Hellobee

This week, my relationship becomes a teenager. If parenting a teenager is the hardest thing since, well, the fourth trimester, nourishing a partnership that began thirteen years ago has to be just as fraught with the same highest highs and lowest lows. No one angers me more – and no one can make me laugh harder.

If hormones arriving in little human’s bodies as they become a teenager throw everyone for a loop emotionally and physically, becoming a parent does the same for a relationship. You both feel impotent, and out of control (which I really hate ). A screaming, pooping tyrant has taken over your lives and what used to be conversations about the world and where to spend the long weekend become disagreements over how tight the diaper should be and giving the baby a bottle in the middle of the night or not (Is the kid hungry or just used to eating? Are we ruining our child?).

My relationship made it through the first year (barely? ha!). Now, the beast of teenagerhood is rearing its head and I’m forced to come to terms with what is sure to be more shifting dynamics and realities, especially as we contemplate adding a second child to the mix.

And yet, we’re happy. Not all day, every day, but every day, we’re happy. Many things have changed that made it all, just, easier – my partner got a new position that ended my solo parenting days, the challenging parts of parenting seemed to get easier (sleep, eating, doubting myself), we found time to prioritize our individual selves on top of our parenting selves. Mainly, though, I think getting past the hard parts of the last thirteen years is as much about slugging through it as it is preventing it.

But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of…something, right? So, we’re tackling teenagerhood head on, committed to the same things I outlined in a post I wrote about marriage during the first year of parenting, and dedicating ourselves to few more truths to keep the, well, happiness alive.

– Take care of ourselves to take care of each other and Will. Mainly, this means eating our veggies and moving our bodies. I’ve kept up with going to Bikram yoga three times a week since last August (the longest exercise regime I’ve kept at since, literally, high school), and Mr. M is using the evenings I go to run and do simple strength training at home. My next step is to ensure I walk at least twenty minutes every day in addition to my yoga and adding in one or two nights of more structured strength training with weights. The time spent solely on ensuring our bodies and minds are focused has been invaluable to being happy with each other. Without fail, we both come back together after excercising more gracious toward each other, and grateful for one another. It could be the endorphins, but we’ll take it!

– Take action as a family. This could also be interpreted as do service as a family, as the main point is that we are focusing on being the citizens with our son that we hope he will grow into – one who values kindness, love, and goes out of his way to ensure others have the same privilege he is afforded, especially as a white male. We’ll be volunteering somewhere with Will monthly this year, in addition to beginning to speak with him about the world, our country, and the challenges we currently face.

– Refrain from keeping score…but be open and direct about trying to keep it ‘even.’ We recently realized that while we don’t want to build resentment in our marriage by tracking who did what parenting act last, or who has spent the most number of hours solo parenting the last week, we do want to work our hardest in an effort to achieve a balance that feels right. Sometimes it feels like tit-for-tat, in that I’ll often try to do a few hours alone with Will after I’ve had a brunch with friends, but the spirit of it is grounded in wanting to allow as much equity in time to recharge, whenever possible. It also means we get great one-on-one time with Will and get to enjoy the time we spend as a larger family unit, even if technically, that time is overall less because we take time for ourselves. The last aspect of this is that we’re trying to rid our marriage of passive-aggression: when we need time, we ask for it and refrain from letting ourselves spiral into frustration and then lash out over something entirely unrelated to the topic at hand.

– Get intimate. I mean, that’s basically it. It’s amazing what prioritizing this aspect of a relationship, out loud, can do. Even if it doesn’t always happen when/how often we’d like, knowing that we both value it goes a long, long way.

– Remember: this is a season. This period of diapers, little sleep, even less time alone as a couple – this will pass. Right now, it feels all our money and spare time goes to the tiniest little human in our family, and, if there will be a second, even MORE money and time with go to children. Reminding myself that this, like all things children, is a phase, and all the old adages will be true – I’ll wish Will was young again and that I’d enjoyed it more in the moment. Keeping this mindset makes it easier to high five in bed at night as we collapse into paired exhaustion from wake, work, parent, repeat.

– Continue to discuss and be hopeful about the future, while finding the small joys in the present. We’ve been together for thirteen years. It can be easy to reminisce and wonder if the best times are behind us. Freedom! Travel! DINK life! But all it takes is one great heart-to-heart conversation with my partner to remind me that the future can be just as wonderful, but it’s the right here and now that I’m letting pass me by when I don’t look around. Just this afternoon, we had a quiet hour after nap time and swimming lessons where Will was practicing his alphabet and tracing on his Kindle, while I bullet journaled and Mr. Milk read the Times. It was idyllic and I appreciated it, right then, while it was happening. I’m committed to doing more of this appreciation, as often as I can.

.  .  .  .  .

So much of this can be summed up in embracing what our relationship has become, rather than holding on to a vision of what it was long ago – much like, from what I’ve read, parenting a teenager is like.

To my peeps out there with relationships in their teens, what have you got to add?