making the marriage thing work

There are a lot of blogs that talk about families.

I started this blog to keep a scrapbook/memento of my first child. It's fun to write about her milestones, how she makes me so happy and how fun it is to be a mom. 

What I've noticed is that nobody talks about how hard it all is. 

I never wanted to put my personal stuff on the internet. I only talk about my relationship with my husband with close friends and select family. The thing I wonder is, if more of us talked about the difficulty of marriage, would we not find that we are all having the same problems? Isn't a good marriage worth working at? Worth countless compromises, talks, and negotiations? 

My husband is my best friend and we spent the first 7 years of our relationship being affectionately selfish little kids. Doing what we wanted with or without each other and having lots of fun. Enter baby. She might be the best kid in the world but we can't be selfish anymore. We have responsibilities.

Joe and I started what we call "dealz with the devilz" (which must be said in a ridiculous gollum-like voice) to start a conversation about wheeling and dealing responsibilities. Who is going to feed Emmy, bathe her, change her diaper, put her to bed, wake her up, play with her (you get the idea). We sometimes miss our "me" time so we try to make deals so that one of us gets to watch tv or surf the internet while the other one gives Emmy attention. I hear a lot of, "well I did this so you have to do that". I can respond by bringing up money and bills. Argue what's fair based on what I did earlier in the day. We get frustrated because things aren't always working out "fair". 

Our friends are mostly still single or newly-married, without kids. They still have a night life and are kind enough not to write us off just because we have a kid. But you can't find a sitter in less than 24 hours. So one of us has to stay home. We wheel and deal about that too.

It was getting to the point that our marriage was a bargain. 

Everything had a value, a cost and a reward. It was making me sick and I started resenting my husband. I wasn't innocent but how do you stop something like that? 

I am literally asking that question. We have talked about it. We are both unhappy and want to get out of the rut but it's so hard. My mom suggested that we both just give 100% instead of looking for 50. I think that's good advice but I already feel like I've spent 100% by the end of the day. Maybe it will be better when we have Emmy back in daycare full time and I get focused on work. Maybe it will get better when we have more kids and get zero "me" time. Maybe we just need to focus on giving Emmy the most we can so it's not about us at all.

In the end, all that matters is that she is happy and her parents keep working at it, making the marriage thing work.