This post is the final installment of a four-part series. Read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
I struggle with balance (and hormones) after the birth of my babies. After Baby Brother was born, I was so focused on establishing breastfeeding, making sure Big Brother didn’t feel left out, and getting whatever scraps of rest I could that Hubby was all but lost to me. I threw myself head first into new motherhood and the rest of the world fell away.
Naturally, this didn’t bolster our marriage. After a brief honeymoon period at the hospital and the first few weeks of Baby Brother’s life, Hubby and I once again all but stopped talking. We lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, and even sat beside each other on the couch, but otherwise, we lived parallel lives. I didn’t actually notice it until our world completely crashed down around us, but we had essentially become roommates who talked a lot about our kids and parenting.
Not surprisingly, our sex life was also in real trouble. I had achieved my successful VBAC, but experienced tearing and hemorrhoids. When I went to my 6-week check up and got the “all clear” to resume sexual activity, I almost cried. I had no desire for sex. My hormones were still all over the place from breastfeeding, I didn’t feel like my vagina was really healed enough for sex, and my marriage felt strained.
I think I can count on two hands the number of times we had sex in Baby Brother’s first 6 months of life. And the times we did actually have sex, I did it out of obligation and guilt instead of desire. Initially after the baby was born, Hubby tried to initiate frequently. I refused frequently. Sometimes I didn’t even say no; I just avoided him until we went to sleep. Non-sexual touch slowly ceased, as I didn’t want any kind of touch to encourage him asking for it. A few times, I even hatefully told him to just take care of it himself.
Our marriage was in a very ugly place, but Satan had us both believing all kinds of lies and our spiritual life was suffering greatly, too.
The final realization that our marriage was actually in trouble was last summer. We decided to take our very first family vacation. We loaded up the car, packed an insane amount of stuff, strapped in the kids, and set out on a 600-mile road trip. I was so excited, because long drives were always times when Hubby and I connected deeply. Something about driving long stretches always enables conversation to flow freely and my husband’s heart to open. I couldn’t wait to reconnect!
By the time we pulled back into our driveway at the end of that week–after having driven more than 1200 miles together–I was absolutely devastated. Numerous times during our vacation I had tried to engage my husband in heart-level conversations, to reignite the emotional intimacy we used to share. Numerous times, he shut me down.
It was at that point I realized that something was wrong. Was it my fault? Had I invested too much in motherhood and not enough in my marriage? Was he angry with me? Where did we lose each other?
Over the next few months, the feeling that something was wrong only grew. Yet anytime I tried, really tried, to connect with my husband, I ran into a stone wall. His heart was heavily guarded. Sure, we still had daily conversations about the kids, work, funny stories, serving at church, and so on. But the conversations stayed there: on the surface.
He rarely tried to initiate sex, so I did a few times because I was desperate to connect with him. However, even our sex life had become confusing and hurtful. After we had sex, I usually felt lonelier than I had before, even if we both had orgasms. All along we were trying to make some major decisions for our family. We were changing churches, discussing returning to the mission field, and even discussing our future plans for adding a third baby to the mix. So I silenced the warning bells in my head and decided that parenting was just a lot and eventually we’d get more sleep and be close again.
Little did I know, my world–and my marriage–was about to explode.
A Beautifully Wrecked Marriage 