Oklahoma Nesties
BlinkingLight1
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Your parents' relationship
Does the example (or lack) of your parents' marriage/relationship affect your marriage? Positively or negatively? Do you think your marriage would be the same regardless of their relationship?
Re: Your parents' relationship
Yes... in a positive way. I want my marriage to be as strong as my parents' marriage. I can certainly see a difference in mine and H's views of marriage and whatnot - his parents got divorced when he was in his teens and his mom took half of everything (plus some) of what was his dad's (retirement, savings, etc), whereas mine have been married for 25+ years.
It's not that H views of marriage are bad or anything, but in his mind it's a "fend for himself" kind of view... where as my view is compromise, share, etc. It's something that we have to constantly work on.
My parents have been married over 35 years. I am a product of parents that stayed together "for the kids" which is largely why I am so pro-divorce when it comes to people being unhappy in their marriage. At one point, when I was in college, I made a list of the things I hated about my parent's marriage - it was very important to me to AVOID all of that. Clearly, their marriage works for them given how long they have been married, but just being around them for any part of time stresses me out due to the constantly bickering and carrying on.
If anything, I modeled the type of marriage I wanted after my grandparent's marriage. Sure, my grandpa was a little sexist and my grandma truly believes women are to be in the kitchen. But they were absolutely, positively in love. SO GROSS in love, even after 50 years. The way they looked at one another? Sigh. They worshipped one another, they were best friends and sure they had spats but they never screamed or hollered at one another. They had a really loving way of communicating with one another. As Ami said, you have to pick your battles and they taught me that, which is why I tend to vent about really piddley stuff HERE because I have to get it out but it is clearly not worth saying anything to DH about (or, if I have said something to him, he is clearly not going to change).
This is my parents' marriage.
My parents divorced when I was 6 (and then again a few years later, since apparently it was never finalized the first time). I never saw one positive thing about that relationship or any of the subsequent marriages that my mom had (my dad never dated again).
I would say that their relationship didn't have a huge effect on my marriage, but I'm not sure that's true. I think my mom taught me that dysfunctional relationships and having a partner who is verbally and emotionally abusive is normal. Growing up I didn't realize that normal people don't scream, cuss, and throw things on the regular. Now I'm downright angry that she exposed us to that, because it's decidedly NOT normal and not how I want to live my life. Unfortunately, I didn't truly appreciate that there really were relationships that weren't like that until the last couple of years.
Kaylee & Cole 06.14.08
8/6/11 First 5k! OG&E Expo Run 34:47
9/3/11 Brookhaven Run 5k 34:18
9/17/11 Healthy Sooners Fun Run 5k 33:38
10/15/11 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 33:31
10/29/11 Monster Dash 5k 32:06 PR!
11/11/11 Veteran's Day Run 11k in Dallas 1:13:15 Instant PR!
1/28/12 Texas Half Marathon 2:38:03 Instant PR!
3/25/12 Earlywine Dash
Yup - I didn't realize this until I was 26 or so...I was engaged to someone and it just dawned me "I CAN NOT LIVE LIKE THIS" - it seriously NEVER dawned on me, until then, that relationships didn't have to be like that. I got into counseling ASAP.....Yuck.
Wendy, like you, I am extremely angry that my parents felt like that kind of behavior was okay. And they still do it - and don't get why I can't stand to be around them!!! (and at the same time, my mother has the balls to criticize MY marriage - arghhh!)
My parents have been happily married for 30+ years. The longer I'm married, the more I realize how much observing their marriage growing up affects mine today.
My mom was always a SAHM, and my parents' idea of gender roles was/is VERY traditional. Dad worked, Mom cooked, cleaned and took care of the kids. That said, my dad is a great man, that's just the way he was raised. He never so much as made a sandwich when I was growing up, though. All of that stuff was Mom's job. No one ever got to pick tv shows except Dad. Dad's opinion was always #1. Mom rarely bought anything for herself b/c she saw it as Dad's money. Just weird stuff like that.
It's mostly affected my marriage in that I have rebelled against those sorts of roles. H is the one who cooks. H works from home, while I'm in an office all day. We share cleaning responsibilities. I spend money more than I probably should. I expect our relationship to be very equal, and it's so different from my parents. While I'm so thankful for their example, I'm glad we're doing things a little differently.
Like pp said, I hope to emulate parts of their relationship. Being raised in a military family was rough because my dad was ALWAYS gone [from ages 3-12, I think he was only there for three birthdays], so it was just me/mom/sis a lot. My parents did fight quite a bit while I was growing up, but they always worked everything out. They've got strong communication, skills that I hope H and I can carry through our marriage. And, even after 27 years, they still really love each other - and have handled the long distance thing [dad's been an overseas contractor for two of the last 3.5 years] really well.
H's parents didn't have that great of a relationship - and I think that affects his views of how he sees marriage. We've done a lot of work on our relationship, and I'm confident that the family setting he grew up in will not repeat in our household...but it still makes me nervous sometimes.
My mom and dad have a pretty healthy, normal relationship. I use them as an example most of the time. I do want to do things a little differently though--my parents aren't overly affectionate toward each other & I like that I do show affection and receive it in front of B (not making out, think hugs, squeezes, kiss here and there). I want him to be an affectionate child/adult and it's important to me that he sees that from us.
I also don't mind that he watch H and I disagree. I never saw my parents disagree on anything growing up, and I thought it was weird. They were like robots almost in how well they got along and made everything work so smoothly. I want B to see that we both have opinions and that we're able to discuss things rationally without being "hush hush" about things or exploding. Communication is so important and I want him to know that you have to work at it...and be able to see it successfully done.