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Seasons of Marriage: How We Grow Old Together
The argument started out innocently enough. Husband wants to go out and spend an evening with friends. This is not unusual; Friday night has traditionally been "boys' night out" in the Davis household. What is out of the ordinary is that this time the wife says no. She has never denied him this request before but she says that after their second baby arrived, it's about time he spends more time home. He rebels. Why can't things be just like before?!?
In marriage (actually in any kind of relationship), the question "why can't things be just like before?" come about quite often. A more emotionally charged version is this: "why can't our love be just like before?" But while pop culture flaunts about the idea that relationships can exist in a bubble ("Promise me you will never change?"), the fact is, inevitably things would be different.
You cannot escape change. Three things make it so:
One, you grow old as an individual. You get life-defining experiences, you mature (hopefully) and your needs change as you get older.
Two, your family composition changes. From two people of two distinct upbringings, you try to become one couple under one roof. As you begin to have children, new adjustments have to be made. As your kids grow older, you have to change again. And when your kids move out and get married you two would need to make new adjustments.
Lastly, the world around us changes. Things that happen outside our homes would affect our family. The impact of a new job for example, a disaster, or a new neighborhood would spill over inside the house. It would result in new ways of handling the household and new ways of relating with its members.
While there would be of course non-negotiable values across your lifespan, things cannot always remain 100% as before.
Seasons
Families go through different seasons. These seasons naturally flow to one another just like winter flows to spring. The way a person goes through distinct developmental stages (i.e. childhood, adolescence, early and late adulthood), so does our families. Each season is distinct and there are sets of predictable tasks that we need to do to facilitate our family's adjustment from one season to another.
Knowing these seasons is important. Couples sometimes contemplate divorce over things that occur in almost all families! If we know what we can reasonably expect as we journey in family life, we can prepare for them and cope with them better. More so, achieving tasks in one stage of our family life results in our readiness to navigate the difficulty of the next stages.
What are some of these seasons?
Early Marriage
Couples in early marriage have to deal with the proverbial question: how to deal with your partner's toothpaste tube left opened on the sink?
Living together brings about facets of a relationship that might not be anticipated in courtship. There is after all greater intimacy in being in the same house. As the couple came from two different families and have been used to different ways of doing things, it is not unusual that they will not always see eye to eye on things. What is important in this stage is a clear negotiation for new rules in the household.
Expansion
When children arrive, couples need to learn to navigate a new role: that of being parents. Depending on the couple involved, it might be difficult to embrace new responsibility especially if both had been used to taking care of mostly just themselves for awhile. The new additions require new rules in the house in terms of time spent at home and even the amount of money the couple needs to raise. Parenting styles too need to be negotiated.
Consolidation
Consolidation is the stage when the kids have grown to adolescence. This is a time ripe for generation clashes as while kids are in an autonomy-seeking stage, parents are in their midlife and need to see that they are doing a good job with their kids. The challenge here is for the couple to learn to view their children now as adults capable of making their own decisions.
Empty Nest
As the children leave, a couple needs to re-learn how to be a couple again. This is difficult for two people whose lives for years have revolved around the care of children. It is also the time when the couple needs to not just rediscover one another but re-discover themselves. With retirement comes the question: who I am right now? What do I want to pursue that I wasn't able to before?
What is most important in navigating the seasons of family life is flexibility. It is after all, an adventure and the more open we are to take each moment as a learning opportunity, the better we can be. Each season brings something new and it will be great if we can get to see them all.