Support Your Partner When She's Ready to Grow

After almost 14 years of marriage, I can honestly and wholeheartedly announce that I have a wonderful husband and chose a perfect partner for me. I’m not sure that I could say this a year and a half ago.

Over the years, I had let my dreams go – my dream was to be a jet-setting international attorney. First, I had my son. He was not in my grand plan, and my then-boyfriend (now-husband) knew that. It was a conscious choice to create a family with our little one, but my adjustment period was… long.

Then, work became a necessity to improve our financial situation. Since our careers required a commute, I chose a more administrative position to be closer to home for our son.

Next, he wanted more children. Just figuring out the schedule for a newborn and third-grader made my head hurt. Ultimately, I stepped out of the workforce altogether.

With our fourth child’s birth, we picked up and moved across the country to have additional family support. I left all I knew to make a happy home for our family.

Let me be clear – I made these choices and was happy to make them. However, when I looked around, I realized that I stopped living for myself. I was living my life to be his wife, the mother to his children, the ying to his yang. I loved a peaceful household, and that’s what I had. I had gloriously merry children, who would only complain that they didn’t have the latest, greatest electronic toy.

My husband had a dutiful wife who cooked and cleaned, maintained an orderly house, and put the kids before all. He was the breadwinner. And sex? I don’t think there were any complaints in that department.

Then I had an awakening moment. I wasn’t living for my best self. I was doing just enough to make everyone else happy but me.

I had let all of my dreams go. As I fell deeper and deeper into a depression, my husband stood by and watched.

He didn’t do it on purpose, but every time he sat comfortably living his life, I felt more and more displaced from mine. I didn’t want to die “just” someone’s mother and someone’s wife. I wanted to live a complete life. I wanted more, and I wasn’t sure that he wanted me to want more.

I wasn’t even sure how to approach him because he thought everything was going well. Why was I so afraid to approach the subject? Because from his point of view, we lived a good life, and I wanted to change it and, for once, be selfish.

The first conversation came as a surprise. As someone who expressed no displeasure in our overall life, the suggestion that we were living less than a perfect life flabbergasted him.

The first conversation was clunky and disjointed, as I wasn’t exactly sure what the actual problem was. I struggled to articulate my frustrations. I just knew that this life wasn’t what I wanted. Between crying and silence, he sat and listened as I expressed all of my feelings.

Getting it off my chest felt good, but not much changed. I didn’t have any action items for him, so things stayed the same.

After sitting in my thoughts and feelings for a while, I came back for round two. This time, I could address things that needed to change – the first of which was I needed alone time. I needed space not to be a mother, wife, or even friend. I just needed space away from everyone. I needed to think about my own needs without interruption from others expressing theirs.

At that point, he purposely took the children out – somewhere, anywhere – for hours at a time. Then he started suggesting that I leave – to a coffee shop or the library for peace and quiet, and he would “handle everything else.”

Next, I let him know how much cooking was just a chore to me. I did it, typically five times a week, but it brought me no joy. He is a much better cook between the two of us, but even more so, he LOVES it. He will dive in, cooking the same dish repeatedly to get it to perfection. Even though we had several conversations along this line in the past, he took it to heart this time. He picked up on cooking more times a week. I’m sure working remotely from Covid helped, and I appreciated the effort.

Our most recent conversation was about the ability to explore, to dive in, and most of all, invest in my dreams. We are not a rich family, but I would feel guilty spending anything more than a few dollars on myself. By this time, he understood the direction I am headed and jumped at the opportunity to support financing the education I needed to get started.

We are not done changing our relationship’s dynamics, but he is open and willing to see what comes next.

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This post is republished on Medium.