How to have “the talk”

[Jazzybeat]

Me and my partner have been married now 10 years. Together for 15. We’ve got 2 kids under 10, we both work in full time jobs fairly stressful with a long commute. No financial worries. We do share the load fairly equally but we both probably feel like the other could do more if I’m honest.

Over time our marriage is slowly fizzling away. We are both so busy that it’s rare that we make time for each other. We seem to communicate via to do lists and the day to day affection has vanished. Our sex life is also dead.

On the rare occasions we do manage to get away for a date night we’re either so tired we just flop in front of the tv or we do make it out but the conversation has become awkward and stilted.

I’m at the point now where I know something needs to change. We’ve never been great at communicating our feelings and I know one of us most likely me needs to broach the topic. But I don’t know how. It never feels like the right time. There’s always someone sick or some urgency to deal with. Every weekend I say to myself I’ll bring it up and every weekend I bottle it.

Half of the problem is I’m not even sure what resolution I want now. Turning back the clock to how our relationship was isn’t obviously an option. Neither is carrying on like this. But I don’t think I want divorce either.

So I need help. How do I have this conversation. Practically. And if anyone has turned around a marriage in similar situations I’d love to hear it

This is a really tough phase, when the DC are still quite young. It feels like you are just too run off your feet to do anything but cope with the day to day. It will get easier as the children start to become more independent (and less messy etc etc). Maybe you don't need to have a big "talk" - just try and make sone time with your husband - bottle of wine and a movie together on a Saturday night (while letting the DC play computer games for longer than they usually would to give you sone space). It's really difficult to carve out time to be "a couple" when it feels like you are fighting fires constantly. Good luck OP. Marriage is a long haul, and sone phases are trickier than others.

The fact that you can't have this conversation is a symptom, rather than a problem in itself.

'I need us to have a serious chat about our relationship; when can we do that?' takes less than 10 seconds to say. It's not time or tiredness or people being ill that's stopping you. It's that you're scared to bring it up. People who are short of time don't 'bottle it'.

What do you think your partner would say if you said the sentence above?

This is a great point. Yes I am quite scared of what might happen. I don’t know how they would react - I guess my worst fear is that actually they have been perfectly happy all this time and it comes as a bolt from the blue. or that I’m somehow being unreasonable for wanting a change or being perceived to rock the boat. In many ways we’re comfortable, but I don’t want comfort.

We do try and spend a bit of time together with a glass of wine every weekend but it’s more of a decompress from the week than actual quality time if that makes sense? Glass of wine, sofa flop and something banal on the tv to soothe frazzled minds.

In many ways we’re comfortable, but I don’t want comfort

What do you want? Can you ask her if she'd like to start doing parachuting/salsa classes/knitting club/unicycling with you (or fill in your own activities..!), rather than presenting it as what you don't want?

Can you get away for a night occasionally? I find that's when DH and I reconnect. We're in a bit of a flat phase sexually at the mo (he's over worked and I'm feeling low drive and also never the initiator!) but we still have a laugh together a lot, and if we do get away our sex is actually still good. If you're feeling awkward and conversation is tricky I'd say that's more of a bad sign.

Date night at home is tricky as you have all the same niggles around, its too easy just to flop. Can you get babysitters. Go out for a meal, a walk, something you used to enjoy doing together pre-children?

If you're financially comfortable is there anything you could outsource to free up time for you both to feel less frazzled and like the other could do more? A cleaner, sending out the laundry, ordering in a meal subscription etc.
Could open up the conversation in a more neutral tone if you suggest you were thinking you could hire a cleaner because you'd like to spend more quality time with DP as you miss them.

I don't have any advice, just more of a warning from further down the track.

It is so easy to invest every ounce of yourself in kids/house/work and let your relationship become more like housemates than a couple. This where I am now, and it is so hard to find the "couple" again, even if we manage to find time alone. To be honest, I'm not convinced we will find it again.

The real danger is that one of you meets someone outside of the marriage that does make you feel like part of a couple and that you do make the effort to find time for. This makes it even harder to see the potential to rekindle things with your spouse.

I think you’ve nailed it. We’re at the housemates stage. There’s no animosity but there’s also no sight of the couple. How did you discuss this with your partner? What have you tried?

We have tried hard to outsource as much as we can. We have a cleaner and someone who mows the lawn, online shop for food, the school is 5 minutes walk from home and we both work from home min 2-3 days a week. There’s probably more we could outsource.

its still relentless though. We’re both usually back on laptops working after the kids go to sleep.

Hi OP - I have no advice, just sympathy. We are the same... although I think our situation is actually more gloomy than yours as part of the reason we don't communicate about anything other than day to day running of the house and kids is as we both know there's a big elephant in the room over where we live (I want to stay where we are, other half wants to move). So we are at an impasse. I have no idea where we go from here but the longer this impasse goes on the more I realise we need to do something, but I don't want to explode our family. It's shit.

Your life sounds very boring and mundane . Why aren’t you making any effort for your relationship ? Go out together . Go out at night together - somewhere ? Something !?
life is so much more than work and kids . Get a babysitter.

either him or you will end up meeting someone that makes them feel alive ….. then it’s game over for your marriage ….if you don’t salvage it before it’s too late .
I wouldn’t stay in a relationship as dead as this one .

Maybe you’re keeping yourselves busy so that you don’t have to spend time with each other .

I discussed it with my partner by gritting my teeth and initiating the awkward conversation. Your "worst fear" that your partner might think things are all ok was the case for me - he agreed that things were a bit flat, but had no idea how far down the path I am.

He is now trying every trick in the book to improve things. And I feel guilty every time he does something that is obviously him trying to improve things. I am trying to engage and reciprocate, but my heart isn't in it. I don't think there's enough there to rekindle.

But how do I explode a family just because I am not happy? There's nothing "wrong". I am just completely lonely, and I think I'd be a lot happier alone and lonely (with a chance at not being lonely?!) than I am being lonely while there's someone here that I should feel good to be with. Completely selfish reasons to blow up a family, and yet also not fair that I have to just continue with it?

How about thinking creatively about date nights. Going out to dinner together can sometimes feel a bit awkward if you have been in a non-communicative rut and you could end up talking about something banal like one of the DCs homework or whatever.

We love live music so we try to go and see a band play at least 2 or 3 times a year (and increasing as DC get older). Sometimes a big stadium thing, sometimes a small pub. It really varies. But we get excited seeing that a band is playing, the anticipation of the gig. Sometimes one of us will surprise the other with tickets as a birthday or Christmas present and the actual event will be a long way off snd we really look forward to it.

And when we are there we definitely don't talk about the laundry or DCs homework.

It's really not easy is it, do you think it's something you both want to work out or has it gone too far?

If you want to work it out could you both afford to drop a day to spend together while the kids are at school? What did you used to enjoy together before life fell into this pattern?

Maybe you’re keeping yourselves busy so that you don’t have to spend time with each other .

Sometimes I wonder this. Or are we sabotaging the times we do spend together deliberately.

I love the suggestion of live music. What I’m struggling with is trying to “fix” something that they may not even see is broken. But I’m hearing all the comments and they are very helpful.

this is first time I’ve actually spoken to anyone about this. To our friends we appear perfectly happy.

It doesn't matter if your partner has noticed it's broken or not. Say how you feel, and you'll be respected, if your relationship is worth having.

If you feel it's broken and your partner says 'No it isn't, it's fine, I'm happy', then that's rude of them, and you need to know if that's their attitude. D'you think it might be?

Half of the problem is I’m not even sure what resolution I want now. Turning back the clock to how our relationship was isn’t obviously an option. Neither is carrying on like this. But I don’t think I want divorce either.

This might be a lot more than half the problem. If I had to start a difficult conversation but didn't know where I wanted it to go, I'd bottle it too. What is your ideal outcome here? Don't complicate it by thinking of other people; what do you want your life to look like, and where do you want your partner to fit into it, if at all?

Bear in mind there's a fourth option - no one's relationship is exactly how it used to be 15 years ago. People can find new ways to have healthy middle-aged relationships that don't mimic the passion of their 20s. That said, putting yourself back at the start might be helpful. What did you and your partner use to bond over? How did you get together in the first place? If there was a particular band you saw, or tune you danced to, or place you visited - try to do that again. It could rekindle some emotional muscle memory.

The fact that you have no animosity (yet) and no one's having an affair (yet) is very good at this point. Maybe realising that it'll be infinitely better to have The Talk before those things happen will motivate you to do it sooner.

You just need to do it…

OP, DH and I have been in a very similar position to you - as have most couples with children, I think - and we made it through.

We made two changes to our lives that made a massive difference. The first was, when we went on dates we stopped going for a drink or dinner any more as if we did, we sat there, exhausted or talked about DC. instead, we made an effort to do things that created new shared interests and pleasure. We went to comedy nights, gigs, theatre and films, the occasional talk if there was something that interested us. Even a dud comedy gig or appalling concert gave us the giggles and we bonded over them.

the other thing we did was divide the weekend into 4 hour chunks.One is on Friday night, and there are 4 each on saturday and sunday (ignoring 8 hours a night for sleep.) That makes 9 chunks in total. Every weekend we'd each get four hours to ourselves while the other one had DC. What we did in those four hours was totally up to us. That known time meant I could book a hair appointment or just browse the shops, guilt free, not having to hurry back, or go to the gym, or meet a friend. And there was no squabbling about who had more, because we each got that big chunk of free time. Then we'd have two chunks of family time altogether - either two half days - taking DC swimming or to the park, or a full day outing. Then we'd have a chunk of one-on-one time with each DC (we only have two DC) So each child got undivided attention of one parent. And that would be up to DC to choose. They could stay home and play Lego or snuggle and watch films or they got to do stuff they loved doing - rugby or gymnastics - and one parent would take them and stay with them. One chunk of time was for us as a couple - a date where we booked a sitter and did something enjoyable. The other chunks of time were just practical life stuff - shopping, cleaning, mealtimes, homework, sorting stuff for working week ahead, laundry, having family over, bath and bed time etc.

So the shifts were one date night for us each weekend; one block of time to ourselves each weekend, one chunk of one-to-one time with each DC, one or two family outings. It transformed our lives. We stopped being resentful. We had loads of fun as a whole family, which really bonded us as parents and as a couple. People used to comment that we always seemed to have a great time at weekends, that we did so much with our kids and as a family. And I went from resentful and exhausted to feeling so much more refreshed, just from having that four hours to myself every week, and knowing I'd have it.

The other thing we learned to do was turn our differences into strengths and accept them. I used to feel bitterly resentful that i was up at 5am every morning with DC who were very early risers, while DH snored away, oblivious to their shrieks, but that there were still jobs that needed doing at midnight. I was permanently shattered. But DH is a night owl. When we started breaking the weekend down into chunks of time, if i was up at 5 am until 9am doing that first chunk of family time - getting them dressed, making breakfast, emptying the dishwasher etc, while DH had a lie-in, then I got to knock off at 9pm. He had to clear the kitchen, stack the dishwasher and do any night lifting or resettling if they woke up. Fair division of labour that plays to our strengths.