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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP - Should a marriage require so much work? DH and I did couples therapy for 2 years awhile ago and it improved for awhile. Now we are both back in individual therapy and started couples again. I’m just wondering if it will always take so much work just to get along and if it’s worth it or if we’d both be happier with other people or on our own…[/quote]

I posted earlier that DH and I have 4 kids, two careers, and 5 total diagnoses of ADD in our family (both of us plus three of the kids).  We like to do a lot together and have a good sex life, but we also fight a lot.  We went to counseling a while ago, and it was somewhat helpful in getting us to understand one another, but it wasn't really effective long term.  All of the underlying resentments were still there.  We were just better at masking them.

The only thing that ultimately worked and decreased resentment (on both sides) was for DH to change his perspective on our home life and consider himself responsible for actually doing the day to day work of raising his children and creating the home that he wants, rather than just giving his input on whatever I was doing.   I know that it sounds cliche on DCUM, but it's a cliche for a reason.  He really needed to do more housework and childcare.  I had done everything I could to make it work, and there wasn't any more that I could do.  In order for us to have a good marriage, he had to change.

I want to point out that it decreased resentment on both sides because he really sees now how much effort I put in to raising the kids and making a nice home life for us.  I have worked part time since our third child was born, and I really think that he thought I was just hanging out at home watching television while he was at work.  He was as resentful as I was.  Now that he is sometimes responsible for the kids while I am at work, he knows that if the "at home" person decides not to do anything, our home life can become less than pleasant pretty quickly.  [/quote]

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