I just read this article from http://www.daveramsey.com. Since I'm a fan of Dave's radio show about financial planning and debt management, and I know he's tackled some major marital stresses as a Christian husband and father for more than 20 years, I was intrigued on what he had to say.
What are the "Big Four?" Money, Religion, Kids, and In-laws. Uhhhhh, what about Sex? Not to say the other four aren't integral components of a healthy marriage, but it drives me crazy that so many people, especially such respectable, experienced, educated people like Dave don't even mention it. Am I incorrect that it's important- maybe #5 on the list that didn't make the cut today?
Money- yes, debt, income and individual contributions to the family's welfare financially are all huge stressors to me and my wife. Those topics constantly burden our relationship and I have to constantly remind myself to shut the fuck up about money sometimes and remember that we are friends and not business partners- even though we are business partners, which is probably a really bad idea- more on that in another post...
Religion- we're both "Christian" with "Methodist" overtones, but years of Christian school education, several different church experiences and the fact that my father is a preacher have skewed me in a different direction than those particular labels usually entail. Thankfully, I feel like I have a practical, useful approach to my relationship with God. I also have VERY strong faith and have never had doubts about the existence of God. Ultimately, the Wife and I are in different places in our spiritual/religious journeys, but have a shared destination and frequently travel together, if that makes sense as a metaphor.
Kids- We both want kids. At least 2- whatever sexes the Lord gives to us- and we'll see how we feel when it's time to consider birth control again. Timing has been a bit of a stress lately because of external pressures and biological internal pressures on Her part. The external pressure is mainly from Her seeing peers on Facebook having babies after 1 year of marriage, right after college. We've been married 7 years, almost 8, and she's been finished with school for 2 years. She chose a career track, devoted 5 of the 7 years following it, and then decided she didn't like it anymore. I don't like placing blame, but Her timing has been more of a holdup than anything I've done. I have been consistently working above expectations during our entire marriage. Had we not pursued all of her goals, we'd have plenty of the aforementioned money to comfortably have a house full of children. Again, I don't feel pressure or regret, but I'm far more objective about our situation than She is.
In-Laws- That's a good one...the article says, "Dave recommends renting for the first six months of marriage (even if you’re in a position to buy) in case you need to move farther away from one of your families than you thought!" My Mom and Step Dad are moving 5 minutes away from us, over the next month. They are a constant stress on our marriage because we're the closest family to them geographically so we get stuck with the "Busy Work" aspect of parental support. We are also the most broke and hardest working of all the applicable siblings. We have to constantly re-examine our boundaries regarding Her in-laws.
We also have a whole lot of respective in-laws, because we both come from divorced, re-partnered parents. Both of our biological dads are on third wives. There are in-laws in Eastern Central Florida, Western Central Florida, New England, and Tennessee. It is always hard to pick which holidays and traditions are shared in which geographical location based on rationed time with each set of parental types and the financial hit we take to get there. That conversation has been pervasive throughout our marriage and always sucks. Neither of us is to blame, but there is certainly emotional and financial stress each and every time it comes up.My only answer to the in-law dilemma is online social networking- namely Facebook. I have more contact with her family than She does most of the time, because I've got everybody on Facebook. Since She rarely pays attention to her Facebook account, She constantly tells me facts or developments, with great excitement, that I knew about two days or a week prior. Aside from my Mother, most of our in-laws are very content with keeping up via online interactions, because they know that it's much better than depending on a weekly or monthly phone call, which is about all they can expect from us with our current schedules.
To wrap this up, I completely agree that the key is to talk about this all BEFORE marriage. I'm personally very cynical about marriage and it's purpose- which is yet another upcoming post for this blog. I wish constantly that my parents, all 8 of them, would have laid out how they dealt with these 4 issues in their lives and where they could use improvement, so that we could all have a better understanding of how to make a healthy marriage out of a really hot sexual connection I had with a really complex, fascinating woman.
