What I Have Learned in Marriage

What have I learned in marriage has been one of the biggest questions since we hit our 4 year mark in January. Years before, I never knew the right answer. I would always just say something along the lines of “date your spouse” which yes, you should totally do that but there’s also many other things you learn very quickly.

One of those things that I learned very quickly and has also been one of our biggest struggles is, communication. You’re probably reading this and thinking “what y’all don’t talk?” While yes we talk, we never really talked during a disagreement or even talk about if something bothers the other person. I have mental health problems and so, my husband has tried to tip toe around that and in turn has made it to where we just don’t communicate through anything. I just tend to bottle up what I’m feeling and if I don’t do that then I explode on everyone around me which then alienates people.

Where It All Changed

In the last year, we really grew apart and we were almost on the verge of divorce. We spent a lot of days and nights not even speaking to each other and when we did, it was just a full blown argument. I was unhappy, he was unhappy, and we were projecting that onto our children. It was clear that we just did not have the same spark we used to have. Even family members asked me what was going on with us. I had no answer because I didn’t even know what had happened. Yes, we had fallen on some hard times but it wasn’t just that. We both pushed the other away for no reason other than our communication was just horrible.

The clock struck midnight and it was officially 2021 when I decided that it was either save my marriage or just walk away. We actually got into a fight that week and didn’t talk for almost two weeks and I just assumed that it was time to walk away. My husband came to me the next day and said we needed to talk so we did. We decided to really give this marriage our all and to really communicate better.

Making our marriage better

After that talk, it was like everything was fixed. We stopped arguing all the time, we talked about more than just how the kids drove me insane that day, we texted each other more and things just got all around better. I’m working on my mental health and he’s working on not shutting down when he’s upset. All in all, communication has been our biggest contributing factor to a better marriage this year. We always knew we needed to have communication but, never applied what we had learned in pre-martial counseling. Now we are and I am so thankful for that.

Communicate with your partner. Talk about the highs and lows of the day, talk about how something they may have said made you feel. Don’t hold it in and then let it explode later because it’s just gonna continue to pile up and before you know it, there will be zero communication and lots of animosity towards the other person.