Marriage Can Really Suck

My marriage is beyond a roller coaster, it’s a fricking sci-fi thriller movie set in an insane asylum.

The Low Points

When your marriage is low, it can feel like the world is caving in. I have felt that way many times. And my marriage sucks. A lot.

I have filed for divorce once, and at one point started the paperwork to file a second and third time. We have gone through multiple different therapists. We have been average to below for most of our marriage. But let me give you some back story first.

The Story

It’s not a movie story. Or even an interesting short story. The beginning part of our story is so basic and mild. Nothing exciting about it. We met online. We dated. We got pregnant. We got married. We have been married since

2012 and together since 2010.

We met on a dating website. Not even like a classy one like e-harmony, it was more of the trashy hookup kinda site (before tinder) but it was a free site and we didn’t have to pay for it.  I used to be ashamed to tell people how we met, but as I have gotten older I have made peace with my story and I have no shame. Plus, I am not a bar or club kinda girl, so where else do you meet other men in your 20s?

I also used to be ashamed that I was pregnant when we got married. But again, no more shame in my story.

And here we are.

The Death Sentence

There is a phrase that I have used to call our relationship the past couple years. I thought it was a death sentence and that we were going to actually go through with a divorce at some point, once one of us finished doing all of the paperwork again.

What is that word that I thought was dooming our marriage to death? Roommates.

For a couple years, we felt like roommates and I thought it was a death sentence.

One evening, I was out at a work function and somehow another girl and I started talking about marriage. I told her mine is probably doomed and I have no idea where it is going to end up. So she asked “are you in the roommate phase?”

My jaw almost fell to the floor. She literally used the same word that I used to describe it. Roommates.

We continued talking about this “roommate phase” for another 20 or so minutes and I felt a huge relief.

It’s a real thing! It happens to most marriages. Why hadn’t I heard of it before?

But I also didn’t want just a roommate for the rest of my life. So I knew something had to change. Now it’s all about where we go from here.

The Next Steps

Trying. From here on out, it’s about trying. You have to ask yourself the real question first. Is it worth trying?

– If you are in an abusive relationship, THE ANSWER IS NO. Leave it and get out.

For everyone who is not in an abusive relationship, you need to write down why it’s worth trying and why it isn’t. Yes literally make that list. After you make that list you need to look and see which side you are leaning towards. Trust your gut.

Next, you need to take a look a list at the items that were on the “Not worth it” side and I thought through them. Are they fixable? Can they be changed?

Let’s take a look at an example. One of my “Not Worth It” items was “my husband makes me feel bad about myself”. This is a two-fold answer. First, does he know how he is making me feel? If it’s yes, then you should probably leave him because that sounds abusive. I realized I don’t think I ever told my husband how some of the things he said made me feel. So I did.

I told my husband I wanted an honest talk about our marriage. I gave him an example of some of the things he said and that they were hurtful and HE WAS APOLOGETIC. That’s a good sign. If he wasn’t apologetic, then we would have gone a different way in our marriage.

The second part to this example is why was I letting his hurtful words affect me so deeply? I had to do some real soul searching to decide if I really want his opinion (even though he didn’t mean to be hurtful) to affect how I feel about myself. And I don’t. I am the only person I want to affect how I feel. I am in charge of me.

Really analyze your two sides. Decide if the negatives can change, either through self development, counseling, or just talking through the probelms. And make a choice.

Write down your answers, and put them in a spot where you can remind yourself why you are trying. Or if you decide to separate, put them somewhere you can remind yourself why you are doing this when things are hard.

And I would definitely recommend This one.  It helped me understand that we all love differently! and how I could understand the way that my husband loved.

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Do Something

This isn’t an article about how to improve your marriage. I am sharing my story in hopes that it will help yours. It’s ok to not be the best marriage. It’s ok to hang out as roommates for a while. But don’t hang out in the middle for much longer. Either decide to go up or get out. We are heading out of the insane asylum right now, but who knows, the next trap door might be right around the corner.

I don’t know where we will end up.

And I am ok with it.