The small thing today was that after all of my frustration and resentment (see the earlier post), once Dh got home, we had a really good talk. Truly, what we have come to realise is that we can't really depend on our extended families but that our immediate family is all we really need. I am not saying that we don't love our extended families or that we reject them, just that at least between the two of us, we can craft the family that we really want and we can create an environment that nutures the kind of family that we want, especially for our children. It felt good to talk a bit about what WE want and how we want to accomplish things and to realise that we have the same priorities and desires for our lives. We get so busy sometimes that we really start to drift - having some time to talk, just the two of us and also, having a chance to really get dh's sense of the situation really helped me to clear my head and stop feeling so guilty and nasty.
Oh, I'm glad to read this. it feels so good to reconnect and solidify things again. It can suck to have to be strong sometimes, but I know you have it in you, have done it for your whole life without realizing it, really, and it's just the coming to understand it better and start with a new outlook on it that can feel renewing. More power to you both!
ReplyDeleteAnd this is such an important thing to realize... that your immediate family is all you truly need. This is the biggest lesson we have learned after moving (literally) all over this country during our 14 years of marriage. And because we don't live by family, we have been able to identify who and what the Foley family should be about. We are not influenced by who or what our individual families want us to be... and there is so much freedom in that. AND, I really think, we are a much stronger family unit because of it. This is saying a lot for us since we both come from divorced families.
ReplyDeleteGlad you and Dh had the time to connect and figure this out!
Thanks, both of you. It's hard to explain how powerful it was to just be together and feel like we had our vision back, if that makes sense. One of the things I love most about being married to dh is that we DO have the same goals and priorities and regardless of what our families think, there is a powerful sense of belonging in that - despite the fact that dh's family seems to think that we are religious fanatics (which is bizarre given that they have been really "church active" their entire lives) and my family seems to think that we are middle class sell-outs (while they would never say it, in their left-wing uber-liberal, rebel-ness, the fact that we own a house, cars and have some financial stability makes us sell-outs to the cause, whatever that might be). I do have a hard time with feeling like I need to please people and I do feel kind of, sort of guilty sometimes because we have gone our own way but to feel like we have things solid between us, I don't care anywhere near as much.
ReplyDeleteYup. Team M&S all the way!
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you. Totally. 100%. Well, on my in-laws side of things anyway. It's no fun dealing with some of that garbage. I hope everything works out for you alright!
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