Describe your romantic relationships (spouse, significant other, dating).
If you are single than your closest relationship (friend, child, parent, other relative).
Just sort of curious how relationships work for other people, and I realize they are all somewhat different. I'll add mine later, since I am still thinking on how to word it. I am always interested on how other people live their life or how their life is set up, and relationships can be part of that.
Romantically? I've been divorced for almost a year, separated from him for about a year and a half. I'm dating someone and we've been together for almost six months. It's a very relaxing, easy relationship which is great and new for me. We both have kids and custody schedules to juggle, but it's working out ok so far. I envision it getting more serious in the new year when he tries to switch up his custody days to align with mine more.
Next closest relationship? My best friend who I met in college, so we're going on about 13 years of friendship. We met through mutual friends, became roommates and are very close. She's who I called at 2 AM the night ExH told me about the affair. We're that level of close. I would say I have a group of about a half dozen women who I met in college that are all like sisters to me, but she's by far the closest.
I’m married. DH and I met 16 years ago this month. We’ve been married for about 14.5 years. We still like each other and enjoy spending time together. We seem to partner pretty well most of the time.
I have been married to DH for 14 years, been together for 16, and best friends for 25. He is my favorite person in the whole world, and I really try to remember to be grateful for a love like ours. We have our fair share of relationship "blahs" but we get along really well. I would say in all our years of being together, we have only ever had like 4 fights. I pray all the time that my girls marry a guy just like their dad; hardworking, loyal, and supportive of a wife that loves her career.
Dh and I met our freshman year of college on my 18th birthday and hit it off instantly. Started dating 6 months later and got married right after I finished grad school. We’ve been married 16.5 years and together 21. We both work more than full time in demanding careers and see each other as true partners. We both want the best for our family and are both high achieving go getters. When one is busier at work the other pitches in and we know that no matter what we have each other’s backs and can get through anything together. I end up doing more kid and home stuff by quite a bit (75-80% at least) but he works longer hours.
We do bicker more than we would like (don’t we all?) but it’s minor and we are on the same page 99% of the time. Usually it’s because he says “we should” by which he means “I should” because he doesn’t have time or capacity to do anything extra and I get super defensive and dismissive of his dumb thoughts. Haha. Most of the bickering is kid related now because kids are stressful and you can’t control their thoughts and actions! he’s stricter but not around often to enforce and is more likely to blow up at them whereas he says I coddle them and am too lenient. He’s obviously wrong.
In the end I feel super lucky to have met young and found such a great guy. He’s kind, committed, loving, hard working, loyal, and smart and cares deeply for his family. We are a team and partnership and are both all in.
ETA. I should have added. We are very happy together and I can’t imagine life without him. While I dont think any relationship can be perfect ours is pretty darn good.
I’m much worse at friends. I don’t have a lot of capacity and time to invest in a bff type of relationship. I would love to have that but really lack time. I do what I can and maintain a lot of friendships but nothing overly deep. My mom is probably my closest friend though she’s definitely my mom.
Married since 2008, DH and I are struggling. Communication is our biggest problem and a lot of that is DH twisting my words around to mean something else. Something as take the trash out can turn into an big blow up becuase DH takes it as he can't do anything right so why bother all becuase I asked him to do something. DH is in therapy and on therapy nights every Tuesday DD and I find it best not to talk to him at all as we never know what his mood will be after.
My BFF and I have been BFF since 12/14 years old. We've kept our friendship alive over extremely long distances and are the friends that can read between lines and finish each others sentences. We mainly communicate by email and our daily emails have gotten to be more like weekly/biweekly emails as life with kids has gotten in the way.
Post by traveltheworld on Nov 5, 2019 12:13:50 GMT -5
I've been with DH for almost 18 years, married for 14, and are generally very happy. I sometimes wish he has more ambition and can shoulder more financial responsibility, but then I remember that he's incredibly loyal, loving, supports me unconditionally, and is an awesome Dad. He's the guy whose face still lights up every time he sees me.
My BFF lives in a different city and we text a few times a week and get on the phone for a long conversation every month or so. I've struggled with making close friends - when you are working so much and have kids, it's hard. I'm envious of women who have close girlfriends.
Post by covergirl82 on Nov 5, 2019 12:15:47 GMT -5
DH and I met a little over 15 years ago at a work party. I was fresh out of college with a stale college boyfriend, and the night I met DH I knew he was going to be my husband. We've been married for 13 years as of July (2019). While we don't have the same amount of "fun" we did before kids, we still love each other very much and wouldn't want to be with anyone else. (I don't think I would want to be with another man if DH were to pass away young or before me.) We get along really well and rarely argue (and when we do it's because he tends to be harder on the kids than me). He's a great dad for someone who had a poor example of a dad growing up. The kids and I are the most important people to him, and he's a good worker and successful in his career, which has provided us with a lot of "extras."
Post by supertrooper1 on Nov 5, 2019 12:19:39 GMT -5
I've been dating a great guy for just over 4 months now. He's so easy going and it aligns more with my personality. Our most difficult thing right now is figuring out where to eat. It's a complete 180 from my marriage that was difficult at every point. I was married for 8 years, together for 19 years. He was married for 22, widowed for 1. We're both at the same stage of life, figuring out who we are as individuals.
DH and I met almost 15 years ago online, and we've been married for 13 years next week. We met as we were both coming out of bad relationships - I've been engaged, and he was briefly married (less than 6 months from wedding to legal separation). We'd both been hurt, we were both cautious, but we both wanted to make it work.
We are not romantic, no are we particularly affectionate. I think we're good partners. I understand and support his career, and he understood and supported my need to walk away from mine. We certainly have issues, and nothing's perfect. We had some huge issues a couple years back, and before that he did quite a bit of damage to the relationship that he refuses to acknowledge. He has tried to change his ways and improve things, but I'm forever on guard. But in many aspects, we really are good partners... but it's really hard to describe it.
I think that if many people had a view inside our relationship, it would feel more business-y than romantic. We do have fun together when we can block out a lot of life's asteroids hurtling toward us. DD1's issues have taken a toll on us, and we often disagree on how to approach things. I'm at a point where I'm so burnt out that I'm finding it difficult to handle her at all. This means that the time he gets with me is when I'm at my absolute worst. Lucky guy.
Regarding friendships... I don't have many. I try to keep in touch with people, but I feel that many of my relationships are very surface level. I've recently rekindled a relationship with my high school BFF. He's had some tragic losses in his life that caused him to reach out, and we're in similar situations in life now - he's a SAHD with a spouse that works 80 hour weeks pretty consistently, like me. We work as good sounding boards for each other. But he lives 3-4 hours away, so we can't see each other much.
With all the crap that's happened at DDs' school, I'm not looking for more friendships there. I'm just trying to stay afloat. I can't cultivate anything right now.
DH and I met at my first job out of college 16 years ago, and we've been married for 10 years. We're definitely great friends and I sometimes joke that I keep him around for the intellectual stimulation - he's super smart and thinks about things really differently than I do - though I do think he's pretty hot too. He's an incredible Dad and works hard for our family. A woman I know was gushing on facebook recently about her husband watching their kids while she went away for the weekend and he was getting all this praise about being super Dad in the comments - and all I could think was "my husband takes care of 3 small children on his own at least once a week because of my work travel, and doesn't expect any praise for it." A few years after we met, we moved 600 miles away from home, and then a couple years later, 3,000 miles from home, and I think the fact that we've left all our family and friends and made new friends in two different cities meant that we learned to rely on each other a lot, and we're very happy hanging out as just the two of us.
He does have some anxiety/depression that rears its head sometimes, mainly in him not having energy and not taking initiative to leave the house and do things that make him happy. That's probably our biggest issue. I'm fine getting out and doing stuff alone with the kids, or meeting up with friends while he recharges, so it mostly works for us. He has really matured over the time that we've been together, and he's better at taking care of himself now, and a lot of things that were bigger issues in our relationship years ago are less of a big deal now, because of his perspective changing and us having better communication.
Other than DH and our kids, I'm close to my parents and my sister. It's important to me to maintain friendships and I have a few groups of close friends (one group from growing up, one group from when DH was in business school, one group from adult/professional life, and one best friend from college), and I'm good about staying in touch and getting together with them regularly. Like this year I went back to my high school reunion to see the growing up friends, did a girls trip with the adult/professional friends, and we all met up with college best friend's family for a vacation over Labor Day weekend. Last year I saw the b-school group at that reunion, which we all go to every 5 years. I feel pretty good about how much I get to see my close friends in the context of a demanding full time job and 3 kids. I like to plan travel, so I'm usually the one planning the trips and finding something that works for everyone so we can get together.
Post by greenmonkey1 on Nov 5, 2019 12:55:25 GMT -5
DH and I have been married 10 years and together for 13. I'd say we're struggling right now, but it's really just me. DH's view is that everything is fine (except we should have more sex) despite me telling him I'm having a hard time with the way our relationship is functioning. He really needs a new job and I am holding out hope that better work-life balance for him will make an impact. If not I'm left with the possibility that the problems we have are just his personality. That possibility scares me.
My BFF is my older sister. We don't get to see as much of each other right now because of kids with opposite schedules, but we talk/text regularly. I have a close friend from HS who lives close enough to do dinner every few months. It would be awesome if we lived closer to each other because the kids get along well as do our husbands. I've been trying to make some friends now that kids are in school, but that has been slow going.
Dh and I have been together for almost 21 years. We have been married for 13 years. We definitely fight more than some people on here, I would say at least once a month. Over the years thought the fights are less severe because we are better at ignoring things that might provoke us or leaving the room to calm down. DH has struggled with depression through out our relationship. He inherited depression from both his mom and dad, and also has situational issues. He constantly seems to be struggling to figure things our or work things out but mostly with himself/ career. He has been in counseling almost 2 years, and recently switched counselors because of an insurance change. He is better but not 100%, and he has stress in his career. I wouldn't say our relationship is easy, but I also wouldn't say it is super difficult either. We are still friendly and have fun together. Sometimes I just don't know what he is thinking though still after all these years. We have our moments of driving each other crazy. He can be overly yelly with the kids. Sometimes I understand it because they are being boogerish, and sometimes I am like what is the problem, can you explain it to me? He can get cranky when tired (can't we all?), but does better at trying to notice it and apologize for it. Part of me is looking forward to going on adventures together when the kids are out of the house, but I also don't want them to grow up or time to go faster (except January/ February which I hate).
I guess my next closest relationship has always been my mom, but she does have those mom moments of being overbearing. I am not especially close to my sister because we are very different but she is always there for me. My friendships have changed a lot from high school, college, work friends, and by location. I don't think I really have a best friend. I am friendly with some of the moms and our neighbor, and a friend from college, but none are that super close BFF type. I haven't had that since 2009, and haven't really wanted to go there again especially with work and young kids and a husband, it wasn't a priority. Maybe friends will be a priority again one day, maybe not. That being said, I do like getting out of the house and being social occasionally.
DH and I met our junior year of college, started dating pretty quickly, moved in together pretty soon after starting to date, got married after 2 years, and have been married 22 years. For the first 16 years, I would have described our marriage like the pp who said they were best friends and had a perfect marriage. Then DH did phenomenal damage to our relationship and we have never recovered. Now, we are partners with kids who live in the same house, but I’ll never trust him again. We don’t fight. We never did. But what I envision for my best life looks pretty much exactly opposite what DH sees as his best life. I’m working through how I feel about that and if we can compromise enough to be happy.
My next closest person is my BFF since 7th grade. She is my rock.
Post by ilovelucyvv on Nov 5, 2019 20:05:47 GMT -5
DH and I have been together for 12 years, married for 8. We are like fire and ice in terms of our personalities. We are more accepting of our differences now than we have been in the past. We watched BIL’s marriage crumble this past year and that has really influenced our extended family dynamics because it was a really traumatic breakup and it brought H and I closer together.
Post by erinshelley21 on Nov 6, 2019 8:44:45 GMT -5
DH and I have been together for 11 years (we were off and on for 7 months before that) and married for 8. We went through some heavy stuff right out of the gate so we had to lean on each other really early. His best friend passed away 1 month after we started dating after the off and on and then someone on his volunteer FD passed away 2 months after that and he left for college the day after the funeral. We thought the hard stuff was over for a while but the joke was on us. 2 years in and my parents got divorced and then my dad died a few months later and it's been a shitstorm ever since. Our relationship and marriage has been fine, just everything outside of it has been difficult. It caused stress in our marriage but once we removed all of the outside stressors things have been great. Even remodeling the house and living with his mom. We've gotten into 2 arguments and that's it. We work well together and I don't feel like we are just partners or roommates. We are good about putting each other first and that helps tremendously.
Post by HeartofCheese on Nov 6, 2019 17:55:17 GMT -5
Most significant was XH, but it was a one-way deal. Capable of being great friends, but he was a terrible, terrible husband and father. Not someone I wanted in my support system.
Now most significant is my parents and my BFF. I've discovered that a lot of the ways that I feel uncomfortable around everyone else - I do not feel that way with them. E.g., getting gifts, asking/accepting help, checking in inconsistently, doing random things for them, teasing. I feel completely myself around them and like my true self is someone they value and respect. I am constantly trying to make them happy and do things for them, and I feel completely comfortable doing so. No fear of being taken advantage of or acting like someone I don't know.
My husband and I have been together for about 12 or 13 years, married for 6 and a bit. We met like 16 years ago when a girl that I was friends with called me up and asked me to ‘chaperone’ a date that she had with a guy she had asked out at work. She was worried that he was going to turn out to be awful and wanted backup. They dated for close to 2 years, and then split. He and I became good friends over that period. She and I had a falling out and he and I ended up together. He’s a great person- kind, gentle, caring, and supportive, at least in theory. We genuinely enjoy being around one another and I feel safe with him. We have had our issues, for me mainly around sex since we very rarely have it. I worry that we’re venturing into ‘friends’ territory vs partners. That being said, I’m so tired most days by the end of the day that sitting on the couch with a glass of wine and watching Netflix is kind of all I can fathom doing. I do get frustrated that most of the house stuff falls on me, but I think that I just have to be better at designating and letting go. He’s willing, but I get frustrated when things take too long, etc.
I am married. We are about to celebrate 6 years of marriage and an 11 year relationship. I will say the past year has been really hard on me. He hasn't done anything differently, but going from one child to two children has really taken a toll on me and he is a father to four. The majority of the weekend parenting is falling to me because our kids are too little to participate in the older kids activities and that is literally the only time he has to see them. Then his part time job is now demanding more and more of his time with a deployment looming in Jan. I am tapped out. Again this is nothing he is doing wrong, but is the reality of our life right now. I know that if the tables were turned he would be there for me as well.
DH is a rock and supports me however he can, he is my best friend and the first person I want to hang out with. He is also a great father to our too little ones and he is a present as he can be for the older two when you live 3.5 hours away.
With DH being gone all the time I have found a couple of friends. One that I met about 3 years ago and has become probably my best friend outside of my marriage. We are actually going to harry potter world together.
xctsclrx, not sure if finances are an issue, but we have a weekly babysitter for the weekends, and it has helped out a lot. I wonder if something like that would allow you to occasionally spend time with him and the older kids while the younger ones are napping on the weekends. You could also keep that person through the deployment. We found ours on sittercity or care, and found that offering weekly hours (4 hours a week) and good pay helped recruit and retain them.