My Wife And I: We Had It All, Then We Lost It

Our marriage started with lots of excitement. Down from two failed relationships, I decided that I just had to take this very one to the next level. After all, I was ready to get married and my girlfriend was too, having finished her tertiary school.

We started courting each other. We went out for lunch or dinner every day. We spent most of the evenings together, and had to be with each other very long hours without even recognizing that time were passing. Three months into our relationship, we decided to get married. At that time she was already pregnant with our first child.

It was like I was on a wheel that did not have breaks. My brother would tell me to take it easy, but I was madly in love; and she was in love with me too. This rollercoaster of affairs would end up in a church marriage in six months of knowing each other.

By the time we finished our wedding, she moved in to live with me. It was exciting: romance, love making, being together. These were all beautiful. We kissed at every little opportunity. We did everything together, and shared lots of things including, tee shirts and tooth brush.

Then It All Started Crumbling

Marriage, just like every relationship, doesn’t happen on a bed of roses. It can go south, and often do so with signs that would not be present at first. Most people suddenly get surprised that their marriage has crashed. How on earth did it happen?

But most marriages that eventually crashed didn’t do that overnight. Cracks would start appearing, gradually, and as they are left unattended to, a crash happens.

Of course, my marriage did not crash. But things started changing in momentum, five years into our marriage. We didn’t stay together as often as we did. I would go out with friends, come back drunk. My wife would go out with friends, and come back drunk. We started arguing over most things, kids, domestic issues, responsibilities, and on and on. We found it difficult to sustain a conversation for up to 30 minutes. And if we did talk for long, that discussion would break down into disagreements.

Either of us would hangout alone. She became more attached to her friends. As the years passed by, I recall that in a period of 6 months we only kissed twice. Wait a minute. What happened to all those kisses we used to have almost everywhere, every time? Hard to tell.

But How Did We Ever Get To This Point?

Like I said before, marriage issues follow a gradual decline. As you gradually decline from all those things that you used to do before, which were responsible in creating a very good relationship, your marriage would start getting weaker and weaker.

It so often happens that when the kids start coming, attention and focus would shift. The couple reduce in attending to each other’s physical and emotional needs, companionship with each other reduce, and the marriage gradually weakens. But it doesn’t have to be so.

When I started courting my wife, I had her picture in my wallet; we go out on a date everyday; we kissed several times a day. Even after a few years in our marriage we maintained hanging out together, at least once a week. And we stayed together to watch TV every evening, till bedtime. But with time all these were kept on relegation.

At this point her evenings were on her phones, while mine would be on my laptop.

But it is just common sense that you cannot do something differently and expect same results you have been having. That being said, it is clear we do not need a soothsayer or an expert to tell us what was wrong in the marriage.

I have had several days of emotional emptiness. So did my wife. I had thought about divorce. So did my wife. Sometimes we resolved to straighten out differences. We would get very emotional about it. She cried. I cried too. And we made up our minds to forge ahead in our rekindled love affairs. But this too would fail after sometime, and we would go back to the old wounds.

Then The Situation Became Different

I had to give serious thoughts to my marriage and relationship. Things were not just working because we stopped what we used to do when things were working. Period!

On this fateful day, I had gone to the cinema alone. My wife went to work. I called her immediately after the movies to drive through and pick me up after work, in the evening. When she arrived, I told her I was going to take her out for some drinks. We already had several days of not really talking to each other, after some disagreement, except for exchanging greetings.

As we sat down for drinks, we didn’t really know what to say to each other, or how to start. After what seemed like eternity, I decided to break the ice. I introduced to both of us the 3C of marriage, which goes like this: (1) Contact (2) Communication (3) Commitment.

The First is CONTACT. Lets Start With This

Marriage, by its very nature is romantic, and contact is fundamental to it. As we kept reducing contact, I and my wife kept drifting apart. Less touch, less kissing, less hanging out together, gave rise to emotional separations.

While I drank with my wife that evening, we could recall that whereas before we had so much to share together, which increased our contact with each other; now we share very little. We decided that we would take deliberate measures to increase contact with each other.

We resolved to go out for drinks, dinner or lunch, at least twice in a week. By going out we would keep maintaining physical, emotional and intellectual connections.

In addition, we resolved to kiss at least once a day, and must kiss goodbye every morning when leaving for work; and just before going to bed. I had been sleeping separately in my own room, for the past 2 years, but we resolved to always sleep together each night.

We would also have to eat together, most times, from the same plates. And how about using the same toothbrush like before? Well, this one was kept in view for the time being.

And if we could do our bit, our hormones would take care of the rest. According to a recent scientific study, when partners maintains more social contact with each other, the brain releases more of a neurotransmitter known as oxytocin, which enhances the feeling of relaxation, empathy and trust. Oxytocin has been identified as a love hormone, which increases relaxation and reduces stress, and if it is high in partners, it enhances their ability to cope with each other during disagreements.

A study found out that couple with elevated oxytocin levels are less likely to seek for romantic relationship with other persons, since they are more likely to find each other more pleasurable and attractive.

We Had To Check Our COMMUNICATION

We also had issues with communications. We did not talk much together. One big issue with lack of good communication is that your partner might be hurting and you wouldn’t know, because feelings are not well communicated.

I remember occasions when my wife could burst out with highly emotional words expressing anger that I could not explain how it all happened. I will be like, “what have I done this time around?” I hardly still get the explanations. Of course, I might be guilty, but the issue is that I did not know my sins. The real culprit here was poor communications.

Poor communication could be lack of communication or misunderstood communication. For instance, a wife says, “Since you are my husband and I am your wife, this behaviour of yours is unacceptable.” Then the husband concludes that the wife means that she would divorce him if he did not change that behaviour.

I and my wife had lots of issues with misunderstood communications. And I think it boiled down to trust. If we trusted each other enough, to accept the fact that we always meant well for each other, no matter the situation, such misunderstanding wouldn’t be happening.

That night as we kept talking, while we drank, I had to reassure my wife of my love and devotion towards her. She reciprocated. That meant that we would always trust each other. We also resolved to always let the other person know as soon as any of us feel hurt in any way by the other person.

And if any of us said something that is perceived to be offensive, the other person had to respond with, “What exactly do you mean by that?” The idea is to be sure of the exact meaning behind the words.

Furthermore, non verbal communication is perhaps the biggest issue for couples. In this respect silence can say a thousand things. If you become silent when you are supposed to respond, your partner could reach several conclusions. Your silence could mean, yes, no, or any other thing, which could be unfavourable to the situation at hand.

Sometimes, your body language could be telling your partner what he or she did not like, and you might be completely innocent. Not looking at your partner’s eyes while listening to an important issue, might be interpreted that you do not consider what is being said as important. Just holding and gently robbing your spouse’s hands could say a thousand “I love you so much.” Your mere facial expression could make your partner feel wanted or despised.

Dr. John Gottman is known as “the guy that can predict divorce with over 90% accuracy.” His life’s work on marital stability and divorce prediction is world-renowned.

After watching thousands of couples argue in his lab, Gottman was able to identify specific negative communication patterns that predict divorce. He called them The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

We were able to take positive steps in ensuring that we must keep contempt, destructive criticism, defensiveness and stone-walling out of our relationship, or at least reduce them to the barest minimum. And I can say that so far we are not doing badly.

We resolved also not to let the day pass by without letting the other know how bad one feels, should any of us feel hurt. You just have to talk if you have to be together. Some people refuse to talk out of caution, but the damages in the long run could be overbearing.

Finally, We Reaffirmed Our COMMITMENT

While we continued with our drinks, I could notice that my wife was already easing out. We seemed to touch certain soft spots in our souls. I could realise how important it was for couple to discuss their relationship with each other periodically. This was like a review of how we had fared so far, and how far we were yet to go.

We had to reaffirm our commitment to each other. To be committed in marriage means that no other relationship would be more intimate than that with a spouse.

Of course, your spouse might have a lot of shortcomings, but it is important to know that marriage is not for angels. Even with our flaws as human beings, we can still make the best of our relationships.

A committed partner must not make a very important decision without trying to put the partner in perspective. If you want to relocate to another city, you must first consider how this would affect your relationship with your spouse. If you want to pick up a job, you would have to consider how this might affect your relationship.

Being committed doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do your own stuff, but that it would be so important to sort things out with your partner, and to be very interested in a situation that would be mutually acceptable.

Events and situations might arise in a marriage and arguments and misunderstanding might ensue, but if we are really committed, nothing should assume more importance than our relationship with our spouse.

You can readily change a bad car, or a bad apartment, or even a bad friend; but you should not readily change a bad marriage. That is commitment. When people are very committed to each other, even situations that might overwhelm others become tolerable

Now Where Are We?

We drove home that night feeling good. I felt lighter, and it seemed a big load had been taken off my shoulder. This is four months now, and we have enjoyed a level of friendship that we have not enjoyed in five years.

We now communicate better, and we are closer, and more committed to each other. And as the days roll by, I believe we will do better. That does not mean that we do not have issues once in a while. We just handle such differently and better.

In case you are having some troubles with your marriage, you might as well get inspiration from my own experience.