4. Focusing On the Kids or Work to Avoid Issues – I remember telling my ex-wife early in our marriage that once we have kids we should never forget who brought them into being. That we need to always remember our relationship must never take a back seat to anything else, not even the kids. Yet that is exactly what happened. As our little wounds and incompatibilities started to multiply, we each found refuge in our dedications. For her, it was the kids, for me it was my work. Ironically, both are socially sanctioned as virtuous qualities but we used them to avoid the very difficult and painful issues that had arisen. Another facet of this is that we each stopped caring how we even looked for the other as we focused our respective energies on those things that would help us forget the emptiness our marriage had become. This is a very common and insidious relationship killer because both parties can rationalize they are doing something important for the family. When in fact, it is tearing the family and partnership apart.
Discussion about this post