Do you have any friends that are constantly saying shit you didn't really think of but once it gets in your head you can't stop thinking about it? Well I do and as annoying as it is he always makes me think, whether I agree with him or not. I think this is a good thing. It is super cool to have a guy friend who does this because their perspective is totally different. My inclination is to always assume he is wrong or his thinking is jaded or skewed in some manner... but often it is not. Last night we were chatting about our failed marriages, a common topic for us it seems, and he started talking about how women become co-dependant on their children. It irritated me the minute he said it, I am always getting onto him about sweeping generalizations about women. Guys who have been hurt tend to make them alot. His point was that this is a big factor in why marriages fail. When women become mothers their husbands needs tend to get put on the back burner and life revolves around the kids. Well, yes I have heard this and I do not completely disagree, but my situation was the complete opposite. And it irritates the crap out of me that I never really thought about it the way he put it. (Which I will tell him, because we are friends and it will inflate his giant male ego a little coming from me. But hey, we can all use that once in awhile)
So here's the deal. I am sure there are countless men out there that can relate to the above scenario. But after I started really thinking about it this is exactly one of the big problems I faced in my marriage but in reverse of the way it normally happens. After we had kids is really when our relationship started changing drastically. Now I know you are saying "Well, umm, yeah... what did you think was going to happen???" I know, I know but it wasn't the way I thought it would be and it just got worse over time. In a nutshell my husband always, from kid one, put the kids before me and our marriage. I knew it at the time but I felt so guilty for even thinking about being pissed about it. After all he was being a great, hands on , loving, doting daddy... with just about every spare second he had. Any other spare time was usually allotted for friends and I was most often the distant third. By the time I started actually saying hey... what about me??? I think that he was so set in his pattern that it was hard to change it. Would have taken a serious commitment on his part and his response was more often than not, just plan a date, get a sitter, tell me what you want to do. What I wanted was for him to do all of that. Maybe I never said it but I think I did. He was just not that way, not the planner. I wonder if there are men out there that try to get their wives out and away from the kids with no success or little interest? I think this must be somewhat typical as I know I have heard men say it, pretty sure I have seen men complaining about it on Oprah a time or two. But how often does this happen to women? Is it really a co-dependency as my friend R says? And what does that really mean? I think what it really is/was in my case was my husband thinking that the parent child relationship is the most important one in the family. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! The most important relationship in the family is that of the husband and wife. From that, whether it is good or bad, the tone is set for the life of the family. If you fail to put it first and it fails, there will be no more family. You end up with a big fat miserable divorce. So, thanks to my pal R I think about this shit. It's too late for me now but I think this is a good lesson to learn. If, for any reason you put anything or anyone before your marriage the chances of making it work are pretty slim, sadly even if it's your kids. Lesson learned.
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