We flowered friends have now been blogging together for six years! When we started out, we were in our early twenties, just out of college, and the world was our oyster. Now we are very rapidly approaching thirty, and much has changed in our individual adventures in love, work, and life. I thought it would be interesting for each of us to look back at our past posts and select one topic to revisit. After all, we are older and wiser now, right? I’m curious to see how our perspectives have changed over time.
I’ll lead off with a classic Bluebell post about my relationship with my husband. This oldie dates all the way back to September 2013! At that time, I was approaching a year and half of married life and starting to feel like the honeymoon was finally over.
One thing that struck me about this post is how truly blessed I was to have such a positive first year of marriage in the first place. Merging your life with someone else’s is a huge transition, and we added to the challenge by also moving across the world and starting our careers at the same time. Obviously not every day of our early marriage was perfect–that wouldn’t be possible–but as that post proved, overall I was incredibly happy at that point in my marriage. We were simply having an amazing time, and it seemed like there was nothing we couldn’t solve by “cuddling it out.” It was awesome and I will always treasure that time.
So, how have things changed now that I have been married for more than six years? That’s what I’m here to break down.
Let’s just get one thing out of the way first. My 2013 post states that something felt a little off in the relationship because “we haven’t had sex in over a week.” And my current reaction to that line is…
HA. FREAKING. HA!
Sex? Multiple times per week? With twin babies who still don’t sleep through the night? Yeah, just excuse me while I laugh in that maniacal way only a truly sleep deprived person can laugh. The decline in our sex life has actually been going on for a while. For a year and a half we had sex a lot, but always during my fertile window in our desperate quest to get pregnant. While technically we were having quite a bit of sex during that time, I wouldn’t say it was achieving greater intimacy. Then pregnancy happened, and my vagina swelled up from hormones and such, and sex became extremely painful. After the second trimester we gave up on it completely. Then, of course, you aren’t supposed to have sex for six weeks after birth. And after that, in the last four months or so, we’ve averaged about 1-2 times a month as I continue to deal with pain, most likely from hormone imbalances caused by breastfeeding. And the fact that we have two babies. Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a sex post, but I could write a lot more about how I feel about physical intimacy–maybe in a future post! I know the dry spell is a season and we’ll get our groove back eventually, but to be honest, I don’t really want to be touched right now!
When I wrote that honeymoon post in 2013, we had just moved and were both going through a transition period in our jobs. I was struggling to find work and feeling like my career wasn’t moving forward well, and my husband was disillusioned by the fact that we had relocated for his work for the second time in a year and his expectations weren’t quite being met. So, how’s the job front for us now, five years later? Well, my husband still works on the same team in the same company, and he’s gone through ups and downs since then. He has gotten to do some really fascinating work, but, on the other hand, he has also gone through times when work was boring and not challenging enough (like right now, for example). Recently, he’s started talking about moving on from this company and our expat life, though we still don’t know what that would look like exactly. It most likely won’t be happening for at least another 2-3 years, so in that sense, he’s stable at work and happy enough.
As for me, I did find a teaching job in 2014 that was a great step for me. I worked there for three years and enjoyed the students every single day. I had the opportunity to build my resume, try new things, and hone my skills. And then I got pregnant and took another job that was closer to home but a step down in terms of pay and position. And then I had twins and became a stay at home mom. You could say my work has changed drastically in the last year! I love being with my boys, but with the school year starting up again I also feel a pang of regret that I won’t be teaching this year. I left things in a bit of a weird place with my last school, so I’m unsure when or how I’ll be able to go back and what that will look like. But for now, I’m choosing to throw myself into motherhood as much as possible and love on these little miracles that I spent so long praying for. Not having to shower or put on real clothes to do my job isn’t bad, either!
Though both of our careers have evolved some since 2013, I don’t think that work-related stress has actually had much of an impact on our marriage. For most of those years, we’ve both been pretty fulfilled by what we were doing. Both of our jobs were stressful and frustrating at times, but we were able to understand, listen, and support each other through that. So, I’m glad to report that the work-related uncertainty I described in that post didn’t end up harming our relationship as I worried it might.
But how is our relationship, six years into our marriage? This is a question I have found myself pondering more than once in the recent months, as we’ve faced yet another major life transition–the birth of our sons. They say having a baby changes everything, and it does, but on the surface at least, it seems we are doing well. We’ve been through some stressful shit in the last couple of years. As you well know, we faced infertility and then IVF treatment. The end of my pregnancy and the boys’ birth and subsequent lenghthy NICU stays were rough. But my husband has always been supportive, and I can honestly say he loved me well during all of those trials. He’s a fantastic father, and I love seeing him with our babies. We both love those little guys so much that often, out of nowhere, one of us will remark on how incredibly cute and enjoyable they are, how lucky we are, how strange and fun and exciting it is to be their parents. And we smile exhausted but content smiles at each other and go on with this crazy new life of ours. That is all wonderful. So why do I feel, deep down, that our relationship isn’t quite as strong as it should be at this stage in the game?
With two new babies at home, it is definitely difficult to find time for hobbies, for sex, for conversation, for quality time together in general. We do eat lunch and dinner together every day, but it’s often interrupted by a fussy baby who needs our attention. After dinner, we take them for a quick walk and put them to bed, and by the time that process concludes, I can tell my husband is ready for some alone time. He’ll escape to his computer and play video games for however long he has before bed, which usually isn’t that long. And I’ll sit in the living room alone, unsure of what to do with myself since the babies could cry at any moment, and, to be honest, I don’t have a lot of hobbies. To decompress, I’ll watch Youtube while I pump milk for the boys or maybe read a few pages of a book.
Sometimes he asks if I want to do something together, but I feel bad asking him to forego a past-time that he truly, deeply enjoys and doesn’t have much time for nowadays. After all, if I want him to spend time with me, I should be able to come up with something worthwhile for us to do. And too often, I just can’t think of anything.
Becoming a stay-at-home mom to twins has been a little overwhelming at times, and now that I don’t have a job outside the home and the babies’ care is my top priority, it’s hard to see any value in myself outside of momming. My job right now is one I’ve wanted for so long, and I do love it, so I’m not saying this to complain. What I’m trying to get at here is that, for a while now, even before the pregnancy and birth, I have felt a little…boring. I’m not an expert at anything or super talented in any particular way. I don’t run marathons, do crafts, play an instrument well, run a business, or volunteer in my community. Now with two babies to take care of 24/7, there’s even less time to develop any additional skills, hobbies, or interests, even if I could find a new passion. That leaves me feeling dull, like I don’t have much to contribute to conversation anymore…or maybe I never did!
It may sound like I am being over dramatic, and I probably am, but I’m trying my best to use this post as a chance to verbalize something that has been lingering at the edge of my consciousness for some time now–the insecurity I feel that my husband and others won’t find me interesting or intelligent. My husband hasn’t said or done anything to make me feel this way, but I do wish that we shared a few more hobbies in common or had some goals we were actively working towards together, outside of raising our boys, of course. I don’t think we are one of those married couples who never talk about anything but the kids, but I can see how that could happen if I’m not careful. I want to recapture some of that pure enjoyment and bliss I felt with him in our early marriage, the way everything we did somehow seemed fun.
After six years of adulting together and now parenting together, I know without a doubt I love him much more than I did when I wrote that post in 2013. But with that deeper love comes the desire to light up the room for him again. Reading my old post reminded me of that more than ever.
I don’t think you’re boring, Bluebell! I don’t really think that people being interesting/likable really has much correlation to their hobbies or interests. The fact that someone plays the piano or sky-dives doesn’t really make them rewarding to talk with (in my opinion). I think that it is more about things like how well you listen, whether you care about other people’s problems, if you’re funny, etc- things that in my experience you are pretty good at!
I have also been wondering a bit lately about whether or not I am boring. It is not something I generally think about, but recently, after jettisoning my friends and moving to a new country, it is something that has arisen in my mind. My main issue is that I don’t drink. I mean, I don’t teetotal or anything, but drinking is a minimal part of my life and something I only pursue with extreme moderation. Yet, for many of the people I encounter, drinking is the foundation for all fun. This is combined with the fact that I watch basically no television, which seems to leave me with little common ground for talking with other people (‘did you see the new episode of game of thrones?!’.. ‘No, I read the books though’.. ‘Oh…nevermind’). I can’t say I care enough about this to change my life- better to find friends that appreciate you for who you are, I guess- but it still never feels great to be pegged as the boring one.
This is so interesting! We should do a whole COTM to figure out why all of us have felt boring, it seems like such a unique fear but here we are making it universal.
I’ve felt that I was deeply boring at many points in my life, so much so that I’m sure I’ve written about it here on this blog as well. I’m not great at recalling all the things I’ve seen/done/learned on the spot in conversations so I often feel like I am contributing less to a group or a party. And even in things I feel like I could talk about, I always need more time than allowed to explain- short talking points aren’t my strong suit and I cringe thinking of the times when people’s attention is pulled away as I speak. UGH. Feeling boring is THE WORST.
BUT, what is so interesting about this topic is that out of all the people I’ve ever met, there hasn’t been one second I’ve ever thought of any of you three as boring. Not one second. You all have so many experiences, and so much knowledge, and such emotional depth, that I honestly can’t imagine EVER being bored with any of you. So why do we feel this way about ourselves?
All I can think of is that in those situations we feel boring, are also the situations in which we feel we aren’t showing ourselves at our best or most authentic. True us definitely isn’t boring, but out of place us sometimes gets more playing time.
And Bluebell, I’m sure the other flowers will be more helpful with the marriage advice, but I know hobbies!! This is SUCH a cool time in your life, where you get to not only focus on your children, but focus on yourself. You get to self care any time any place, which can mean lots of naps and lots of baths, but can also mean painting your children’s faces into superheros or designing your dream home on a white board in their room. I think there are so many creative ways to take care of children, while also taking this time to get to know yourself. They don’t care if you read them a boring children’s book or a novel you love, they just need you around. You can spend your time doing literally whatever you want in the moments your children are happily asleep or happily awake. I obviously am simplifying, I know there is a lot of work and exhaustion involved in caring for kids, but in those moments of time when your body has to be next to them but your mind can be anywhere else, your potential is unlimited! You know you’re in the right place at the right time, so everything else you do can be exactly WHATEVER you want. Maybe that means making your husband a present, or learning a new song on uklele, or taking a picture of the kids in every place in the city before you move. You can do anything! Make the most of it!