Part 3 in the Lost and Found series.
The cycle of married life for us and many others has been:
- Two of you
- Nappies
- Childhood
- Return to the two of you
The question is when you return to—the two of you—are you happy? Is you lost and found story complete.
When you lose yourself in the nappy or childhood stage, it is easy not to focus on your relationship with your partner. Children are a distraction with wants and needs to be addressed. You can both work together giving them a full and rewarding life and forget about yourselves. However, there is always a point when children no longer want to spend time with their parents. They want their independence and this is healthy. This is when you return to being a couple again.
Suddenly you have lots of time together—no distractions. For us, this happened around the time of my 50th birthday. It was a perfect time for us to take stock of our life and make plans for what we want for the next 50 years—you never know. Questions we asked ourselves included:
- What was on our bucket list?
- Where did we want to travel if possible?
- Did we want to continue to live in the same home?
- How did we want to spend our time both together and apart?
- Did we want to retire in the city or the country?
- What did we consider to be our role in any possible grandchildren’s lives
You should have seen the surprise on the children’s faces when we told them of our possible plans. What about us? Its interesting how in their minds it is okay for them to be actively considering moving out and getting an independent life, but not their parents.
As you grow back into married life—the two of you again—everything you learnt from the family years makes a solid foundation. But a foundation doesn’t build a house. You need to make new memories and experiences with your partner to build your new, solid married life home. The children are making their own lives which we get to visit and they get to visit ours. Even if we all physically live in the same house—our lives need to be seperate.
Personally, I am happy to be back in married life. Only needing to consider my husband in my plans. Now all the things that we have missed for twenty years have returned, dinners out, weekends away and my favourite—overseas travel and new adventures together. The other advantage for me is the hours I spend writing and blogging—neither of these passions were possible in the nappy or childhood phases of my life.