Marriage therapy tip: How to improve your mid-life marriage
You and your partner were filled with love, adoration, and yes - lust - for one another when you met. You were a picture-perfect couple. Young, in love and excited for the future. Next, you had children together and worked well as a parenting team. As the kids have grown, however, it feels like your marriage has changed from a loving relationship into a well-oiled household and parenting machine.
You have successfully divided the labor of the household and the efforts related to the kids. In fact, you barely spend any quality time together because you’re too busy going to lacrosse games, helping your daughter practice for her learner’s permit, or going grocery shopping. Though you both ‘clean up well’ and act happily married at social events, people would be surprised to know that most downtime in the house is spent with you watching shows in your bedroom and your spouse watching movies downstairs. The era of ‘romance’ in your marriage seems to have left the building. Date nights, once a regular occurrence, have stopped. The two of you haven’t had a night away from the kids in more than a year. In truth, you barely spend any time together without the kids or other people. And sex? Well, you might soon qualify for a ‘sexless marriage’ (which is a relationship in which sex occurs less than 10 times per year) at the rate you’re going.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a ‘bad’ marriage in that there is no overt conflict, no cheating, no emotional abuse. Your spouse is a good person, even. But, let’s also be clear: this doesn’t feel like a great marriage in that you feel lonely within the relationship. When you’ve spoken to your spouse about your concerns, they don’t agree that there’s a problem. They don’t seem to notice the growing awkwardness or lack of warmth in the marriage, which is hurtful and confusing.
You wonder ‘is being lonely in your marriage a reason to get divorced?’ or ‘is this just what mid-life marriage looks like?’ When you ruminate about this situation you can only see two paths: file for divorce or continue to plead with your partner to connect, which hasn’t worked so far. Standing at this fork in the road, both choices feel depressing. No one wants to get divorced, but the nagging anxiety that you are alone in your marriage feels scary and you are worried that it will only get worse.
As a third option, I’d like to offer you this marriage therapy tip.
Rather than focusing on the imperfections in your marriage, focus on increasing your own happiness. It is natural to wish that your partner would change, but that puts you in a position of powerlessness because you really have no control over whether someone else changes. Of course you would feel happier if your partner made more efforts to connect. You’d probably feel happier if your partner hopped into a time machine and treated you the way they did back when you first met. Your frustrations are real. But rather than pinning your hopes on someone else’s personal development, why not focus on your own?
Here are a few ideas for you to increase your happiness.
Level up your career.
If you decreased your work responsibilities when the kids were young, maybe it’s time to think about taking on greater challenges. Is there an opportunity that you’ve pushed away? Do you want to start your own business? Do you want to publish your writing? Do you want a promotion in your current workplace? Grant yourself the freedom to think about all of the possibilities. It’s time to swing for the fences. Increasing your work satisfaction will improve your mood and decrease the potential for getting stuck in the harder moments of your marriage.
2. Level up your hobbies.
Of course you’re tempted to use all of your unscheduled time to relax (i.e., binge on streaming), it’s important to engage in activities that get you moving, physically and mentally. Hobbies can take you out of your comfort zone, help you to meet new people, and remind you that life is not all work. You could: learn to row on the Schuylkill, try an art class, join a book club, take a meditation course, get more involved with your faith, volunteer at an animal shelter, set up a weekly walk with a friend. Engaging in new activities is energizing and often brings the opportunity to meet new people.
3. Level up your friendships.
It’s time to reconnect with friends and make new friends too. While it would be nice for your spouse to meet most (if not all) of your needs for connection, it’s not realistic. Grab your calendar and start filling your empty time slots with coffee dates, lunch or just FaceTime catch-ups with friends. Now that you have more time for yourself, re-invest in your own, personal social life.
You might be reading this article and thinking ‘I don’t have the energy to do more right now.’
And I get it. When things feel challenging, it’s hard to summon the resources to take on additional activities. But as Mel Robbins points out in her ‘Take Control’ course (available for free at Mel Robbins), research shows that adding a meaningful activity to your already busy life has a greater positive impact on your mood than having more free time.
Feeling uneasy about your marriage is scary. We all want to know what the future holds for us and want our partner to be a source of security, not anxiety. Rather than getting stuck in the thought loop that you have to either change your partner’s behavior or divorce your partner, take a breath. Invest that energy into improving your own life first. Level up your career, level up your hobbies and re-invest in your social life. Stop waiting for someone else to make you happy, and put your energy into building the life that you love.