Year #5: The Hardest Year of Marriage Yet

On Friday, Ben and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. When out celebrating on Saturday night (the night we could go out early enough to make it home in time to put our babe to bed) we toasted to our hardest year of marriage yet--to the hardest year of our almost 12-year relationship (!)--and to getting through this past year with our marriage still intact. Honestly, this feels like a big accomplishment. 

In the 12 years that we've been together, Ben and I have been through a lot of ups-and-downs and a lot of the BIG life changes/stressors. For instance, we've weathered the following:

• 4 Years of a long-distance relationship 
• 3 Graduations and "figuring out what to do next" stages 
• Lots of individual moves (2-3 each?) and 4 moves together, the biggest being our move to DC and then our move to Cape Cod 4 years later
• The death of two family members
• Big career changes on both of our parts (numerous career changes on my end and one big one for Ben)
• Getting married
• Adopting a dog [with major issues]
• Buying a house
  
  

...and then we underwent the biggest life change of all, we became parents. If I haven't made it clear enough yet, I'll say it again: this past year of being parents was by far, without question, hands-down, the MOST challenging year of our relationship.

It was way more challenging than the year that Ben was trying to decide what to do after graduating from college (he was a little lost) + I was still in school and studied abroad in France. It was way more challenging than the year that we moved to DC together, moved in together for the first time, and both started over in brand new jobs that neither of us really liked. It was way more challenging than the year that we got married, lost my stepmom, Ben studied for the BAR Exam while working full-time, and we decided to move to Cape Cod.

It was a really hard year. It was one of the best of our marriage, but also one of the hardest. 

What no one tells you when you're pregnant and they're giving you all of the "warnings" is how hard that first year of parenthood can be on a relationship. People tell you that you'll be exhausted, that you'll experience a love you never knew existed, that your baby will bring you and your partner closer, that you'll never have any time to yourself again, that you should go on lots of dates while you still can--but they don't tell you that your relationship will be under more pressure than you could possibly imagine.

They don't tell you that at 2am you'll purposefully hit your sleeping husband IN THE FACE with a pillow because you're so mad that he is sleeping through the baby waking for the 8th time that night and you're not. That you'll snap at each other all of the time because you're both so overwhelmed and sleep-deprived. That in your darkest moments, you'll collapse on the floor, sobbing, and your partner will be too tired or frustrated to comfort you. 

I hope I'm not worrying you; Ben and I are fine, we're still very much in love, and we're SO happy that we had Charlie Mae, but this year was the brightest of days, the most loving of days, and also the darkest of days all in one. Emotions ran high, quality time together ran low, and Charlie Mae came first. We knew that having a baby would be a big change, but we didn't really know what that meant. 

It wasn't that Charlie Mae as an individual made our lives hard, it was the reconfiguring of our already full lives that made it hard; it was the challenge of piecing together our busy (and different) work schedules, childcare issues, financial changes (I'm now working way less than before), and childrearing obstacles while also being sleep-deprived and having no time to take care of ourselves anymore that made it so hard. 

So on Saturday, as we ate one of our first baby-less dinners in months, we talked about how hard this past year has been, but we also laughed together, made fun of ourselves/each other, and enjoyed one another's company in a way that reminded us both of how we acted before we were parents--before we had someone else's wellbeing hanging in the balance between us and so many more logistics and questions to discuss.

Our anniversary date night made me excited about this next year of our marriage as we continue to emerge from the baby fog, reconnect, and remember how much fun we have together. It also made me so thankful that our relationship was strong enough to weather the storm of this past year, and that we can look back on it and feel proud that we went through yet another big life challenge together. 

I now truly know what people mean when they say that relationships are hard and take real work. Or as my dad always says when quoting one of his psychologist mentors, "the hardest thing in the world is another person."

If you're in the thick of it now, or if your relationship has also taken a beating in the first year of your child's life, know that you're not alone and that things do get easier and better.

And at some point in the near future you won't have that 2am wake-up call anymore; or if you do, you will have the wherewithal to stop yourself from slamming that pillow into your partner's sleeping face and instead, remember how much you love that person in bed next to you, even if he can seemingly sleep through anything (or is he faking it so you'll get up? It's SO hard to know...). 

Happy anniversary, Ben!