My Marriage: The Pandemic Addition

So people (at least a few!) enjoy it when I talk about my marriage. I haven’t talked about it as much lately because things are (surprisingly!) pretty good. There were years when my marriage was steeped in resentment, but not anymore. If the pandemic had happened four years ago I don’t know if my husband and I would have been together at the end of it. I’m very grateful that it happened when our kids were a little older, and we had worked on some of our issues (or they had, over time, mostly resolved themselves).

Having said that, I will say that things are really great. I’m honestly not really sure what they are. I’m not mad at my husband, and I don’t think he’s mad at me. I feel really and truly grateful for all he did this past year to make managing everything possible. He really did step up in so many ways. There really isn’t anything I wish he had done differently. (I honestly don’t know if he feels differently – I remember a while ago when I felt better about the division of labor I found out he was actually mad about it so…)

So, in my mind, the division of labor in our marriage feels more fair than it’s ever been. And yet.. we’re not closer than we’ve ever been. I think mostly we’re just burnt out on each other, tired of each other’s company and tired of being stuck at our house with our kids. But even as our kids went to camp these past two weeks, my husband and I didn’t take advantage of that time to be together. Mostly we just took advantage of the kid-free time to get our own shit done.

Honestly, I think my husband is sick of me. Or better said, I think he’s more sick of me than I am of him.

But I also know he’s more introverted than I am, and that being around everyone ALL DAY EVERY DAY has been harder for him than it has been for me. I’m telling myself that the distance I notice between us is just the necessary space we both need to decompress. I’m not worried about it, actually, but then I wonder if I should be. Is that silly? I guess I wonder if not worrying about it is another kind of apathy and I don’t think apathy, when it comes to one’s supposed closest relationship, is a good thing.

But I’m telling myself it’s fine. I’m telling myself that, eventually, we’ll want to spend time together again. It’s not like we dislike being in each other’s company, we both just kind of don’t care one way or another. He prefers to play video games at night, and he used to do that while I was working until the wee hours. Now he still does that, and I read a book or play a game on my phone. Both of us are fine with the arrangement – it’s not like either one wants the other to initiate time together and worries we’ll be rebuffed. I don’t know. I think we’re both just so, so tired and neither of us even knows what we need to rest and refuel.

Being away with my friends for two nights was wonderful. And I’m taking my kids with my parents for a few days of fun starting tomorrow, so he’ll get some time all alone this week. He’s meeting up with us for the end of the fun (next weekend), and I honestly I just wanted him to skip it because I know he needs time away from all of us, and being with my parents is always stressful for him (and therefore, for both of us), but he insisted on coming so we’ll see how it goes! I really don’t know if the camp stretch at the end of the summer is enough for either of us to decompress in the ways we need to… Maybe by the holidays, if the kids get to stay in school for the entire fall, we’ll be in a better place.

So yeah. My marriage is in a pretty good place when it comes to how *I* feel about the division of labor (and consequently our partnership), but on an interpersonal level it’s not the best it’s ever been. I wonder (now that I wrote it above), if he actually harbors some resentment about how much he had to do this past 18 months. If that’s the case then he’s going to have to get some outside support in working through that resentment because I am TIRED of helping him process his anger about having to participate as much as I do in the child rearing. At one point he said something to the effect of, “when I had kids I didn’t sign up for this” (referring to the complete lack of child care support we were managing), and I had the wherewithal to wait a day or so before I brought it up again and told him that I felt that EXACT SAME WAY for the first five years of motherhood. I don’t think he really got it, but I struggle to understand exactly what his expectations about raising kids were and are, and where those expectations come from, so I can’t really expect him to understand where I’m coming from. It’s taken me a lot of years – and many more blog posts! – to even get an idea.

I have said some things that worry me about how it will all look in the fall, when I’m in charge of all the pick ups and shuttling again (I have expressed trepidation about a return to our pre-pandemic lives (mostly level of busyness) and he has assured me he cannot wait until things are back to “normal”). But right now the plan is for me leave for work early and for him to manage the mornings and if that really happens, I will be much happier than I was when I did all the drop offs and pick ups. Our daughter will also be taking the bus to and from school so that will help immensely (and if she’s not, my husband will have to figure it out because her school starts at 9:30am and mine starts at 8:30am and it’s 30- 45 minutes away).

So that is where my marriage, 17 months into a pandemic that changed almost every aspect of our lives. I feel like we weathered it (as a couple) better than we had any right to – just like every other aspect of the pandemic. I hope that, when the dust settles, I still believe that’s the case.

How did your marriage / partnership / relationship weather the pandemic?