We Never Should Have Had Kids
Married 13 years, Mindy, 35, and Richard, 36, had been a perfect couple in a perfect marriage. College sweethearts, they wed soon after graduation. Both pursued their careers with excitement and passion: she in real estate, he in business.
When they decided to start a family, they were both looking forward to being parents. “I’m so lucky,” Mindy said. “I adore my husband - having kids will be the icing on the cake.” Even though she had difficulty getting pregnant, they rode that emotional roller coaster together, supporting each other during the bad times and, as Mindy said, “always talking and always sympathetic to each other’s point of view.”
But the reality of being parents clashed seriously with their great expectations. As Mindy, who quit her job to be a full-time mother to her two daughters, 5 and 3, says: “I know this sounds terrible, but though I love my kids very much, I can’t help thinking that if we hadn’t become parents, our marriage wouldn’t be in such precarious shape.” Richard, she says, is totally unsympathetic. “My husband will help me if I ask,” she says, “but he never thinks to do so on his own. All he says is, ‘Handle it, Mindy, just handle it.’ Then he withdraws.”
Richard, who manages a family contracting business, is even more adamant: “What happened to the woman I married, the one who said having children would make her life complete?” Richard says he comes home to “chaos and pandemonium, with kids running all over the place, a depressed wife who is unable to control them, let alone take care of the house - and who has no time for me at all.”
He misses the long conversations they used to have - even one quiet meal would be a blessing. To anesthetize himself, Richard eats dinner, grabs a beer and zones out in front of the TV. “Most days, it feels like them against us,” Richard admits.
Making your marriage a priority
“This is a classic case of a smart and articulate couple who really love and still desire each other - their sex life was the one area of their marriage that still functioned well - but who made a dismal transition to parenthood,” notes Paul Moschetta, a marriage and family therapist in Huntington, N.Y. They didn’t understand the first thing about setting limits and developing a structure for their kids, disciplining as a team or making marriage a priority despite the stresses. They didn’t scream and yell, just drifted into cold, unspoken anger.
When pent-up anger leads to a cold war, it’s vital that each partner focus on what made the marriage work in the first place. The following strategies helped Mindy and Richard work together as a team instead of sparring like warriors:
1. Make a conscious effort to connect during the day - by touching, kissing, cuddling - and talk to each other about your need for closeness. Sometimes, the discovery that your partner is as intimacy-starved as you are can lead to increased closeness. Although affection may seem forced when you’ve been angry for so long, in time these loving gestures will seem natural. Physical affection can be a critical element in restoring intimacy.
2. Recognize and accept your differences. Mindy and Richard had different approaches to parenting and other issues, but instead of acknowledging that and finding a middle ground, each insisted he or she was right.
3. Don’t avoid touchy topics. When you’re at odds, it’s easy to brush aside volatile issues and retreat, as Richard did, or blame your partner, as Mindy does. Instead, think of your arguments as a way to gather information about what’s wrong and what needs work. Structure conversations about difficult topics by setting a specific time to talk about them. Call time out when things heat up, but only for an agreed-upon amount of time. Return and keep working on solutions until you find them.
4. Work as a team setting limits for kids. If they clamor for attention every time you’re trying to talk, both partners must say: “Mommy and Daddy are busy right now, and it’s not polite to interrupt.” Popping a video into the VCR, with a promise of playtime with you afterward, gives you a chance to finish your conversation and makes clear to your children that instant gratification isn’t always possible.
As Mindy learned to be less rigid, and Richard began to help more with the kids, they were able to structure the children’s lives better and find needed private time for each other.