Reply to I was given a huge reality check about my failed marriage

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Woman here. There’s a lot of women on this thread who are going to wake up one day and be shocked that their marriages collapsed and will blame everyone but never look into their own role. Focusing on your spouse doesn’t mean becoming a sex-slave in high heels in pearls, but making time to put the baby down, talk about something else, and remaining connected as a couple. In this age of competitive parenting it is mostly the women making themselves nuts about feeding and napping schedules, freaking out about any sitters ever, and focusing the entire family life on the kid. When I first had my kid, it drove me nuts when DH wasn’t worrying about doing things “the right way” and was just getting things done in a haphazard way and “forgetting” about the plan and schedules. However, a few months in, I realized that he was actually taking a healthier appproach and we were more than simply parents to a baby human. Things got done, the kid was happy and healthy, and parents kept their connection.

OP, I wish you the best in the future -you were not at fault, but congrats to you for thinking about how you might use relationship skills differently in the future. [/quote]

This is the opposite of what I see with strong marriages.

[b]What I find is that every marriage has a time where you can't "focus on their spouse"[/b].  Like, infant/toddlers, death of a parent, child with cancer, loss of a job (men are the worse with this), cancer, depression, deployed overseas..... you name it. There is a time in your life that your spouse will not "focus on you". The good marriages are running marathons. They keep their eye on the prize and don't let their little feeling get hurt when the going gets rough.

There is not 1 marriage that does not have tough times. If you want to cut and run and "blame the rough times" go for it. But there is no life without hard times. It's the people that can cope and deal with these times without blaming their spouse that have the strongest marriage.    [/quote]

I was a huge fan of the West Wing, and having worked in the national security field, I completely got what Leo McGarry was telling his wife when he told her:  "What I am doin right now, is more important than my marriage right now."  It wasn't forever, but she chose to bail anyway instead of supporting him in the "most important thing" he was doing in his career. [/quote]

My friend is a pediatric heart surgeon and she missed something at her child's school... the teacher asked where is your mom and he said "a baby has a hole in his heart and she had to fix it this morning"... that's a sobering perspective.

Sometimes you can't volunteer
Sometimes you can't stroke your spouses ego
Sometimes you can't treat your souse like an princess

It's okay, life happens, move on. [/quote]

+1 it is so unhealthy and unrealistic for a partner to demand to be your number 1 priority all of the time.  We all go through phases where something else needs to be our focus.  If you can't handle that, you need to get yourself some help because you are messed up.  Did I flip my lid when DH was studying for the bar exam?  No, because I'm a grown up.  Did he lose it because I was more focused on our daughter when she was an infant?  No because it was for a short period of time.

Over the course of our marriage, I definitely average out to be his top priority and vice versa.  That's our focus, that over the long haul we prioritize each other.  Not that I am his number 1 priority and sole focus at 10 AM on any given Tuesday.  [/quote]

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