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When you’re knackered and resentful, the last thing you feel like doing is putting in effort and time to spend with the person that seems to be the biggest contributor to making you knackered and resentful.
Doug and I have been married for 16 years, our kids are 13, 11 and 6. Last year we managed less than a handful of ‘date nights’. We spent quite a lot of the year moving between feeling connected, bickering, some full-blown rows, and quietly each getting on with life without the energy to disagree.
We’re often moving around the house, both working through a to-do list, exchanging logistics: ‘So on Thursday you’re picking up but need to remember Zach is coming home with us. Saturday I’ll take to Meg’s party after football but will need to meet you as parking is impossible so can you meet us with the car? They need a change of shoes. And bring a snack?’, usually with an added jibe ‘You forgot the snack last time so don’t forget’.
I’ve been trying to download some music sheets for Mabel for three days and keep being unable to login so give up and then get a reminder email and it’s so boring and tedious that I don’t think to bring it up, but there are so many of these little things independently taking up both of our brains, making us feel aggrieved because who else can we be cross with – the kids? The system? The world? But we don’t find the time to talk about any of it, so it festers along, holding us back from connecting.
Time together where we’re not trying to ‘do’ is limited. In a case of poor planning we have a teenager that wants to hang out til 10pm and our youngest who bursts into our bedroom at 6am, so that doesn’t leave a lot of hours for much more than logistics and hoovering dinner in front of the TV. The advent of working from home could open up a world of daytime sex but now none of us seemingly have control of our diary and people can put meetings in willy nilly. And anyway, is sex in the day really that compelling? If not work, my head is on the state of the house, how to juggle three kids home for half term while working and if I don’t get another wash on we’ll be backed up with two to unload tomorrow but not enough space to hang it and OH MY GOD IT’S SO FUCKING BORING.
We recently went to Prague for the weekend and within a couple of hours of walking out the house, we remembered who we are. We remembered that we actually really like each other. There was giggling, for goodness sake. There were also some tears as I realised how much of last year was paddling furiously under the surface and in doing so, I’d lost myself and I’d definitely lost focus on us.
No one really warned us that staying in a relationship was going to take quite a lot of work. There are those clips on the local news of sweet looking elderly couples that have been married for 75 years, and when asked what their secret is, the bloke makes a gag about doing whatever she says and/or being hard of hearing and everyone chuckles. I think a bigger challenge for our generation is that we don’t want to settle. We don’t place staying married above all things. Longevity isn’t the end goal – actually being happy, respected, connected, equal, maybe even having some fun in there somewhere – those things matter.
We talked about our relationship a lot while we were away. In the past I think we’ve just gone ‘ah that’s better’, grateful not to be wiping bums and wrangling toddlers into little clothes and anything else was a bonus. This time was different – maybe because the chasm between us had felt wider than previously, and maybe because it’s coming up to 18 years together and our babies aren’t babies anymore. It felt like we needed to think a bit about who ‘we’ are, what do we want our lives to look like. We can see a life beyond young children that was just unimaginable a few years ago when kids are all-consuming and every moment was governed by naps and feeding and survival.
Psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel argues that what we want from relationships nowadays is unrealistic; we want that which not so long ago we would have got from the whole community. We want friendships, and passion and our intellectual equal and someone to confide in. And in this rush hour, when you’re busy and it takes so much effort to coordinate diaries with the friends that really know you, that can really fill your cup, it can feel like there isn’t time to fit anyone else in. But when your partner inevitably doesn’t deliver on all these needs, we can feel even more lonely and let down.
The biggest impact of a weekend away; it buys us some kindness, more patience and connection. Rather than quietly existing in the same house, we notice the other person – have they eaten? Do they want a cuppa? I’ll tell him about my humiliating encounter on the school run and we’ll laugh. If one of us snaps after a long day, the other shows concern rather than responding with a shitty remark that traps the pair of you in a battle of ‘no I’M more hard done by’, both doubling down because you’re tired and fed up and you’ve forgotten that you’re on the same team.
This life stage feels so busy that to go against the grain and try to enjoy any of it takes a lot of effort. We’ve tried to reprioritise time since we got back, and I think this is the stuff that we need to do better. To drop off the kids together some mornings, grab a coffee, look up when the other one walks in the door. It makes me feel lighter, hell – a little flirty even. I know, imagine, a woman in her 40s flirting with her husband!
And we’ve been doing this long enough to know that we will undoubtedly disconnect again, but maybe putting this in black and white I’ll remember that it’s normal and we need to make the effort to reconnect.
We’ve chosen to do this life together and worst case scenario is carrying on with all of the shit bits and bickering and living separate lives but in the same house, sucking all the potential joy out of each other.
We’re not broken, we just need time.
Steph Douglas runs thoughtful gift company Don’t Buy Her Flowers.
And if you're looking for a Valentine's gift, here's Steph's recommendations...
We know not everyone celebrates Valentine’s and our secret admirer days are mostly over but what Valentine’s Day does give us is a bit of encouragement to make an effort (or for someone to make an effort for you!) to connect with our partner. And honestly, sometimes we need a bit of an excuse/push to do that! Our speciality at Don’t Buy Her Flowers is bespoke gifts – where customers select from products to create a gift box tailored for the recipient, which lets them know you’ve really thought about and noticed what they like. Choose from pampering treats, delicious snacks, glorious books and the softest cashmere. The best option for bespoke for this season of lurve is the _Create a Valentine’s Gift Box._When we ran a poll about what couples were planning to do on the big day, 59% of respondents said they would be celebrating at home, which is where both our Date Night In Gift Box, and Cheese and Wine Gift Box come in. We beautifully giftwrap it and handwrite your personal message.