Trouble in Paradise
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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.
Agree to Disagree
My husband and I have been married for almost 10 months, but together as a couple for over 7 years. We barely fought before the wedding... but now it just seems like we aren't compatible anymore... We don't want to do anything the other one wants to, disagree on everything, constantly pick fights with one another, or blow silly things out of proportion. I am at my wits end and we have talked about temporary separation to see if that might help. Is this just a newly wed phase or what is going on? I'm at a total loss.
Re: Agree to Disagree
A recent example was yesterday, DH came home from work and just seemed off. We had plans to go to a Relay For Life meeting, then go to the swimming pool with friends after. When I was getting ready to leave, he said he was tired and didn't watnt to go to the meeting, but would meet me at the pool and wanted to know what we were doing for dinner before pool. I told him with the time frame of the meeting and the pool, we couldn't really have dinner when he was hoping. He got irritated about dinner, and I got irritated he bailed on the meeting. The meeting ended earlier than expected, so I was able to come home and make a quick dinner. Then DH was being a slow poke about getting ready for the pool and we ended up being a half hour late. The car ride was quiet, but pretty tense because we were both mad. We talked about it later and agreed we were both just being ridiculous, but it really does make me mad when he says he is going to do something with me, but if it doesn't go the way he wants it seems like he purposely slows us down or bails last minute.
More often than not, one of us will suggest we go out and do something like go for a walk or to a park or the movies or just any place that isn't sitting around at home... The other agrees, but then starts working on something else and we never actually do what was suggested. That usually leads to a fight or hard feelings. Not to mention, DH seems to have no real concept of time because he tries to overpack our time together with constant, non-stop activity that isn't even realistically possible. So when I tell him we can't do all of it, he gets mad without understanding we seriously just do not have the time to do it all. Or I get mad because my activities get pushed off. Or if I try to plan an activity packed day, he gets mad and says that I plan too much stuff and we have no time for each other. It is like we cannot find a middle ground when making plans.
Ah! My FI plans lots of stuff without realizing that those activities will take longer than he thinks. Do you ever just plan what YOU want to do and go do it? Do you do everything together?
I'd say something like, "I feel ______ when we are late to activities or don't do them all together because of poor time management." I would also just start doing things you want to do and stop waiting around for him to make time. His priorities aren't necessarily your priorities.
It sounds like some marriage counseling could help your communication though. I bet he has always been like this though and it's probably going to be very hard behavior to change.
Off-topic, but is there any particular reason why YOU had to make dinner? If I was at a meeting (whether or not DH had been expected to go at any point in time) and he stayed home, dinner would be waiting for me when I got back. Neither of us waits on the other, we just pick up slack where needed.
I really don't have any advice on the other issues, other than trying to reconnect with more quality time vs. quantity of activities. Good luck.
I'm usually a lurker, but this sounded so much like my DH I thought I'd jump in. DH is always packing things in to a crammed schedule. SOmetimes, he's actually right, and I'm glad that he pushed me to get more done because we were more productive that way. Sometimes, though, what he expects will take 15 minutes takes more like an hour. We've managed to find ways around this, though... For example, instead of telling your DH at the beginning that you can't fit in what he wants to fit in, say, "Okay let's go for it, but no matter what, by 9pm, I want to sit down and relax." or "We need to leave here by 7 to make it to the movie, so do whatever you want as long as we're both ready by then." My Dh and I will typically plan a lot of things but mutually agree on a stopping point. He may lose track of time and almost go over that point, but if we've agreed to leave for a movie at 7, I'll simply stop what i'm doing at 6:55, walk into his home office, and say, "all right, ready to go?" At which point, he'll either say "yup, I'm done," or look at me sheepishly and say, "whoops, lost track of the time, glad you stopped me." This way, he doesn't feel attacked because I give him the benefit of the doubt at the beginning (which he does sometimes deserve) and he's willing to stop working during those times when he does overplan.
It doesn't sound like you guys have any super-serious issues. Marriage can be a stressful transition, even if you lived together beforehand. Maybe that's why all these little annoyances are starting to either grow or just feel worse. If you can sense a situation that's about to go wrong, try to address it before it gets to a certain point. As long as you can both work together to do this, you should be fine.
No, no particular reason I made dinner. He wasn't expecting me to come home after the meeting, so that's why he didn't make anything. Actually I came home to him folding backed-up laundry, so that was a pleasant surprise. I do tend to cook more because DH has less experience in the kitchen, but he is willing to cook when I don't feel like it.
And thank you for the input ladies... DH and I have been talking a lot. We think it is just an adjustment period/freak out on both our parts because now that things are "official," the little annoyances we used to ignore suddenly seem more important even though they shouldn't be. I never expected marraige to change our mindsets on how things should be, but it defintiely did. We need to get back to where we were before.