My counseling background is in marriage and family therapy. I chose this field, because my beliefs lie in the fact that our pasts often times affects who we are in the future. I see couples that have been married for less than a year, all the way to couples that have been married over 20 years. Most of these couples are experiencing small bumps in the road, that none of us anticipate when we first get married.
Let's go back to the starting point. At some point, you and your significant other met each other, and decided you liked each other enough to move forward into a more serious relationship. It may not have been love at first sight, but there was at least a little something there that kept things going. Most couples will start their relationships "in love". There is a lot of affection, sweet texts, and romantic gestures to let your partner know how much they mean to you. The affection becomes so strong, you decide to move on to the next step - marriage! The first months of marriage can be the best of times, or the worst of times. Although you are finally at the point of your life you always dreamed of, you never could have dreamed of how hard it would be to live with someone that has been brought up completely different than you. Hang on! Soon you will find your way. If you loved each other enough to get married, you will find a way to compromise on the little things. Just because your mom did it one way, doesn't mean your partner's mom did it the same way.
Sooner or later the biological clock will start ticking. Trust me - I didn't think it was real either. My husband would quickly tell you how I called him at work, crying. "I want a baby!" "But you said you didn't want to have kids." "I do now!" That's when things started to change. We weren't just a couple any more. We were now a family. Life as we knew it changed, and it changed quickly. By no means was it a bad thing, just drastically different. We no longer only had to worry about ourselves. We were now in charge of bringing up a child, the best way we knew how. The saying that parenting doesn't come with a instruction manual, could not be more true.
We spent every day raising two children. This meant getting them off to school, doing homework in the afternoons, and bringing them to whatever extracurricular they were involved in at that time. By becoming parents, we often times become "roommates". Each of you have a routine and set tasks. These routines become the norm. Being a couple gets left on the back burner.
It doesn't have to be this way. You just need to find your way back to the starting point. The person you fell in love with is still there, you may just have to put a little more effort into staying connected. It's important to do all of the things you did when you were first married. Make sure there is still a lot of affection, send the sweet texts, and continue to make the romantic gestures. A good friend of mine said, you need to turn on the crock pot during the day. If you send the sweet texts throughout the day, your partner will have something to look forward to. Just think of the smile on their face when they see "I love you" come across their phone. It could be as simple as "I am thinking about you". By the time you get home, things are right where they need to be.
The dynamics of your marriage are sure to change over years of marriage. Change is not always a bad thing. Just make sure you take the time to invest in each other. Children make families, and in that family is still a couple. You found love once, it is still there. It may just look a little different now.
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