The Blessings of Complications, Part 3

So my last two blog posts talked about some of the great blessings that came out of my complicated fourth (oh all right, 8th) pregnancy.  There were a ton, but I'm going to stick with two more areas, one for this week and one for next.

This one has to do with my relationship with Terence.  I sincerely hope he doesn't hate me for this :)  (In fact, I may just skip posting this one to Facebook.  It will reduce the exposure a bit.)  Anyway, I think it's good to share though-- partly because some people insist on seeing my marriage as some kind of idealistic, perfect state of bliss.  I'm not going to say that I am not happily married.  I am extremely happily married, which is not exactly the norm in this day and age.  But our marriage is also real.

Real means challenges.

Terence and I made some decisions together at the beginning of our marriage about our future family and how we wanted to tackle some things.  Of course, we were twenty-somethings with NO experience in child-raising and very little experience in running a household.  (Missions did help in this department, a little, and for me so did living in an apartment with roommates at college.  But it wasn't quite enough, if you know what I mean.)  Anyway, one of those decisions was that we wanted to have six kids if possible, but that we would take those babies one at a time (in other words, we were flexible, recognizing that our circumstances might make 6 unrealistic).  Another one was that we wouldn't wait to start our family.  I was already done with college and my mission, and I didn't feel like I would be "missing out" on any life experiences.  Instead, I wanted to have my babies while I was younger.  The third major decision in this was that I would stay at home with the kids and be a homemaker if at all possible.

We jumped right in with those plans.  At first I kept working full-time in my consultant job, but when M came along, I quit going into the office and started working part time from home.  With just one baby I still kind of kept up with stuff.  But by the time J came along, and Terence had started the police academy, and I was still working part-time from home, I started drowning with the housework.

It caused contention sometimes.  I was pretty patient while he was in the academy because he literally had no free time.  But by the time we were stationed in Sanders and I was able to quit my part time work, the resentment had started to build.  I couldn't keep on top of things, I didn't feel appreciated, and I didn't feel like I had any help at all.  I ended up on bed rest during my pregnancy with B and for four weeks M (who was 3) and J (who was 2) ran amok.  Terence had to do more around the house than he was used to, but he still really didn't do much.  My mom came out for several days every week and caught us all up on the things that were behind.  Friends from our branch brought me food and came and did my dishes.  A dear friend and neighbor would come take M and J and keep them all day.

It was frustrating for me because by the time B arrived, Terence kept telling everyone that now he knew exactly what a stay at home mom had to cope with when I could see all the things that had only been taken care of because of the help of other women in my life.  I still felt like he did not appreciate me and that I wasn't getting enough help.

Things spiraled downward during the next couple of years.  Postpartum depression took over.  I felt like I couldn't get a grip on things, no matter how hard I tried.  My mom even paid for someone to clean my house weekly the rest of the time I lived in Sanders and I still felt swamped.  (It is easy to get swamped when you are depressed and you have three children under 5.)  And though Terence worried, it still didn't seem to me like he was doing anything to help.

By the time we moved to our current house, things hit a low point in the conflict about household chores and taking care of the kids.  Between school driving, shopping, homework, laundry, cleaning, yard work, cooking, doctor/dentist appointments, paying the bills, and everything else that goes along with running a household, I wanted to cry frequently because I just couldn't get it all done.  And Terence, with his swing shift work schedule, would work until near midnight, come home and play video games all night, and then sleep all day (except for when he would go to the gym).  I felt like I was literally a single parent, except that I did have someone bringing home a paycheck.

When I asked for help with something specific, he was great about helping.  But that was just it.  He never took the initiative with child care or housework.  (He did often cook his own food.)  He literally couldn't see everything I was taking care of by myself.  And whether it was fair or not, I felt seriously unappreciated.

All that changed when I was on bed rest with K.  

We did have a lot of help.  My sister Camie came and cleaned my house every week.  My mom was around a lot, helping with the kids.  Friends came and pitched in.  But when I couldn't do my normal stuff for 8 weeks, we couldn't just slide by with the minimum.

This time Terence got the full crash course in what it was like to fill my shoes.  15 loads of laundry a week means you are never, never done washing or folding clothes.  The dishes never, ever end.  Grocery shopping takes planning because you are not just choosing a few things you like to eat but you are bringing home everything the entire family will need.  The kids had to be driven to and picked up at school every single weekday, whether he had stayed up at night or not.  Weeds sprout up and overtake the yard when your wife isn't out there a couple of times a week hacking them up.  The van can turn into a toxic waste dump within a week if you are not regularly cleaning it out. 

Yep.  So even though he never had to clean a bathroom (and there were other things he got off easy with) his attitude toward housework and the kids has never been the same since.  Even when the burden has been very heavy on my shoulders (because, let's face it, providing for a family of 7 as a cop means taking all the off-duty jobs you can get-- he doesn't often have much time to do stuff around the house nowadays), he is extremely full of appreciation for me, appreciation that he expresses often.  It makes it just that much easier for me to dig in and tackle the gazillion things that I take care of on a daily basis.

We are partners now in a way that we never were before the 2nd bed rest stretch.  We are team in parenting, child care, housework, and running the household in general.  Not perfect, by any means, but much better.  And that has made all the difference in the world.