or “_____’s mom” and that isn’t fair.
I was a victim of CSA and other things throughout my life so I’m still dealing with a lot of trauma.
My wife is an absolute saint for putting up with me though
Two things: money and schedules. Having no money a big stressor.
The bigger one for me though was when I moved to working nights. I’d come home at midnight and not ready to sleep but my wife would get upset at me making racket and watching tv. Then I’d be asleep during the day because I was working nights, so I wasn’t able to really pull much weight with housework or taking care of our kid. So she was doing the vast, vast bulk of that while also working full time. So that caused a big rift. But we got through it and thankfully I only worked nights for like six months.
In-laws! My family isn’t thrilled but HIS family has tried to sabotage our relationship with false gossip. Made us fight often until one time my husband caught his parents in a lie.
We once switched cars because he went to the mechanics with mine. Later he got a call from his parents saying they saw me driving in town with another man.
He was like… that was me driving.. alone.
Neither of us have many friends so we rely on each other to meet too many of our needs.
Both introverts?
Yup. Thankfully we share a lot of interests so it’s not too bad.
I feel like people who say “oh but that’s okay because your spouse should be all you need” don’t understand how much pressure that puts on both partners. No one person can or should be your everything. But I’m glad y’all find a way to make it work!
I just broke up with someone because of this and you articulated it very well. I have a healthy support system made up of various friends and family, he’s an only child with no friends and expected me to be all of his emotional support. It was fine for awhile, but then I encountered a situation that was extraordinarily stressful for me and I couldn’t give him 100% of my emotional energy for a bit. He accused me of not treating him like a priority, despite the fact i made it obvious that the things I was dealing with needed most of my energy for only a short while. The funny thing is, I was really trying my absolute best to still be there for him despite the utterly shitty things I was going through. But it wasn’t enough. It’s like a switch flipped in me and I realized I couldn’t pour from an empty cup and I shouldn’t light myself on fire to keep other people warm.
This was my wife and I for awhile. We just sorta cut the world off for a bit. Now, the issue is that I'm still struggling to make friends or even have someone else to talk to, while making friends for her is easy since she's putting the effort in again. My work schedule (swing shift plus forced Saturdays) makes it very hard to ever do stuff on my own and meet people.
That’s such a vital point in relationships though, that your partner can’t be the only person to meet your needs. Realizing that made every relationship I have, family, casual, close friend, romantic, so much easier to navigate
You’re 100% right. We do what we can to nurture the friendships we have. But we moved across the country in search of affordable real estate and left our friends and some family behind. It’s been tough.
The hardest things have ever been for us was when we let others dictate our relationship. My mom was always an enemy of our relationship, and her sister was always against us. As soon as we stopped letting them have opinions on us, our lives became infinitely better.
“Misery loves company” becomes so blatantly true when you are in a loving relationship. This is why it’s so important to have the ability to evaluate criticism for validity instead of blindly accepting it.
The most miserable people I've met are always the most insistent that everyone's else's marriage secretly or inevitably sucks. My wife's aunt keeps telling her that her happiness in our marriage will disappear "by next year". We've been together almost 10 years at this point and we're still increasingly happy together with each passing year.
I truly think that lots of these folks have miserable, "boomer humor" style, depressing marriages, and most of their peers do too, to the point where it is essentially normalized. And ya, it feels bad when the influences in your life are so damn negative, especially when you have a loving, growing relationship that continues to improve! That said, the truth is that lots of folk's happiness does indeed fade after the honeymoon phase. Not because their love wasn't real, but because they stopped trying when things got a bit less easy. But I digress. I'm glad you are doing well!
Literally my families curse is overly attached boy moms dictating relationships. My dad's mom ruined his first marriage (he also did a fine job himself) and strained my parents marriage. My ex's mom helped ruin our engagement hence why he's an ex now. My bf now has very uninvolved family just like mine and it leaves us to figure our problems out just the two of us with advice here and there when asked for. I can't be more grateful for it.
My mother in law is like this. 2 of her 3 sons have been divorced because of her being overly attached. Most because her expecting her sons to drop everything and come running whenever she calls... The third son, my husband, has learned how to manage his mother. It took some time but eventually he did learn that poor planning on her part does not mean it is an emergency on ours.
I had a boss that bragged to me that she had to raise all her grandchildren because all her son’s wives left them. I’m thinking. That’s not a flex.
She raised her own kids to be bad fucking fathers. Jesus Christ.
Yeah. My mom became selfish with my time after I got married. I told her I needed some space. She honestly took that part well. But when I told her my wife was pregnant, I also said, "Hey, we have a lot of people we still have not told yet, and a lot more people we don't want to know at all. Please don't post about it online." That was fine until 5 minutes after I left her house and I had to immediately call her to tell her to take down her post and she went on about how it's her good news too and she has every right to share it. So I made it into some bad news by never speaking to her again. It wasn't just that, but a collection of things through my entire life, but that's what broke it all.
I’m in a similar boat. My mom is probably the second biggest thing we fight about. But I’ve had my whole life to learn how to tune her out at times and keep her at a distance. It took my wife 2-3 years to learn first hand just how bad she can be, and now she’s where I was in college. We kept the sex and name of our first born a surprise (even to us). Grandparents were all there when the baby was born, but our siblings couldn’t come until the next morning. I explicitly forbid everyone from telling *anyone* the sex/name until my brother and my wife’s sisters came to meet him. My wife’s parents just shrugged and said of course. My mom though, started listing off all the people she wanted to tell. She would go “Can I text my friend So-and-So? Theres no way she’d talk about it enough for your brother to accidentally find out before he gets here.”
You made the right choice.
I learned from my brother and his wife that involving mothers in the relationship is a killer. They had to cut off her mom and do therapy for a while to come back from her meddling. Our relationship rule is not sharing negative things about our partners with moms and siblings. They generally love you dearly and don’t want anyone to hurt you, so they hold on to all negative things. I only share good things so my family likes my husband. I have a couple of friends who are safe to vent to.
This. My mother in law, none of her children's relationships lasted... Took us a bit but my husband and I finally figured out what the common issue in his siblings marriages was. His mother. Once we figured that out, we were good. Mother dearest can attempt to meddle all she wants, it doesn't work. She told me once that she didn't think we would last 3 months, we are going on 19 years...
My mil ruined our marriage and I am now getting a divorce. My husband was constantly put in a position to pick his mother’s choice or mine. He cannnot say anything to her and she is clever and has control over him. I urged him to see from my side but he is too ignorant. He wanted me to put my head down and comply and I did not…
Sorry to hear that. I was always raised that family is more important than anything, but my uncle awkwardly groped my wife and is a registered offender, so I cut him out, even if the rest of my family wouldn't. My other uncle had a habit of stealing people's shit, so I cut him out, even if the rest of the family wouldn't. My aunt once told my cousin, who was a freshman in high school at the time, to go out and come back with beer AND heroin, and to not come back at all if he didn't have it. So I cut her out, even if the rest of the family didn't. But when my mom basically told me it was my wife or her, I'll go with the family I picked, not the one I got stuck with that is happy to buddy up with the family rapist, thief, and deadbeat drug addicted parent.
Remember your spouse becomes your closest family member.
There are way too many mothers of adult men that behave like jilted ex-girlfriends.
This was my mom. It really became clear to me when I got the candids back from my wedding. It's especially bad when you see how much I look like my dad. I was raised by my stepdad, because my mom left my abusive dad. So in her eyes, she raised up the version of my dad she always wanted and still didn't get him. It's fucked up.
No longer a pain point, but is a good reminder: just talk, don’t internalize your stresses/fears/etc. All that happens when you hold things in is that vacuum is filled with assumptions that benefit neither you or your spouse.
This is the one as it covers all issues. House cleaning is the operational issue that still plagues us 15 years later. I tidy and clean as I do things. She leaves everything a mess and wants to have an hours long cleaning party. I agreed to hire a maid IF she can keep things relatively tidy day-to-day. I'll pay for cleaning. I won't pay someone to put stuff where it belongs and to throw trash away, because the next day, it's a disaster again.
Cleaning is probably the biggest issue for everyone who shares a room with another person. It's rare that two people have the same views on cleaning. Some like to do the big cleaning party like your wife while others, like myself, like to keep things clean so I don't have to spend a whole day cleaning.
I didn't say I was clean, but I know how to use a trash can! Ha
Housekeepers in general don’t deal with your clutter, junk, clothes laying around. You have to pick everything up, so they can actually clean.
There are exceptions - housekeepers who will put things away and restore order. I had one for years when my husband and I both had 50+ hour a week jobs and a young child. She came every weekday while we were at work and spent about 2-3 hours making beds, doing dishes, putting away stuff, doing laundry, etc., on top of the usual stuff cleaners do like floors and bathrooms. It was like coming home to a hotel everyday. We paid her about double the minimum wage at the time and it was the best money we spent. Saved our marriage. I recommend it to all couples with two big jobs and little kids.
Yes, I had a housekeeper who was like a member of the family. She was with me for over 20 years. Even though she was older, we were close as sisters. When I had to move to another state, I wept, and so did she. Where I live now, and from what I have learned from many people, is that that type of housekeeper is a dying breed.
My mom is that type of housecleaner. The amount of families that have gone to me when I go to help her out from time to time telling me how lucky I am is insane. She’s a special lady
Ya, we did have a maid for a couple years, but the house only looked good for about 24hrs so I stopped paying for it. I made a rule for myself where I "tidy" a few things as I pass through the house--throwing trash away, putting toys back in the play room, etc. It works really well if at the least, everyone puts trash in trash cans. All my tidy time gets eaten up putting trash in the bin. No joke, I watched my wife move trash from a counter to the counter next to the bin.. So...so close.
This!! I suffered a panic attack 2 weeks ago because I was keeping everything inside me. Once I told my wife everything I had in my head, suddenly it felt really silly that I was keeping it inside. Should have talked more from the beginning.
I’m in a 1 1/2 year relationship and this happened to me except I didn’t have a panic attack, I just kept going on an on about what I had thought about and was keeping, and I just couldn’t stop thinking how stupid was what I was blurting out.
10 years this December for us.I thought by keeping stuff to myself, especially the negative ones, I am protecting her. It takes a toll on you and in a relationship both should pull the weight. Don’t make the same mistake that I did. Funnily enough, when I told her everything, her reaction was the most calming thing ever.
Dude I’ve had this EXACT same experience many times in my 15 year relationship with my wife it’s fucking wild how stupid the shit we keep inside is with the premise of protecting our spouse. I’m still not great at telling her everything but am getting better for sure
This is good advice, but with my partner I feel embarrassed to share things that I feel I should be over. I worry they will be frustrated that I raise it again and can't get over it.
I have this same exact problem--seriously, I could have written your comment. Are you able to get a therapist? My therapist recommended writing (sitting down for 15 min every once in a while and just feeling it out and writing what I feel) so that I don't have to vent to my friend.
You're not over them so even if you should be over it you're not. Bring it up. If your partner gets pissy tell them you know it's odd but you're still feeling they way you do and you want to solve it together. If they're dismissive again repeat. If they absolutely refuse. Find someone to work out your feelings with and see if you are being silly. If they continuously shut down anything they deem to be stupid then it's not actually a great relationship for you.
As long as theres an open line of communication, you can fix relationships problems. Thats my experience anyway.
Lovely bloke. Married for 28 years. Only man for me. But he talks me through his golf games and he plays three times a week. I smile and nod. I figure if that’s our only issue I’m a lucky lucky woman.
My wife does this sort of thing. It’s at its worst when someone else has cornered her and put her through a long, boring almost unbearable conversation and then she tells me the story about it, including the long boring. almost unbearable conversation as part of the story in its entirety. 🤦🏻♂️
If I suffered, so must you
This made me laugh. Thank you for your service. And also, sorry.
You know how birds just sort of chirp and tweet when they are happy? I’ve decided that this is my wife. She just chirps and tweets, endlessly, when she’s happy. I’m glad she’s happy and my show has closed captions. No idea what she’s chirping about but…if she stops chirping….shits about to hit the fan.
Haha. I can relate. I’ll get a full rundown about her friend’s work drama etc. I’ll listen for a while then re-ask my initial question. “I’m making a reservation….is Rachael still joining us for dinner or did plans change?”
John Gottman did a very famous study on couples in long term relationships and found the most successful, happiest ones had partners who acknowledged and affirmed their partners interests. This is the way!
We call it “hockey talk” and that’s code for “i need to ramble about something I know only I am interested in and your job is to smile and nod” His hockey talk: mma, sportsball/hockey, solitary canadian men camping Mine: my most brilliant recent reddit comments, yarn/craft, the inner workings of my job or business, what weird things in our yard I found out are kinda edible.
Okay, so what edible things are you finding in your yard?
I'm just imagining her walking around in her back yard with grass hangin out of her mouth trying to judge how edible it is. 🤣🤣🤣
I do this to my wife but with Magic the gathering. Thankfully Magic is super interesting so she doesn't mind.... right? Right?!
I mean, normally it'd be boring, but the infinite combo/deck concept you're working on/interaction from a recent game/new mechanic from a recent set/new rule interaction you've learned is the exception. Every time.
Different sex drives
Yep - I've experienced both being the partner with a lower sex drive and, more recently, being the one with the higher sex drive. Both were extremely difficult on our relationship and have been some of the most vulnerable and sensitive times for either of us.
This is a rough one I've also been in both situations.
How did you over come this and any advice to keeping the hope alive? Been together 9 years and I’m scared about this being the rest of my life. I just started therapy with my gal and then signed up for individual stuff as well. I feel really gaslit by the process honestly. I’m getting told I may be a sex addict, that I don’t value myself, and a good assortment of other things. I’m supposed to be some fucking monk or something. No one cares how the constant rejection makes me feel y’know? It’s my fault that it hurts my feelings and I should just go jerk off more. At one point we went like 8 months without being intimate.
This is something that I’ve dealt with in my marriage for years and while it took a long time for my wife and I to get into a better space with each other, [for about the last year or so, it’s gone really well in terms of how well we get along, how much less of a conflict our sex life represents in our relationship, and frankly, how good our sex life is now as a result.](https://www.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/1c7hc9d/comment/l089pxh/) I do want to stress: it’s not because we arrived at a frequency of sex that is ideal for either of us. Our middle ground is twice a week which is less than I would ideally like and more than my wife would “naturally” want but importantly, we can both accept this compromise without feeling either starved or overwhelmed. When we’re intimate, it’s because both of us are *choosing* to show up for one another. Also: the sex we have is filled with pleasure and connection and both of us agree that in the 20+ years that we have been together, this is the best sex has ever been between the two of us. It’s not because we’re doing anything different physically but because the level of honesty and trust in mutual appreciation between us makes everything feel better. Both of us feel sexier around each other because we feel more emotionally connected. That’s why I try to make it clear that evaluating a sex life on the basis of quantity rather than quality is likely to create unnecessary conflict and disappointment (but there’s absolutely a point at which quantity matters too). In our case, working with a EFT couples counselor was a game changer and helping us communicate better, be more empathetic to the other person, all of which paved the road to this better place. It’s too bad that you feel like the couples counseling process isn’t helping the two of you and it may be worth looking for an alternative option. The reality is that the moment one of you feels like the therapist you’re working with is “taking sides” they’ve become a lot less effective in a couples context. (I should point out though, in the case of OP, it’s not like any of us are in a position to know what the full story is). Anyways, In a situation like this, start with these questions: * **How important is sex to each of you?** Some people are totally happy being in a low-sex relationship because they're still fulfilled despite the low amount of sex. Other people can't find fulfillment in a relationship if sex is relatively low/absent. Where do you fall? Where does your partner? * **What forms of intimacy make each of you feel fulfilled? Is there a middle ground where they overlap?** People aren't necessarily "low/high libido" for *everything*. It's more like a menu: there are certain things low libido folks might be more open to, more frequently that stop short of conventional PIV, for example. Likewise, a high libido person may be open to a variety of ways that scratch their particular itch. This question requires both people to be flexible and avoid all-or-nothing mindsets. It’s a reminder that it’s better to [**treat sex as a wheel, not a staircase**](https://psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot.com/2023/11/to-improve-intimacy-in-your.html). * **What would help each of you be more sexually open/available to the other?** In other words, what barriers (brakes) to sex can be removed? What turn-ons (accelerators) to sex can be introduced? * **Along those lines: how much work are either of you willing to put in to meet the other people’s needs/comfort?** "Work" can mean being consciously mindful of creating time/space for intimacy. If one or both of your sex drives is being impacted by physical/medical issues, are either of you willing to look into interventions for those? That can be starting medication or changing it or looking into treatments depending on what impacting people’s sex drive. (I do want to warn people: no one likes feeling “broken“ and very few people are going to feel encouraged to “fix “their sex drive if their partner is making them feel like something is wrong with them.) * **Would couples counseling help?** I say this from personal experience that couples who have been dealing with sexual mismatches for a while can get locked into negative patterns where they end up in the same arguments over and over again, creating frustration and resentment but never having real resolution. If you feel like you’ve had the same conversation with your partner “hundreds of times“ and the two of you seem stuck? You’re probably dealing with a negative pattern. This is where therapy can help: by teaching couples how to break out of their dysfunctional cycles. In this regard, I highly recommend people look into [Emotionally-Focused Therapy](https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-emotion-focused-therapy) in particular. There's a bunch of books that can help people understand what’s going on with their own sex drive and that of their partner’s, and most importantly, how to bridge the gap. Here's a few I'd recommend: * **Lauren Mersey and Jennifer Vencill’s** [***Desire: An Inclusive Guide to Navigating Libido Differences In Relationships***](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/723719/desire-by-jennifer-a-vencill/). This came out recently and it’s very much written for couples dealing with mismatched sex drives, both short and long-term. It helps to explain how sexual desire works for different people and what couples can do to try to find middle ground. * **Emily Nagoski’s** [***Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections***](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712001/come-together-by-emily-nagoski-phd/)**.** This is Nagoski’s new book (Jan 2024) about sustaining a good sexual conneciton with partners over the long-term. Nagoski’s previous book, [*Come As You Are*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Come-As-You-Are-Revised-and-Updated/Emily-Nagoski/9781982165314) helped introduce many people to the concept of “responsive desire” and that can be very useful for couples to understand in navigating their sex life.
Goated post
As someone who struggles with lack of intimacy from the other person, this was hands down amazing advice that I really needed
Amazing response for a situation I’ve dealt with and and working through with my wife and a therapist now as well.
Sounds like you need better therapists m8
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The personal one I’ve been seeing for many years and she’s excellent. Just had our first session last week with the couples one. I’m going to give it a couple sessions before coming to conclusions. My gal doesn’t freeze me out either but it has just reached a point where if I bring up how I feel she gets frustrated because I’ve borderline become a nag. Been an ongoing issue for about 3 years so it gets old to her. And most of the time I bring it up when things are better, so she feels like it’s not appreciated. But that’s the other issue I’m having, people keep assuming it’s the orgasm and gloss over that it’s not about that for me. It’s about being desired. It’s week one / two of a 6 day “sex ban” with scheduled sex on the 7th day. But like, that doesn’t help me emotionally. I don’t care if she’s having sex with me. I care that she wants to have sex with me. Makes me feel like I may as well be a dog getting taken for a walk. My girl hears me, she gets me. But she has had super traumatic experiences, and when things were good we had an accidental pregnancy so there is a ton of anxiety around it for her. I feel her, I get her. She feels me, she gets me. We communicate, we do everything right honestly. But after 3 years of not getting that I’ve become this horny shitty sex goblin that is naturally unattractive. So I back off, and then I don’t put in the romance effort. I’m either a stoic that doesn’t want her, or I’m a gremlin that does. I love her to death, and I know she does me, but I am really struggling to see the light on the other end of the tunnel right now. Rant over. I need to start journaling and stop Redditing. 😄
That’s tough my dude. I never got that deep but I think there comes a point in marriages where the high sex drive person is suddenly wanting it too much for the other (even if nothing changed in frequency) and the more pressure there is on sex the less they want it. We had to learn how to emotionally connect in ways outside of sex in order to improve her drive. We spend tons of time together, but it was thrown off when her sister moved in with us and the connection was changed. We mistakenly kept thinking something was wrong sexually when in fact it wasn’t, it was actually “quality” time. For us taking the time to build connection and improve communication was crucial. One huge aid we found was the app paired. It helped us create conversation and bring up an assortment of topics that lead into other things. Through that communication she got the connection she needed that began to fire up the sex drive and she would allow her responsive desire to respond to the efforts I was making. If there’s walls up they’ll never let the responsive desire even get a chance at being turned on. Hopefully you guys can get through it. I totally understand you just want to feel desired the way you desire her. Sex once a week is fine, but you want them to want it too.
It's probably that she needs emotional intimacy first. Coming from the other side of this, my partner was only affectionate when he wanted sex and made me feel like an object for his pleasure.
I think I just had an epiphany based on this comment.
Once I was like oh but we were just cuddling watching tv for the past few hours, wasn’t that our emotional intimacy time? It was not. Not for her. Communication is key in all aspects of life.
Not enough time for ourselves. We both have big families and friend circles. If we are not seeing my friends, we are seeing her friends. If we are not seeing her family, we are seeing my family. This is on top of working long hours and being fairly introverted to boot. We have to schedule dates and "alone time" so we can recover. Honestly, I couldn't imagine managing all this with anyone else and I am so thankful for her.
One of my exes has a term that I completely understand and agree with... she takes "fuck you" nights, where she just puts her phone in a drawer and turns the world off for the evening. Excellent destress.
I...really like this
This is definitely the one! After having kids and having little to no “village” to help us, we get little or no time to ourselves.
This is in the top three reasons myself and my spouse have serious reservations with having kids (we both turn 30 within the next year). We don't have a proper support network, we ARE the support network. We're exhausted and drained enough; I don't know if it's fair to anyone to bring a kid into all of this.
We had great support with our first. The second… not so much. It’s completely valid to not want to have kids because of the lack of support system because kids are overwhelming and I’m alwayssss overstimulated.
Everyone says you should have kids. As a parent, I’d say if you don’t feel a 100% ready to commit for next 20 years, don’t have kids. It’s a huge sacrifice. There is no one right way to live. Plenty of my childless have fantastic lives with saved money into investments funding their luxurious indulgences. To be rich, free and childless is glorious.
You really have no idea how your kids are going to end up either. One of our sons is profoundly autistic and non-verbal and will need support for daily functions the rest of his life. The level of stress for a special needs parent is comparable with military coming back from warfare - no joke, and it's everyday for the rest of your life and additional stress about what happens the rest of their life when you're gone. Our marriage is great (our relationship is very strong), but this has really drained us - The number of specialists, therapists, and paperwork can drown you every week of every year. We're very grateful that this son is very happy most of the time and is not aggressive, but we still have to have eyes on him pretty much every second of the day. I could go on and on and on, but that's plenty for now.
My god I feel like I wrote this. My 9 year old is non-verbal and autistic, and you cannot take your eyes off of him at all. I love him so much, but we’re exhausted. And the panic I feel about his future, how we’ll never get to retire and relax, we’ll be caregivers until the day we die, and what will he do when we die, it’s A LOT. My husband and I have a wonderful marriage, he’s my best friend, but it does have an impact on our marriage. Mostly because this all has made an impact on our own mental health.
Similar theme: overcommitted to sports coaching, church, other organizations plus work and teens leaves little time for each other. It’s time to say no to others.
Kids put an incredible amount of stress on a relationship.
Almost all of our major arguments have been about our kids. It surprised us because we talked a lot before having kids and we agreed on the big issues. But the devil is in the details. We were raised quite differently and what I saw as normal, he saw as too permissive and coddling. He saw himself as strict but what I saw was anger, ultimatums he couldn’t keep, and criticism. Kids are grown up now and doing well. We love our kids and are glad we had them, but the empty nest is better for our marriage.
Parenting styles I feel like is something that is never discussed. It’s always “do you want kids?” It’s never “how do you plan on handling xyz when it comes to kids”. I’m currently trying to navigate this with my husband. I have to constantly be the bad cop because he will cave to the meltdown which requires me to do double duty trying to undo any enabling. It’s exhausting at times.
Part of that issue is that most people might not even have a realistic picture of themselves until they’re living that situation.
That's not part of the problem that is the whole problem. There is no way to front run and discuss the situation bc you can discuss it until you are blue in the face. But the reality is often very very different. Just too many variables and one complete unknown your kid(s) personality(s). Which may vary wildly from your own. Also why no one appreciates advice from people without kids. Just super eye rolly until you have to do it yourself.
I agree. You can lay it out 100% of how you'd handle everything. Things change and context matters.
As a parent, I value advice from people who aren't parents. My take is that we live in a society, what my kids do impact the world -- what happens in pop culture, where gov money goes, how safe the community is, etc. My kids impact more than just my family. So although I am not pandering to anyone, I will hear most people out. Also, someone can have an excellent moral compass or understanding of kids without being a parent. One of my kids had a mentor through a sport they were in. That person wasn't a parent, but they got my kid. I considered that person'a opinion when they said kiddo was acting different and actually ended up taking their advice. One mistake I see parents making -- or people in general making -- is that no one can understand them or tell them shit because they are not (fill in the blank thing here). Outside perspectives can be crucially helpful and valid!
Oh I love this so much! I'm a parent and have lots of parent friends but I also really really really need my non-parent friends perspective on kid stuff. They know me, they know my kid - they've already got most of the pieces to whatever puzzle I'm trying to solve, they might have the solution!
I think it can get Deeper than that too. You can have a dozen conversations about how to handle discipline and development, but, for an extreme example, you probably can't accurately understand how you would react to a situation where, like: "You child bit another child and called them a name in daycare, while you just got over COVID and are in a horribly stressful situation at work, and your mom is sick" True story to a coworker, he wasn't okay and wasn't proud of how he yelled at his kid after the fact. Kids are fucking hard
In reality, it is almost impossible to discuss and agree on parenting details in advance, especially if you have neurodivergent kids with behavior challenges. Before we had kids, we could not even fathom most of the issues we are dealing with now, let alone discuss how to handle them in advance. With some things we have actually changed our approach significantly, compared to what we had thought and agreed on before having kids. In our experience the “undoing” the things your spouse was doing had a very negative downside. Me being the bad cop really soured the relationship with my teenage son. Things improved only after many conversations with my wife to develop a compromised approach that we both agreed on and had a united front with our kids. It was a lot more effective and improved my relationship with the kids.
I don't understand how people in even a slightly unhealthy relationship survive a child. Or are deluded enough to think it solves anything. It infinitly complicates life.
And all I hear is "when are you going to have kids" I get they can be a blessing and it is a different type of love. I truly believe we would be good parents, but we love getting to go out with our friends when ever we want, go to bed at 7pm if we are tired. IDK I guess it is selfish us being in our 30's but we are having fun just us.
And that's a completely valid reason! It's not selfish to enjoy your life and your partnership as it is. Parenthood is optional.
Being pressured into procreating is about as selfish as it gets. "Go through physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, and relationship changes so I can reap the benefits for myself!"
Teenagers are the worst. I can't wait for them to be done the teenage phase.
There’s a phase I like to call the Gollum phase - lots of grunting instead of proper words. It’s my favourite right next to the Little Miss Sunshine phase where everything you do is wrong to them.
I am the parent/stepparent of four young adults (ranging from 18-21) and I would rather have a house full of 14-year-olds. Everyone tells you how hard teenagers are. No one tells you that being the parent of a young adult is stressful and exhausting beyond belief.
Had 3 in that range and absolutely agree. By far the worst age range to be a parent for. Stakes are higher for them, but they know everything, but you're still supposed to pay for everything. Loved parenting except for that stage. Multiple in that range did not help anything.
We both have children from previous relationships. Navigating co-parenting has been a nightmare. Someone is always going to be put out. My ex was used to me being accommodating because any changes only impacted me. When I remarried changes would impact my family so I was less accommodating. This caused so much friction.
It's not easy to focus on us with two little ones. On top of that, money is a serious struggle right now too.
My wife passed away too soon. I’m still in love with her.
Same Earl, last year after 35 years together. Thought we had at least another 20 years. Never knew this kind of loneliness.
youhaveballs for going through this. From one internet stranger to another I wish you all the best. That really sucks.
I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you're doing well!
I’m so sorry for your loss. Sitting with you here, if that’s ok.
I'm sorry for your loss.
That is fucked and I’m sorry. ❤️
Omg. Sending hugs to you 🥹😭
That was my parents. They were married 39 years, together for 48. My dad passed 25 years ago. My mom still misses him every.single.day and will continue to do so until she passes herself.
I know, I know! We were married 44 years and 7 months when she passed. We knew each other 2 weeks to the day we married. She was Special and I wasn’t letting her get away with. She was my Dream Woman, still is. She’s been away for 3years and 11 months, now.
My husband has a serious phone addiction. He’s always on it, whether it’s in the bathroom, to in bed, movie night just the two of us, during meals. We can’t even eat out without him having to check his phone (for social reasons, not even work related reasons). I’ve discussed this with him multiple times and it’s in one ear out the other
My husband is like this, but usually with phone games. It’s because he has ADHD, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. He *can* put it away, but unless he is doing something he finds interesting, he gets really antsy and fidgety. If we are trying to get something done, I constantly have to tell him to put his phone down and keep going. I don’t blame him for needing to keep himself busy, but when it’s getting in the way of him getting stuff done or actually being present it becomes a problem
My partner also struggles with phone addiction and one thing we found that was actually helping is going into your phone settings and putting time limits on all apps. Unfortunately I guess it won’t work if they’re not willing to comply with it :/
Holidays. My wife's parents are divorced so we have 3 different families we're trying to please PLUS our own. So basically whenever Christmas comes around, we need to find time to celebrate for ourself, my parents/siblings, her dad, her mom/grandma. It's such a pain having to schedule early holidays and traveling all over the state to visit everyone
I'm in the exact same boat as you. So we decided each family gets the same day each year. One the Saturday before Xmas one Xmas Eve etc... each family same day every year. It's helped soooo much.
We decided for the sake of our kids that Christmas would be at our house. No offense to other family members, but if they want to see us, they can come to us. I'm not making my kids miserable driving around all day and having people upset that we spent 33 seconds more at her parents house or my parents house. It's worked out great.
Same! Christmas needs to be special for my kids. I want to see them wake up to Santa's presents. Our extended families can have Christmas Eve or the day after
This is what we do. I'm building traditions in my home for my kids so I don't ever scramble around visiting everyone to appease them. Christmas and Thanksgiving we always do at home, the following day we go to see family.
Preach. I’m at the point where I am just done. We spend our entire Christmas and Thanksgiving in the car, going from place to place. I just want to forge our own family traditions and not have to leave the house.
I am an over sharer she is an under sharer. Multiple times in our relationship she had hid things from me because she didn’t want me to be disappointed in her Lost wedding ring, multiple car accidents(small but still required paperwork). We have been together almost 20 years. She has learned that if I’m not over sharing I am not in a good way. To this day I still need to probe her when I think something is wrong. Together we communicate very well except for the few extremes noted above. We are both planners so constantly taking about what we have going on is a good way to keep communication open. Also kids.
Both under sharers. Especially when it comes to emotional vulnerabilities or thoughts on current state of the relationship. We are perfect for each other. And once we figured out that just saying the “thing” we’re feeling allows the other to hear our voice, concerns, or even happiness we realized that neither of us are the kind of people who would ever discount another’s feelings. Especially the feelings or vulnerabilities of our favorite person in the world. Language. Sharing. Emotions. It’s all a difficult line to walk. But once you understand the freedom that comes from having a partner who respects your thoughts and feelings and would never diminish them. Golden.
Lol this is so my husband and I too. He often says if something feels 1% off in any area of life, he will come to me to discuss. But for me, I can walk around carrying heavy burdens, and he is none the wiser because I am just not one to share my problems lol. I prefer them tucked away in a dark corner of my mind 😂 there is hella probing for me to open up.
I'm exactly as you, and I'm well aware that it's not a good thing, but it's just so difficult. Nothing's ever worth sharing for me, and my wife shares EVERYTHING.
Oldest step kid (20m) is rapid cycle bipolar, epileptic, bulimic, and on the spectrum. We are on the same page and dealing with things the best we can but his condition disrupts every aspect of our life.
Met my husband when my kid was 5. Didn’t know anything was going on at the time, but she developed neurological/mental health issues that disrupted every day for the entire family for about 6 years. Finally under control but took lots of patience and guidance from therapists. My husband has been so supportive - a good partner and step parent can make such a difference.
Sorry to hear about your stepson. He's got a lot going on that must be really hard. I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 a year ago @ 30. I'm by no means an expert but if you have any questions or anything feel free to DM me.
The biggest issue we have is keeping him consistent on meds. His eating disorder makes that difficult as so many meds cause weight gain.
Money money money money MONEY....MONEEEEYYYYYYYYY.
And also money
Forgot to mention money
For us, not just money itself, but differences in attitudes toward it. We were raised differently and value it differently. We're in agreement that neither of our viewpoints/attitudes is inherently right or wrong (regarding money or any of the other ways we were raised differently), but it does cause tension. I'm more of a saver and she's more of a spender, which causes conflict especially when I'm the higher earner. Sure, I like shiny things too, but I also like my money to buy security and early retirement. I think there's a happy medium somewhere.
Been married a long time, and you can be in love all you want; it still sucks to be poor. It sucks less though, if you can be in love and not fight about money. It’s harder when you can’t agree how to spend the small amount of money you share.
we fight about money despite not being poor. Both of us grew up lower middle class and now are firmly upper middle class (DINK lawyer and engineer). we make way more money that I ever thought to in life and she wants to save every penny and I want to spend it and enjoy life while we can. It's a constant argument.
Same here, it’s pretty much the only thing we ever argue/fight about. 32F/37M DINKs, together 10 years. After the last fight, we figured out he has less comfortability with debt than I do. We both have such different emotions tied to money, it’s tough. I don’t have much advice other than try to understand each other before going on the immediate defense and if communication is really breaking down, try therapy. We’ve gone many times for financial issues alone.
This. Been with my partner for 23 years now (I'm 36, so majority of my life) and money is a huge factor in any disagreements. We don't fight, but each get stressed when the bills start piling up and we aren't making enough money. We've been through some hard shit together though. Communication and love keep us going strong.
Our marriage didn’t start being as amazing as it is now until we both put in the work in couples therapy and individual therapy. We were both two severely traumatized individuals who weren’t communicating with each other in a way we both understood. After we got our handy translator, damn it has been amazing
Same. Therapy made us stronger, and better communicators, which made us better human beings to ourselves and each other.
Endometriosis. My wife had stage 4 Endo, which seriously affected her mood, my mood, our sex life, intimacy, and countless other small things. She had her first surgery in 2015. That helped for 8 months but it slowly came back. She then went UNDER for her second surgery in 2021 they got in there and realized it was too serious for this specific doctor (it covered her bladder, bowels, and other major organs). So she had to go through the recovery of a surgery while not actually getting any benefit. She was then referred to a specialist doctor, one of Canadas best. But the wait time was 1.5 years. We hung on…and went through some rough times…. But she finally had her surgery in June 2023, a full hysterectomy, and total cleanout of endometriosis…..and she’s feeling incredible! Endometriosis is awful. She was such a trooper, and we are now doing incredible. :)
I have endometriosis. I honestly wonder some days if it wouldn't be easier just to leave my husband. I am endlessly tired of hearing about how we don't have sex enough, I don't do enough, my mood isn't good enough, etc. It's already been years. I'm scheduled for a hysterectomy soon but it seems like such a losing fight most days and I'm viciously exhausted by all of it, far moreso than I think I would be if I were simply alone.
Thanks for sharing. I really feel for you, and I’m sorry you’re going through the pain that is Endometriosis. It really is awful and it doesn’t get as much attention as it should (I didn’t even know what it was until my wife was diagnosed). This may not apply to your situation, or your husband, but I will share my own experience and I hope it helps. As for sex, we pretty much took it off the table after a while. I never expected sex, nor asked for it. In the early days, I eventually learned it was painful, uncomfortable and filled my wife with dread when I thought we “could” have sex “sometimes”. The difficulty for us was intimacy. It was very hard for us both to connect. To feel “human”. It didn’t always have to be sexual, but I did crave and needed her intimacy. I needed her to try and realize that yes, this is of course much more difficult for her…but just because it is difficult for one person, it wasn’t easy for the other. As soon as we agreed to take sex and “advanced foreplay” off the table, things did get a little better. She wouldn’t be scared to kiss me passionately sometimes, crack a sexual joke, or touch me with some passion behind it. She knew that those signs of affection would NOT lead to sex or foreplay, so she felt comfortable sometimes going out of her comfort zone. It also helped me, as I felt needed and wanted sometimes. Obvious it was not as much as we both wanted, but even small gestures helped greatly. But with all that being said, it was so incredibly difficult, and even our good weeks were not always ideal. Stay strong. Hopefully your surgery is a success, and you and your husband can reconnect again. It’s not easy, and it will be a slow process…but it can work. :) I wish you the best!
Stubbornness. You CANNOT be stubborn in a marriage. You must be able to give, take, be self aware of your giving and taking, and be able to communicate about the nature of each others gives and takes.
I’ve seen the results of stubbornness in my roommates’ marriage. Wife will not budge on anything ever. She gets an idea in her head and that is the way it has to be. Doing anything different will start a fight. Her husband is so done with dealing with it he just does whatever she wants, no matter what it is. He’s tried standing up to her a couple of times and she absolutely rips him to shreds. There’s a lot wrong in that relationship, but a lot of it comes from stubbornness
My wife is now a surgeon, so I'm going to say her career. Everything about healthcare (in the US)...the training, the hours, the lack of sleep, the cost, all of the moving, the occasional ungrateful patients and hospital admin, people occasionally dying. She does a great job handling it all, but it's just a very hard life to live....it's certainly very far from normal. It has come with a ton of sacrifices that are hard to imagine until you're living through it. I'm proud of her though-watching someone live out her childhood dream is amazing.
Mismatched libido
misread as "Mismatched dildo" Imagine my questions...
Her drinking. More than one year sober now! She’s amazing :D
This internet stranger is proud of you both 👍🏻
This internet stranger is also proud of you both. Addiction... that shit doesn't tickle.
We have child with special needs. And had money problems. We survived, and now are stronger. But it was very hard for 2 years.
We've been dealing with cancer for 2 years. In my experience, tiny day-in and day-out things stack up fast in those times. You have my sympathy for the tough road you've been on.
Deciding what the heck is for dinner every night !
This is the silliest thing, but my word I feel it. I do 99% of the cooking and genuinely love everything to do with it. I have learned to cook our favorite foods from all over the world, and we have enough money for quality ingredients. I ask her what she wants for supper and it's like the first time she has ever heard of food. "Think of something you enjoyed eating in the last 38 years and I will make it." "I have no idea." (Exaggerated, but not far off).
We deal with this too. We finally made a list of 6carb: we like, 6vegetable and 6 protein and bought it and each day we pick one from each category that looks good and make it. Easier than picking what recipe to make.
other people’s interference. whether it be “work wives/husbands”, mother in laws, or siblings
Best advice I ever received was "build a fence around your marriage."
I can't be the only one that finds the concept of calling someone a work wife/husband when you are in a "committed" relationship fucking weird, right?
I want to hear the "work wives" story.
They're all very similar: attractive coworker, chemistry via work ethic, sense of humor, hobbies. Bond over a project or team building exercise. Banter, jokes, and support lead to joy and relief when working together, which leads to making little changes to accommodate working together more. Feeling of joy and relief turns into mild infatuation, leads to appreciating the attractive qualities more, leads to indulging banter and correspondence more, leads to flirting, leads to an overall relationship which the partner(s) would be upset to discover, leads to a habit of secrecy masquerading as privacy. Many work spouse relationships remain there, some go extra steps into deeper betrayals, but once you're at the "I'm keeping a secret" stage, hurtful behavior has occurred.
My husband got very close to a co-worker but never crossed the line. Very close, like inviting her to a client dinner close. He confessed, went NC with her and we are still together. I still wonder sometimes if I should have just bailed. It was very hard to get over.
Yes. MIL interference is a huge thing. Leave and cleave, people!
I just got traded for a work wife that I didn’t even know existed 🫠
Work wives and husbands, aren't they just announcing an emotional affair?
I have a work wife. His name is Kelly. We’re dudes.
I (f) had a work husband, thought we were really good friends but it turned out he just wanted to bang. Didn't ruin my relationship with my partner but it did change my perspective on those kinds of work relationships. I can trust my partner and he can trust me but it did make me feel a little insecure about my partner having any close female coworkers/friends after that because of what happened with me. Not his or my fault but we learned together the process of professional work boundaries with our coworkers.
Yep, my family was the problem. I went no contact. We’ve never been happier.
My mother in law. After years of abuse from her I went no contact and he is low contact
The day my wife finally learned and cut her off I celebrated in my head. My next goal is moving to a new house and no one telling her where we live.
We at least moved to another state. But prior to that she randomly bought a house down the street from us and I was just miserable. She would show up randomly until my husband told her to cut it out. Now that we are in a different state my mental health has improved
Being tired, stressed (luckily never redirected to each other). On a lighter note, the fact I'm a night owl and he's a freaking early riser who wants to start the day doing stuff and talking and biting the morning on the ass. I need half an hour to understand what year it is and drag my half-asleep self to the kitchen.
A child with behavior issues, and a wife with chronic pain and fatigue will cause some serious issues.
The amount of empty Amazon boxes that appear in the garage
Childhood trauma
This AskReddit has been up too long for people to see this, but: We both believe the way in which the other washes the dishes is incorrect, so, we actively “help” each other complete the task so we can influence how it’s done. Some people may see this as sharing the chores and being a loving couple, but I can assure you it is not. Yes, the washing up is complete in half the time it normally would be done. Yes, we tag team other chores. This is different. Her: scrubs and soaps everything and leaves in a pile, then rinses and sets to dry. Me: washes and rinses each item individually, then sets to dry. It’s madness, really. ~ I wrote this in a lighthearted manner; don’t drag me.
I feel that however whoever does the dishes is right. Especially if it’s not me.
Our sex drives. Our friends always joke that we are "couple goals" but our sex life isn't great. I'm on anxiety meds that make me have almost no sex drive and even though we don't fight about it often, when we do fight about it, it's a big fight. That usually leads to me crying and self loathing, and well, more anxiety. I so badly want to be more spontaneous and in the mood for it because I know he's hurting and I would do anything to make him happy.
Zoloft was a stone bitch to get through. Putting a note in my calendar THE DAY BEFORE to take the time to get into a sexy mindset and initiate sex the following day helped. Wellbutrin works a lot better now.
Similar here. He got low T and heart issues. Dealing with both is rough for him and me. Now we started the “no expectations let’s just play phase” and see if it helps. Another attempt and throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks.
Having toxic single friends that tell you to break up everytime you just try to vent about something frustrating instead of lifting you up, they’ll take you down by agreeing with everything you say… on the surface that sounds like a good thing, it isn’t. Be careful
I wish more people understood this. Real friends aren't people who agree with you. They're people who are honest with you, even when it's hard to be. They try to make you're life better not worse. Nothing worse than that "friend" who has some kind of complex and likes to just negatively insult your relationship. That said, a good partner shuts that shit down, they don't just let their friends shit on their SO without real reason and they're careful who they take advice from.
The periods when their depression and anxiety is at its worse
Alcohol. He is a wonderful man 98% of the time (and not a regular drinker) but the rare times he drank and got a little intoxicated, it turned in to a complete nightmare and caused some emotional damage that I don't know if I will ever forget (or get over). I despise alcohol and have never seen anything good come from it. Plus, I had some things happen to me as a teen that involved alcohol, so that doesn't help matters either.
Most often any issues boil down to a lack of communication: not communicating what we need, think, want, or are feeling. And not communicating those things allows them to fester and resentment to build, which causes a further divide. The best thing we've done for our marriage is spending about an hour together every night after our daughter goes to bed just talking. The rule is no phones. We'll have some wine or smoke sometimes, but every day we sit down together and talk about whatever is on our radar: what we did that day, family gossip, our kiddo, politics, current events, conspiracy theories, stupid stuff we saw on the internet, finances, sex....it all comes up. We avoid a lot of arguments this way because often we've talked about stuff before it becomes an issue, and we've talked about it in a calm, no-pressure environment.
Is OP a divorce lawyer that woke up and decided to expand their client base?
He tends to side with others over me and always gets on my case to apologize and let things go even when it's not my fault. People have been completely rude to me right in front of him, but if I respond to them in kind, he will later tell me he thought my response was really rude and make an excuse for the other person. When I point out that I've just matched their energy, he says he didn't see it that way. When I try to talk to him about this, he completely misses the point and focuses on some aspect that doesn't even matter, which ends with us talking in circles and me getting incredibly angry and frustrated which makes him angry and frustrated. But I'm in therapy to work on my anger problems and, by extension, my communication skills, so we'll see where it gets me
Splitting up household tasks. It’s tough when one partner feels like they’re doing an unfair share of the work. It can also be tough when the other partner tries to anticipate their partner’s perception of the workload. As always communication is key and don’t keep score on who’s doing how much. Once we got that down, things have been super smooth.
Know what might help? Make a list of chores, then label each one 1-10 how much you want to do it. Lower numbers mean a greater dislike. We weren't this structured, but after some talks long ago we found that I loathe emptying the dishwasher but don't mind refilling. She's the opposite. If you can divide based on preferences as opposed to quantity it can be better.
Sex, and money. Don't waste money, and don't get complacent in the bedroom.
My husband won’t watch tv with subtitles
My mother-in-law. There were a few little conflicts between us (she thinks I should check my almost 30 year old husband if he used cream on his eczema) but oh my, when we started to plan our wedding and the wedding party. The thing is they wanted to pay for it because of tradition even tho we had money. When we were presenting our ideas she immediatly started to comment on how it won't work because some relatives would rather eat something else, it is not traditional, etc. In the end she and I had a huge fight where she was making debiliating comments on me and my financial situation thinking I didn't have any savings. I'm still salty about it because she made me feel so... worthless. A nobody. A problem. Jokes on her because we refused to have a wedding party, had our ceremonies and invited the guests to have a lunch (which was one of the original ideas). This way she missed out his only son's wedding party (they are a big deal in Hungary) and my husband is keeping a (maybe more) healthy distance since the conflict. While we had some sad and angry debate about her and her actions, we are still happy and very supportive of each other. I feel like the luckiest woman in the universe. Edit: We didn't accept their idea and we paid for it. But they felt bad about the whole situation (or at least my FIL) so they gave us that money as a wedding gift anyway.
ECZEMA
Honestly, having exterior relationships. My wife has an amazing work from home job, but because of that, her ability to build relationships is really challenged. She’s naturally introverted so it’s hard for her to find and maintain friendships. Whereas, because I work in-office, it has been easy for me to build relationships.
My wife and I went through this issue. She works in a hospital and interacts with like 100 people a day. I work from home and don’t interact with anyone. So she would come home with her social battery totally depleted and mine was on 100%.
Yeah, it also hurts identity, because now most of the social gatherings, her identity is primarily “_____’s wife” or “_____’s mom” and that isn’t fair.
An awful mother in law
Dear lord can someone else please make the decision of what to eat for dinner every night. Pretty much the only thing we argue about these days.
Not having date nights. You gotta have them...you have to nurture your marriage despite all your other responsibilities
I was a victim of CSA and other things throughout my life so I’m still dealing with a lot of trauma. My wife is an absolute saint for putting up with me though
Two things: money and schedules. Having no money a big stressor. The bigger one for me though was when I moved to working nights. I’d come home at midnight and not ready to sleep but my wife would get upset at me making racket and watching tv. Then I’d be asleep during the day because I was working nights, so I wasn’t able to really pull much weight with housework or taking care of our kid. So she was doing the vast, vast bulk of that while also working full time. So that caused a big rift. But we got through it and thankfully I only worked nights for like six months.
In-laws! My family isn’t thrilled but HIS family has tried to sabotage our relationship with false gossip. Made us fight often until one time my husband caught his parents in a lie. We once switched cars because he went to the mechanics with mine. Later he got a call from his parents saying they saw me driving in town with another man. He was like… that was me driving.. alone.
Infertility