Marital Talk

Exhaustion is one reason many married couples find themselves spending less time together or fighting more frequently. With work days becoming longer and couples with children scheduling more and more activities, marriages are taking a backseat to extracurriculars and careers. By the time work and play activities are over, dinner is on the table, and everyone has gotten ready for bed, most couples want nothing more than to go to sleep. Few words may have been spoken, kisses and hugs have gone to the wayside, and the only thing on the tired minds of many is what they have to do tomorrow. Before you realize what’s happening, your marriage is slowly disintegrating and you feel like a slave to your job or a hired hand to your kids.

Exhaustion causes us to become cranky, easily irritated, and just plain boring. When we’re exhausted it’s easy to push aside activities with our spouse; we figure they’ll understand because they know how tired we are. We also hope they’ll understand why the question of, “What would you like for dinner?” is answered by a rude, defensive “I don’t care. Have whatever you want. Why do I always have to make all the freaking decisions around here?” The truth is, our hope for their understanding is usually overshadowed by the fact that after awhile they don’t understand or they no longer want to deal with it. The good news is that exhaustion can be conquered. It requires only one thing-prioritizing.

If you work many hours and find that your marriage is suffering because of it try to figure out how you can maximize your workload in less time. Are you taking on more projects than you can handle? Are you constantly being asked to fill in for absent co-workers because they know you’ll say yes? Has the almighty dollar caused you to spend more time at work and less at home? Is your job the reason you come home late, cranky, and exhausted? If so, you need to set priorities for both your work and home life. If you think this is impossible and there is just no way you can change your work situation ask yourself, “If something were to happen to my spouse tomorrow would I wish I had spent more time working?” Of course, there are those couples who need to work constantly just to survive. For those couples it is harder to prioritize. But if you can squeeze in quality time, not necessarily quantity time, then you should be able to enjoy your marriage.

If your busy life schedule makes you exhausted then you need to prioritize what activities are truly necessary. If you are transporting kids from one activity to another every day of the week exhaustion would be expected. It’s time to go back to a simpler time when kids didn’t need to have a full schedule by the time they were out of diapers. One I-love-it-and-I-can’t-live-without-it activity is enough. Maybe you can arrange carpooling or have an older sibling take over some of the driving responsibilities. This will help you to feel more rested and hopefully have some extra time to spend nurturing your marriage. If you spend your days at home with a baby or toddler try napping when they do. If that’s not possible, try to at least squeeze a 30-minute break into your day. This will require you not to think about dishes, laundry, mopping, or any sort of time consuming, tiring, cleaning ritual. It’s not always necessary to sleep to ward off exhaustion. Sometimes we just need to put our feet up and relax.

marriage, Exhaustion, marriage, exhaustion