Enduring relationships
What makes for a lasting relationship? Open University researchers are leading a new project looking for a change at positive aspects of life and what we can learn from them. Parenthood is perhaps one of the biggest challenges to modern relationships. Lack of sleep, feeling totally overwhelmed and generally pulled in every direction are not good recipes for romance.
My partner does not, indeed, believe in the whole concept of romance. He hates Valentine's Day and there has only been one year when he felt compelled to do something for it. This happened to be the year when I was followed home from work by someone in the car and had to shake them off and bolted into the house in panic. This somewhat spoiled the candle-lit atmosphere he had been trying to create. Since then, nothing. Well, the occasional tongue in cheek card, which is quite something for a man who believes cards are the Devil's own creation. I have never dared to do anything for him as he spends the entire month leading up to Valentine's Day complaining about it.
In recent months we have been so exhausted that we have barely had time to look up at each other and the bags under our eyes are so saggy that looking up is becoming a huge effort these days. He comes home from work [if the car is actually working and he is not stranded somewhere or waiting for the bus for eons] into what must appear to be a kind of bedlam, but which for me is actually relative calm after I have dealt with pre-dinner hysteria involving some sort of mountaineering escapade with cushions, the baby sliding down the stairs on his tummy at full pelt and the kittens snaffling everyone's after school snack.
There then follows homework, baths, a "show" [I use this as an all-embracing term for musical, dramatic and other activities which we are invited to observe and comment on] and eventually bedtime after several cuddling sessions with daughter three, a chat with daughter one about Blackberry addiction and at least 20 kisses for a rather paranoid daughter two [plus a check under her bed, the baby's cot and sundry other areas of the house for "robbers"].
By this time it is around 9pm and I still haven't said more than two words to my partner. We sit down to have dinner. We're so hungry we mainly just eat and occasionally my partner comments on the need, for health reasons, to eat earlier and I comment on the sheer impossibility of actually achieving this without being interrupted a million times by small people which does not make for a relaxing meal [and possibly makes for indigestion]. About 10 minutes after eating dinner I notice that my partner is asleep and that the entire conversation I have had with him about world politics [where I attempt to solve the current crisis in capitalism] has gone unheeded. He revives himself after about 10 minutes while I am checking emails on the laptop and has a long conversation about why Depeche Mode and Masterchef are the mainstays of modern culture. I keep typing. We retire to bed as soon as the baby wakes up.
You might say there is very little communication going on there. You might be right. But it is the things that don't involve talking which I think communicate feeling when you are dog tired and have no spare seconds in your day. He tells me to have a bath after getting the kids to bed even though he knows that will mean he has dinner even later than usual [even though he lets me know that I may be contributing to his untimely death by so doing]. He makes my favourite meal knowing that I would eat tuna sandwich every night if left to my own devices [indeed it was he who rescued me from this very fate. I did alternate with macaroni cheese and broccoli every so often as part of a health drive]. He looks after the kids while I catch up on emails. He lets me lie in occasionally if the baby has been up all night. He asks me how my night went and then pretends that his was just as bad "to keep me company". We also have fairly realistic expectations of life and don't demand the moon. A little bit more sleep wouldn't go amiss, though.
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I never understand the meal issue you describe and which seems so common to many of my friends too. I always used to cook a meal for me, husband and 4 children. Then I would eat mine with the children at 5pm and husband ate his, sometimes reheated, at 8pm when he got in from work. If tea was casserole, everyone was a winner. If it was fish fingers and chips, then husband was the loser and sometimes opted for tuna sandwich instead. If I had a baby, I ate mine whilst feeding her in high chair. The only odd result of all this, is that even now, I always eat everything with a spoon, even roast dinners, even in public. What is the point of hanging on to dinner with your husband??
Anonymous | Report this comment
It may sound odd, but I don't mind waiting till later and I find it more relaxing to eat with him than the kids and it is a good time to talk, even if not much. Maybe when the kids are older and one of them in particular is not spraying the table with water, throwing food at the walls and generally having fun [but not eating]...
Mandy Garner | Report this comment