My cousin, the one who's in her second marriage, with two babies, is due to meet her husband this evening. Apparently they met by chance on the weekend and clearly had a civilized conversation, and they're going to have another one today. There were some tensions in the middle, with emails flying fast and furious, copying people who had no business knowing what was going on between the two of them (like my parents, my brother and I) but maybe that's all at an end.
I am very afraid for her because she's head-strong and pampered to a large extent. I'm head-strong too, but have learnt over the years to recognize that I can be wrong, and to listen to a few people in some degree of detail. These people are friends and family, but they're also my weather-vanes, showing me myself. I'm afraid that my cousin, like our family is wont to do, has pushed away people like that from her life, making the rest of us afraid to point out that she can be wrong. Again, this is not to say that her husband is correct, he is deathly wrong in his own way, but he is probably right in some ways. My cousin has a blind spot when it comes to money, never having to earn a living, or having to survive by what she earned. Where I'm comfortable in the knowledge that my education and experience will see me through the rest of my life comfortably, she cannot say that at all. On the flip-side, she's very comfortable spending. She thinks she's aware of money, but she's probably penny wise, pound foolish. She feels entitled to an evening out every week, spending money that she's not earning. While she is a full-time mom, and I can understand that that is frustrating and tiring, asking your mother to baby-sit, so that you can have an evening out with your friends, spending a fair bit of money that your parents are giving you... feels wrong. But again, who am I to judge?
Her husband has not been the most mature about any of this, and at some level, neither has my cousin. The best case is they decide to start with a clean slate with each other, hopefully remembering the affection, but putting all the unpleasantness behind them, never to be referred to again. The worst case is they try again and fall into the same traps of anger, frustration, passive-aggression etc.
Families are what they are, imperfect, but loving at best. Parents are people, but when children are very young, they need to put aside their personalities and concentrate on the children. This is not something I've seriously thought about, but something that now makes perfect sense to me. The parent who is the primary care-giver, doesn't have any time or mental space, for anything apart from care-giving for the first few years of the child's life. Given the way life is these days, several people have children with a gap of two years or so. This means, in the parents' lives, there is a lull in personal relationship for something like six or seven years. The time during which children need full time care (the elder one gets this for 3 years, then the second one gets their 3 years), is the time when parents need to be very secure in the relationship - which is technically the security that marriage provides. The security that though you don't have time for each other just yet, you will find that time, because you have the rest of your lives. The insecure spouse will feel ousted by the child/children, and after a few attempts at date-nights or some other contrived experience to reclaim what existed before, will move on. The secure spouse will participate in child-rearing, realising that this is a way for the relationship to grow and mature, a new phase of marital life, which has its own ups and downs.
I'm not saying anybody is justified in completely ignoring their spouse or indeed themselves, but the secondary care-giver must understand how difficult it is, and what a toll it takes. Several people do this without thinking, decide to have children, stay at home to take care of them, then wonder why they're fighting more with their spouse etc., without realising that the situation is fraught with various tensions.
Though I've been waiting to have my own children, every year that I don't adds some insights that I believe will make me a better parent if I get the opportunity, but insights that will make me a better person in general.
For my cousin, I've my fingers crossed that all will end well for the time being, and being adults, they can work on their relationship to take it where they want.
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