10
Loading video...
By Jenni Fink
Senior Editor
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Being a mom is the hardest thing you can do, and if you want to make it harder, you can be like me and feel guilty that the mental load of motherhood is putting your marriage at risk.
My husband is a wonderful man. He's the type of guy who if I said I needed a weekend to lie in bed and watch TV all day, he'd agree that I needed to relax and then take our son for the entire weekend and probably ask me 10 times during the day if I needed water.
Do we have issues? Of course. Anyone who claims they don't have marital issues is very suspicious to me.
Read More on Life
Like most moms, the bulk of keeping our lives functioning properly falls on me. So, while I'm trying to finish all the work I need to get done before 5 p.m., when I have to run from my desk to the living room to relieve my nanny, my brain is also thinking:
"Remember to order the groceries, you need to change Theo's doctor's appointment to align with his new nap schedule, don’t forget to call the super about the leaking toilet, be sure to pull the chicken out of the freezer by 3 p.m. so it’s defrosted for dinner, if you don't get that baby gift out by Thursday it won't be there in time, you need to tell the nanny there’s no story time on Tuesdays, get that pasta recipe from mom...”
And it goes on and on.
Which means that by the time 7:30 p.m. rolls around and my son is asleep and my husband and I are finally alone, just the two of us, I am mentally -- and depending on how clingy my 30-pound toddler has been that day – physically exhausted. So, there's very little left of me to give to my husband. And I hate that.
When I talked to my husband about it, his response really surprised me.
...
But before we get to the story, here’s a quick welcome to Mildly Maternal: Diary of a Work In Progress Mom, a weekly check in on how life is going as a new mom who wasn't sure she wanted to be a mom until she was told she couldn't get pregnant. If you’re not already following me on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook, here’s a brief introduction.
I’m a 34-year-old woman living in New York City with a 14-month-old and I am really making my own rules for being a mom because I know nothing. As in, I never even held a baby before having a baby of my own (I know, I think my parenting scares my mom sometimes).
Anyway, each night after my son goes to bed, my husband and I eat dinner on the couch while we watch a show, which, to be fair, is a group activity because we discuss plot lines and predict what will happen next. But sometimes, I catch myself scrolling social media on my phone instead of watching the show, or in particularly shameful moments, not fully paying attention to what my husband is saying. (I know it's awful; you don't have to tell me, that's kind of the point of this column)
Even in the moment, I know I should just put my phone down. There isn't anything on Instagram or TikTok that's more important than my marriage. But those few hours between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. are the only two hours I have during the day to decompress. I'm not feeling the pressure of what I need to get done or worried that my son will wake up from his nap at any moment and I'll have to drop whatever it is I'm doing.
It's the first time since I wake up that I feel the tension in my shoulders drop. And part of me just wants to be a zombie and doom scroll because my mind has been cluttered with so much all day.
But then I feel guilty because I'm married to this wonderful person, and I'd rather sit on my phone? That's insane.
That guilt only gets worse on the weekends. I've never been one to stay up particularly late. I've always said that if I won the lottery, I'd buy a bar and name it Early Bird's and it would be open from 11 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and would serve Chinese food to take home with you to drunk eat in bed so you could be asleep by 10.
But recently I've been falling asleep at 8:30 on a Friday night, which is impressively early even for me. And I wake up feeling bad. I feel like I wasted one of the two weekend nights I have with my husband being tired.
I feel like I've become a bore. A bore who is constantly complaining about being tired, overwhelmed, and stressed. I start to spiral.
Related Story
Midlife Lessons: I’m Just a Man—How Can I Ever Understand Women?
I question why my husband would want to be married to someone who's seemingly on the verge of an emotional breakdown 80 percent of the time because of the mental load of being a mom. Someone who falls asleep at 8:30 at night, when just a few years ago, we'd be out at a bar with friends or at home drinking wine, playing cards and listening to music.
I think about all the movies and television shows and random podcast clips I see on social media about marriages falling apart because moms give so much to their kids and not enough to their husbands.
My guilt builds thinking about our marriage ending because I'm not strong enough to handle what mothers all over the world handle every day.
So, I bring it up to him because anxiety is best if it's shared (I don't know if this is actually productive advice, but I cannot physically sit with anxiety, so talking about it is the only path forward I have).
He tells me not to worry about it because he fell asleep not long after I did (he could be just trying to make me feel better). He tells me he doesn't see me as the stressed-out, overwhelmed, nagging wife that I feel like I've become.
He says he sees me as the strongest woman he knows. A woman who is an incredible mom to our son and the backbone of our family. A woman who handles more than most people could. He says he's surprised I complain so little about being exhausted given what I have on my plate.
Of course, I tell him I could complain more if that's what he wants.
I still struggle with the guilt that my husband is being sidelined as I navigate being a working mom and the fear that we'll one day become more like roommates than a couple. But, it's nice to know that while I'm seeing the worst parts of me, he's seeing the best.
If you want to read the full-length version of this article plus more from Jenni Fink, subscribe to The Good Life newsletter here.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines