Surviving Marriage
All the statistics show that I should be divorced by now. And it’s not like I haven’t thought about it. I’m sure at some point every married person has thought about it or will think about it. If anyone says otherwise I would think they are lying. Marriage is hard work. It’s not like any other relationship I’ve ever been in. At 29 years old, entering into a marriage at 8 months pregnant was insane. On top of the emotional instability that comes along with pregnancy, it was a tumultuous time in our marriage, when it was supposed to be a time of bliss.
My husband and I were struggling with our new roles as mom and dad, when we had yet to solidify our roles as husband and wife. I also was not the nicest person during my pregnancy. It was a difficult transition and one that I wasn’t sure we were going to make it through. When people ask us how is it being married with a child, we always say we should have waited to have a child. The statistics are high for divorce during the first year of marriage after having a baby for a reason.
Anytime I experience multiple transitions happening within a short period of time or at the same time, my life becomes chaotic and I don’t know how to navigate through it. Things seem to fall apart, but what I’ve learned is that things fall apart in order to fall back together again. Though it was a tough time in our marriage, we are better because of it. We learned how to manage our new roles without killing each other or wanting to separate, we adapted to the changes that was occurring, both individually and collectively, and communicated to each other more openly, without resentment, confusion, or reactivity.
We couldn’t change the things that were occurring as a result of the new life experiences that we were going through, so we learned to adapt to the changes that were taken place in order for us to grow. We drifted apart from each other emotionally, spiritually, and physically, so that we could re-present ourselves to each other wholly, completely, and healed. Though the statistics were against us, we were willing to fight for our marriage and our family, because we knew that what we were experiencing was temporary and that our love is eternal.
