-
Year 3 because we were dealing with infertility and miscarriages and I was a hormonal mess. Plus we had a 2 year old that was difficult.
-
Year 3 of marriage (year 12 together) because we had our second kid. And I still work. And finally the weight of working AND running the household AND doing all the nightwakings and baby duties has finally gotten to me. And it's not our first kid and we have been together so long that my husbands "sensitivity meter" no longer exists.
-
@oskarsmommy: word. This was us
-
I would say this year has been the most difficult for us. 7 years together and 3/4 married. We have a 2 year old but the toughest part has been working through some intimacy issues. We’ve always had them and worked on them but they kind of came to a head this year. Plus we sold our house, bought a new house & had some major stresses with the new house. Hoping to move forward in the new year.
-
The years with a two-year-old in the house
-
Last year and this year, so marriage years 3 and 4. Last year was our first with a child and then this year we sold a house, built a house, and I've had a stressful time at work (up for partner). I foresee things getting a bit easier as our son becomes more independent, we get into a babysitter routine, etc.
-
@Mama Bird: so glad i’m not alone!
2 year old in the house here and i’m losing my mind.
-
@Portboston: hugs mama and hope everything gets better soon!
-
@2littlepumpkins: Totally agree with you and feel like I am going through a similar situation now. Newborn stage seems like a breeze compared to this stage in marriage. We seemed to adjust well in newborn stage because we just had to be a team. Now I feel like my DH tends to get a little lazy in the toddler stage and i’m totally worn out.
-
@travellingbee: hugs to you! that sounds super tough!
-
I commented on this 4 years ago and I still stick with the 1st year being the hardest, we went from living separately where I kept our daughter most of the time (not his fault) to living together, I got pregnant within a month, he got a job working out of town so we only saw each other on the weekends for the most part, we moved and had a baby, I suffered from depression but was going unmedicated. But we have both grown closer to God over the years so while we still have our troubles we deal with them so much better now than we used to, our problems have also gotten so much less significant.
-
Wow looking back on my answer it’s like dejavu. Moving f*ing sucks. This is year 7 for us. I always thought I was a supportive partner and yet solo parenting week after week is pushing me to my limit.
-
We've only been married a few years and have been pretty lucky so far. The toughest time so far has been when we were going through pregnancy losses, as we experienced those very, very differently.
-
Year 6/7 was the hardest for us. We had a ton of changes and we had a lot of trouble figuring out how to navigate our new normal. We are starting to climb out of it now and it seems to be slowly getting better. Honestly, the first 5 years we a breeze. We've been together for 10 years.
-
I'd say year 1 was a bit rough, in terms of transitions for us. We moved across the country to a new city right after our wedding. We were moving for hubs's new job and I didn't have a job lined up. It was lonely for me. I didn't have any friends and didn't have many opportunities to make friends. There'd be times when I'd go a whole day without speaking until the hubs got home from work.
We had our 3rd anniversary back in August, and our marriage has gotten better year by year.
That might change though, because I'm currently pregnant (and hubs has been amazing), and due next month! Married life with a newborn might look very different for us...
-
Funny how this thread was revived while I'm looking through "what's the toughest year of marriage so far.?" Year 3 was really tough with my MIL misbehaving while we had a newborn.
I'd say last year was a really tough year at year 7. We have a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old. We've had some communication issues, not enough time for each other, stress of work and commute really get to us. I've been going through some depression since my DH lost his job and was unemployed for 6 months. It's been about a year since he got a new one. I'd say that 3 and 7-8 have been the hardest. I'm hoping that things get easier and communication improves. We're definitely in the "a lot of work" phase.
-
Year 5/6. That's when we added #2 to the family and it was a ROUGH year. She was not an easy baby, I definitely was suffering from PPD/PPA, and Hubs was totally disconnected from the whole situation. We celebrate 7 years in 2 weeks and I think we're on the road back to normal.
-
@littlebug: Yep, the year after adding #2 was definitely the hardest. That was year 6 for us. We finally started counseling right before year 7 started and now we're in year 8 and back to being happy!
-
We've been married for 8 years, lived together for 3 years before getting married. I think the toughest was adjusting to each others parenting style when baby #1 came along (year 5 for us). I'm thinking this upcoming year might be another tough one with #2 on his way and DH has a new job, and we are trying to sell our house and buy a home too.
The toughest is when we have to adjust.
-
@littlebug: @Adira: This is very interesting, and I fear where we are headed this year so I'd love to get any reflective advice you have.
We've been trucking along pretty well (married 6 years in December, together about 6 years before marrying) - we have a 3.5 year old who has been surprisingly un-disruptive to our marriage, or so I thought - we had been trying to get pregnant again for about 6 months but then realised neither of our hearts were really in it so decided to shelve it for a bit, and lo and behold, of course that was the month I discovered I was pregnant. My husbands reaction has not been good and we are struggling with this. We are communicating really well at the moment and I think that it ends up coming down to intimacy issues that end up affecting all the aspects of our relationship, and my husband is concerned that another baby/kid will just exacerbate the issues that are already there. He's seeing a counsellor by himself which he doesn't think is very helpful, and I'm looking into couples counselling for us now. Any advice to try and address these issues? We aren't due til end of may so have lots of time, but I really want to tackle things head on and actually work on our issues, not just talk about it. But I don't know where to start . Pregnancy emotions are NOT helping.
-
@ScarletBegonia: Communication is definitely key. I think that was a major issue for my husband and I. Once number 2 came around, we were splitting duties between both kids and really didn't have as much time for each other. And when we DID have time, we were both so tired that we just wanted to veg out and not have those hard conversations. And when we DID have those hard conversations, it felt like we were just talking in circles and just repeating the same conversation over and over again without making any progress. Hopefully that's not true for you, but if it is, a counselor can be a REAL lifesaver. My husband was pretty skeptical about it, but our counselor really helped us to navigate some of our conversations so that they were actually productive. We've been going for a year now and our marriage has completely turned around and we're in a really good place now! I think the fact that our youngest is older now and the two can play together helps, but communication is definitely the biggest component.
Good luck. I know it's hard.
-
@Adira: What you wrote sounds exactly like where my husband and I are at. The circular conversations are the worst. Communication and sex have been our biggest struggles since having two kids. I get defensive easily and make him out to be the bad guy. I'm working on changing my perception of him in these situations. I'm reading this next after I finish Arianna Huffington's Thrive.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0998874205/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
-
@cascademom: Yep, communication and sex were our biggest issues since having two kids too. It didn't help that it seemed like we were constantly sick too! Counseling and just time I think really helped us. Counseling helped my husband to really communicate his needs (he had been talking in circles and I never really understood what he was REALLY asking for). Now that we are FINALLY on the same page, we're both putting in more of an effort to meet each other's needs, which makes us both happier and more willing to do nice things for each other. And it helps that the kids are older and aren't constantly sick anymore and WE'RE not constantly sick anymore.
Good luck.
-
@Adira: Wow, you're living my life it seems. Once we got our littlest one tubes, his health improved, so less sickness in the house. Our eldest is in K where most of the kids have immunity by now, so he's got a small cold.
I wish we had time for marriage counseling. I'm doing individual counseling to work on myself.
-
@cascademom: Finding time for counseling and being willing to commit to it was hard, especially for my husband. I have every other Friday off and my husband has plenty of vacation time, so we started out going every other week on my off-Fridays. That way we could go during the day while the kids were at daycare. But my husband was pretty resistant to it originally - he thought we should just spend those days doing stuff together and working on our relationship ourselves and didn't see the point in going to counseling. But after a while, he definitely started seeing the benefit and was happy to continue. We did every two weeks for a while, and then dropped down to once a month. This last time we went two months in between, and now we're doing three months in between and after this next appointment, I'm guessing we'll stop going since I don't think we need it anymore.
-
@Adira: So amazing! Communication & sex are the two biggest areas we have to work on too.
@oskarsmommy: Yes this! Except this is year 4 married.
-
Year 6 was hard because we had our 2nd child. We had less "me" and less "us" time, plus sleep deprivation. We would bicker and we knew which buttons to push, so we fought a lot that year. Ultimately we both want the same for our marriage and family, and I'm so thankful for that!
-
For us it was just making the effort to reconnect. I finally said to my husband one night, "I don't think we're in a good place right now. Do you?" He admitted that he didn't think things were good, either. So that moment we both made a commitment to reconnecting - we dedicate one night a week to actually interacting with each other and not just sitting side by side staring at our phones/the tv all night in silence. For us it seemed like just verbalizing that things weren't ok sparked a shift in our relationship.
I started seeing a counselor, too, because of a variety of issues - our son was having behavioral problems, our daughter was super needy, and I felt guilty about both of those things. My best friend died suddenly on New Year's Day, so I felt completely and utterly alone. My counselor helped me reframe my thinking which helped my communication and approach to my marriage.
-
Just reviving this to say that after reading some of these comments I decided to fast track couples counselling for my husband and I - we had our first session a couple of days ago and I am already feeling so much better. @Adira: you are so dead on about conversations going in circles, and just having an objective outer individual to guide them makes all the difference. I actually think my husband and I said more to each other in an hour than we have in the last 4 weeks (since I found out I was pregnant and the shit hit the fan). Thanks for all the insight of the ladies who've been there and done that!!
-
@ScarletBegonia: Sooooo glad you were able to get in a session and found it helpful!!!
2 year old in the house here and i’m losing my mind.
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
109 comments