Count on me to send you positive vibes come the day, whether you post or not.

I think you’ve got one step up on a lot of people

Like you and Paul, my husband and I rarely fight. Not that we aren’t assholes to each other now and then, it just seems like we take turns. When someone’s being prickly and cranky, the other person is patient and let’s it go. Rarely do our prickly mood coincide, and when they do, we generally are careful not to engage with each other.

I think that we do a good job of civility at those times because our 2 year old doesn’t seem to notice them. She does notice and did get upset when we were having heated discussions about current events or politics- even though we were agreeing with each other. We had to time out to explain to her that we weren’t fighting or mad, we were just having a conversation. So now when we get heated she asks if we’re having a conversation and she puts her Little People and farm animals in conversational groupings and says, “They’re having a conversation!”

Also like you guys, we didn’t find the first year of marriage tough. We cruised through the post-partum period with only a few tears brought on by a hubby who would rather play video games than come to bed so I could get a little sleep before the baby woke up again. Even the process of relocating, living in my parents basement with an infant all while we purchased a house was barely a bump in the road.

I would go so far as to say that our marriage isn’t hard. It isn’t work. It’s pretty much a respite and a reward. For whatever reason, I can just be myself with all my warts and bitchiness, and it’s A-OK. Maybe it’s because the vast majority of the time something about him makes me want to be a good friend/wife/mother. It’s not hard to bite my tongue and be tactful and constructive when broaching touchy subjects. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s an awesome friend/husband/father.

In reading some coverage of the article I linked to above, one of the articles said that the average couple is unhappy in their marriage for SIX YEARS before they seek help like marriage counseling. SIX YEARS! How can you go around being unhappy for that long?! Before we were even married, I made my husband promise that the moment being together wasn’t a respite, the moment we’d rather be somewhere else than with each other, it was time to get counseling. We decided that we wouldn’t wait until things between us were too far gone to save, or harder to save. We’d nip problems in the bud.

Both sets of our parents are still married. Happily so, although I’m sure there were rough patches in their marriages and I know my parents have certain issues that bother them. I know that I learned from my parents’ marriage stuff that I wanted to emulate and stuff that I definitely wanted to avoid. I think the stuff I want to emulate is just as important as the stuff I want to avoid at all costs. In that regard, your parents’ relationship was a model of sorts, and you weren’t totally unequipped for marriage, even if you were missing one side of the coin.

When I hear of couples breaking up- whether bloggers I follow or friends of mine- I’m pretty much always shocked, especially when they have kids. I appreciate that you can never know what goes on in another couple’s relationship, and you can never know how you’d react until in their exact situation, I can’t help but wonder what I would do. I just can’t fathom letting a marriage wither away. I don’t even know if I could end my marriage in the case of infidelity. While it would be very hard to recover from, there is so much good that would be worth salvaging.

Nervousness is good if it motivates you!

I’m wishing you good luck!

Beneath the surface frustration, though, there is a strong sense of gratitude and joy. I love so much about my baby girl, and being her mama. I just liked the refreshing view that I wasn’t alone in not loving every.single.second. I’m really looking forward to getting past this stage (or really, sleeping in 5 hour chunks or more!) and enjoying more of these moments.

But also, I like this post because if I wasn’t in that camp, it would be nice to know that I wasn’t alone in loving all the moments. In being caught up in the emotional joy that I am lucky enough to be blessed with spit up-clothes and diaper blowouts. And no, that’s, not sarcasm, I think there are many women (especially if they’ve struggled with infertility) that would be so, so thankful for every single second. That’s just not me. But I’m glad there’s a “you” that they can identify with! I just enjoy that there’s options

I make little money, but my childcare situation is so good here that I can’t leave- I don’t want to. I get to bring her in on Mondays and Fridays! How awesome is that. My husband works a lot to put money in the bank, which sucks. But I get to see him work, which a lot of people don’t get to do with husbands who work all the time. Even though his absences are felt, our marriage is strong and I love him more every day, it could be worse. I could be trapped in a loveless marriage like my folks.

I consider myself lucky. As a kid I wanted few things: I wanted love, I wanted to have a happy marriage. I wanted to be a mother. And I wanted a kitten. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

As a parent, I try not to make light of issues other people have while parenting. Things I say personally may be misconstrued as something else, which is really not fun. I hate when people try to know my marriage, my family, and judge me on what I put out there, so I don’t ever intentionally do that to another parent.. I could complain more about how Piper naps like, a half an hour max, but at the end of the day, it’s so far from my mind that I don’t think to post about it because it’s a non-issue for me. I’m not trying to cover anything up about her difficulty-wise, it’s just that she changes so much on a day to day basis that by the time I remember to complain about her recent habit of putting crap up her nose, she stops and I had forgotten what it was I was so annoyed about (at the time).

I really appreciate your comment, and all the comments I have received!

The time does move by so quickly and I had a similar moment to your onesie moment when I looked back at videos from my oldest girl’s 2nd year and cried because she’s changed much.

I feel like I’ve savored even more moments since reading the Carpe Diem post because it helped free me from feeling bad for not savoring every single moments.