![]() ![]() And of course, there are a lot of deep communication, trust, sexual and emotional challenges that are too intimate to share outside of marriage. It’s harder to share when they may have said something deeply hurtful. Hear me out– I am not suggesting we flood social media with our most intimate details of strife and conflict in our homes! But we do seem more comfortable venting about the insanity of snack demands and diaper-changes than about our partners who don’t think to run the dishwasher when it’s full or leave their shoes in the middle of the hall. I don’t really know any couple, with and without outside support systems, who say that they deal with these examples well.īut while myself and others fill our social media accounts of humorous venting or sincere sharing about the difficulties of modern motherhood, nearly no one I know shares about what’s happening within their marriages. These difficulties rise up all throughout our days, and we often take out our frustrations on our primary safe spaces–our spouses. It’s the daily grind of workplace and familial obligations when you really just crave some much needed time to yourself. It’s the logistical and insinuations of whose work matters more when your youngest has a fever and cannot attend daycare, and you have no one else around to call. It’s the child who woke up earlier than usual and demands their waffles when you just needed thirty more minutes of sleep. In these years of marriage, especially after becoming parents, we’ve acutely learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses in these demands, and for the most part, we are able to jump in when the other needs (for example, a few months ago, I announced my retirement from the splashing bath time chaos, so he knows that’s now his department–highly recommend, mamas!).īut the unrelenting stress of modern parenting during a pandemic, with lack of familial and social supports, as well as nationwide policies that could ease some of the burden of caregiving takes a toll on even the strongest of couples. So why were my husband and I feeling like maybe there might be some truth in this seven year curse? We plan date nights out once or twice a month, spend weekend mornings as a family at our local gym which we love, and are excellent partners in sharing household and caregiving demands as equally as we can. Not that my responsibilities don’t overwhelm me at times, but he certainly deserves his own hotline to scream into every once in a while (although, he would never). As a part-time stay-at-home-mother, I can at least squeeze in some personal time during naps and after bedtime, but he consistently does not get these opportunities as he works in an office during the day and freelances by night. ![]() In my amateur opinion, I suspect most of what might contribute to any sort of modern “seven day itch,” or at least for couples with children, would be this inequity.īut this does not resemble my own marriage that much.īeyond my husband bearing the financial burden of our family, he contributes to all of the tasks of raising two young children that he physically can. to feel even slightly okay, let alone thrive. But it still isn’t enough for mothers across the U.S. This is where we are.Īt the same time, many of the husbands in these heterosexual partnerships are doing far more of the caregiving and household chores than their fathers and grandfathers. The New York Times created "The Primal Scream",” a series of articles regarding modern motherhood and hotline mothers can call to scream. The Covid-pandemic only exacerbated these roles, blurring the compartmentalizations of “work” and “home” with remote pivots. These modern mothers are in professional meetings by day and the predominant caretakers in their homes by night. So how does the seven year itch show up in the modern marriages of new parents today? According to the University of Texas, up to seventy percent of mothers in the United States are expected to be the breadwinners of their families. ![]() I can imagine the reason why women would leave marriages now also looks entirely different than it did then, since women could not even have their own bank accounts until the 1960s. Google tells me the term came from a Marilyn Monroe film in the 1950s, which is surprising since modern marriages look wholly different, generally speaking, now, than they did back then. But somehow, as my husband and I have traversed through our seventh year of marriage, we found ourselves referring to it. ![]() I don’t remember where I specifically heard about the “seven year itch.” It wasn’t mentioned in my short engagement, during my early marriage, or the years after. ![]()
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