Realistically, after 10+ years as a couple plus kids, what should a marriage be like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A marriage should be like what YOU want out of it. One of my good friends is a SAHM and handles 100% of kid, house, and pet-related things. Her husband handles 100% of financial, house, car, and travel-related things. He literally just buys a new car and brings it home and tells her this is her car. Or plans a trip and says this is where they’re going. Wouldn’t work for me, but she’s happy.

My husband and I both now work from home FT and have lunch every day while our ES-ages children are at school. We’re best friends, we can tell each other anything, we’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders, and we laugh together every single day. We split everything 50/50 and we can each run things just fine if the other is gone for work or for pleasure (obviously less travel in the last two years than before). Our lives would be significantly worse without each other. We have seen friends get divorced during COVID and thankfully while hard, it didn’t have that effect on us at all.

I would love your friend's set up. One pp's post really resonated with me regarding she did all she could do and her husband simply needed to do more. I love the idea of a husband who handles some big things without me managing it all and carrying the mental load.

I’d hate this. I bet he is controlling and she is stuck.

I don't know. It sounds like they do a great job of divide and conquer from start to finish and stay out of each other's lanes. To me, that sounds preferable to the wife manages everything and assigns responsibilities to the husband while the wife drowns.

Maybe I'd feel differently if the wife wants a minivan to drive around the kids and dog and the husband said no you're getting a two-seater sports car, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.

I want my DH to do this. Pick the car, buy it, bring it home for me. He knows what I like.