Not everyone gets along, not all the time, and not with everyone else. Matt and I haven’t been getting along lately. Nothing for anyone to be worried about, just general stress and our individual ways of taking it don’t mesh.
I worry and spew all sorts of horrible ‘what ifs’ and he just worries internally and is all cool on the outside. So nonchalant that it irritates me to no end. Nobody likes a Pollyanna sunshine, right? He doesn’t want to hear my worries. I get it, they are insane. (I mean at one point I was half convinced we’d have to sell our brand new house because of the mortgage rate–which isn’t true–there’s plenty of stuff we can do to cut down on bills that have nothing to do with selling our house). Still, though, what am I supposed to do, keep it bottled up? Yeah, that’ll happen. So we tend to rub each other the wrong way when we’re stressed. Which is, you guessed it, all the time the last, oh say 6 months.
While we had an anniversary dinner out last night and on the way home we talked about it. Talking about it with Keeley awake is nearly impossible. You slightly raise your voice (which we do when things are discussed-doesn’t everyone?), and she starts yelling. I don’t know if it upsets her or she’s just trying to match our tone. I think the latter. It’s hard to make yourself heard over her. Either way, we cleared the air, which I think is important and healthy in a marriage. This morning I couldn’t sleep past around 3:45 so I was up and Keeley woke up at 5:30. I gave Matt about 20 minutes and she was starting to make more noise, so we got him up. After a quick daddy snuggle, we made coffee (spooned her some strawberry applesauce and got some water) and took a walk to the outside gravel road. Proably 1/2 mile. We were back before 7. We seem to be getting along a lot better this morning, which is great. It’s not fun to not enjoy having your spouse around and we were getting to that point. I’m going to start having a little more ‘me’ time to relax and he’s going to warn me when I start to be too negative and stress him out–but he’s going to listen so I don’t go shooting off like a rogue bottle rocket one of these days. I hope he also decides to share some of his worries with me so that he doesn’t go off, either!
By the way, thanks mom for the anniversary $-we ate at Applebees and it was yummy!–My brother’s wife just up and offered for her to watch Keeley for us to go out to dinner, which was totally nice! Granted, we had to drive up to her house, but it was worth it to get our mental lives refreshed, which is much needed from time to time. Nice to have ‘couple time’. They were playing late 90’s music over the speakers, too, which was a fun change and reminded us of when we started dating!
Big surprise, I think we’ve got a dirty diaper to deal with now, so you’ll have to wait for cute baby stories until I can get back!
Marriage is just so much work. But the investment of all that hard work can pay off so wonderfully.
I’ve heard and read so many times that marriage is a 50/50 thing… but it’s not. Both sides need to put in 100% if they want to succeed and build that solid foundation.
Glad you had the opportunity to talk about stuff and reconnect.
Glad you got a night out – I think that’s good for everyone! Having young children, moving, it’s all so stressful.
Nothing about the last almost-2 years has been easy for you two. It starts to really add up, and just because you’re in your own place now and have that part of the stress gone (replaced by unfinished-upstairs-stress, I know) doesn’t make it go away! I don’t envy your situation one bit. It’s normal for people to cope in their own ways (we do it, too – I become an emotional mess and Mark shows NO emotion or ruffled feathers, EVER), and it’s too bad that your styles don’t mesh better……but you two have recognized it and are talking about it, and that’s great! So many people just try to sweep things under the rug and ignore that there is a problem until it explodes in their faces (example – my parents) and you aren’t doing that. That means you’re both trying and giving and working. I hope things get better for the both of you, but in the meantime, it’s great that you’re coming up with a plan of attack. Ami said it right about the 50/50 thing. Think how much better 100/100 is!! And as always, my ear and shoulder are both available, just like I know yours always are for me!