Marriage: The Tipping Point
Submitted by
Kristen Spina
I'm a very good mother. But I'm a terrible wife.
It wasn't always like this. My husband and I were together for 12 years before our son was born. That's a pretty long love affair by any standard. And it was a love affair. But then this thing happened. We had a baby. And overnight it went from all about us to all about him—him being our son.
My husband says the problem is mine. There simply isn't enough of me to go around. But when I'm being completely honest with myself, I admit that it goes deeper than that. How deep, exactly, I don't know. Balance is definitely a piece of it. But there are other things, too. Like the fact that I no longer have the energy to connect with my husband on the level that we connected before we became parents.
I freely admit that I put my son first. The last piece of cake? No contest. Dinner and a movie? OK, as long as it's pizza and Over the Hedge. If meeting my husband and his colleagues for a drink means leaving my son with a random babysitter, you can bet I'm opting out of cocktails.
I wonder sometimes about those other moms. The ones who talk about romantic evenings with their husbands and weekends away from the kids. And then I think, I did that for 12 years. Before our son was born.
Would the outcome have been any different if I had become a mother soon after becoming a wife? Would I have had a better sense of balance? Would I be doing a better job caring for my man? Does my husband really care? Well, he does care, of course, but in spite of his frequently asking "What about me?" I sense that he is somehow OK with all of this. The problem is, I don't know if I am.
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