How I Saved My Marriage from Certain Doom

Today a guest post from my friend Neeraj Jain. A message that everyone needs to read about how to live with your loved ones.

By our second date, I knew that I was going to marry her. Less than 3 months later, I proposed, and she accepted.

My friends expressed their concern, not about her (they loved her), but my apparent recklessness. I felt that I had dated enough that my gut was now tuned to who would be a good fit for me. It turns out that I was right. But it sure didn’t feel like that initially.

The quibbling started on our honeymoon, the first time we lived together. It was an amazing trip to Hawaii, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but we often found ourselves getting irritated with each other. In hindsight, it may have been me doing the irritating.

A year into the marriage we were both having our doubts about whether this would last.

Somehow, she just didn’t share my OCD level of tidiness. My perceived level of clutter in our apartment would often become a flashpoint for an argument.

Neither did she appreciate my constant stream of advice on how to live her life. My wife is a very patient person, but I would often push her to the breaking point with my arguments on why a thing should be done a certain way.

We went to a ClubMed resort for our first vacation after the honeymoon. There were dozens of activities that I wanted to do, and I expected her to do them with me. Start with tennis lessons, then scuba followed by Latin dance and maybe a bit of trapeze too. It would be amazing! Nope. She was going to read (sleep) on the beach.

I was working long hours those days getting my business off the ground and she was working part-time. I expected that because she had all this extra time, when I got home, all the chores would be done, and she would have a nice hot meal waiting for me. When things weren’t the way I expected, I would get upset.

As I write this, the solution is obvious, but it certainly wasn’t to me at that time. It took a therapist 50ish sessions to tell me the most obvious truth in the world.

As an adult, I need to take full responsibility for creating the life I want, and I need to accept that she is an adult living her life in the way that she wants.

It isn’t my partner’s job to adapt to my standards for tidiness or to do the things I want her to in the way that I deem to be “the right way”.

In fact, it’s no one else’s responsibility but mine to create the life I want.

By the time I got this advice, my wife was staying at home caring for our two toddlers. I would return from work, tired, to find my exhausted wife handing me one of the two kids.

Instead of unwinding, I was preparing food, cleaning, and doing other activities that I would rather not. There was no room to support each other because we were both always irritated. It was not a fun time for our marriage.

It took time for me to really understand this truth. I want everything to be tidy; I need to make it happen. I want laundry ironed or a three-course dinner; I need to make it happen. I want to learn tennis and she doesn’t; I need to either find an activity she also likes or find other people to play with.

If I was responsible for fulfilling my needs and wants, and I didn’t have time or the interest to do many of those things myself, I decided I had to hire someone else. That’s what I had been doing in my business after all.

Surprisingly, it took some convincing for my wife to agree, but we hired a live-in nanny.

At the time this was a massive expense for us. It meant giving up on a lot of other things. But boy was it worth it. Now when I got home, not only did I find a happy family, but everything was in place, dinner was ready and I could just enjoy time with my wife and kids.

The most important thing was that I took care of what I needed and stopped feeling resentful that she wasn’t doing what I wanted.

It wasn’t just hiring the nanny that made the difference. I started taking responsibility in other areas of life also. If I was sad, low, or angry, I didn’t expect her to just know that and behave in the perfect way to cheer me up.

I learned to share how I was feeling and then, eventually, to ask for what I wanted from her without expectation that she would comply. I also found other ways to handle these emotions and not putting all the pressure on her to be the one to fix everything.

Our relationship slowly started to change. Her defenses, which had become military grade against my frequent demands, started to come down as she realized I was becoming much less demanding.

She felt more comfortable expressing herself and she started enjoying my company a lot more. I was calmer and felt more powerful knowing that I could and would take care of what I needed or wanted in my life.

It may sound simple, but it wasn’t easy. It took a lot of humility to admit that I was the problem and had to be the solution.

We’ve been happily married for over 22 years now and our marriage is stronger than ever. We still have disagreements and challenges, but we handle them without placing blame. Instead, we take responsibility.

I urge you to look at your relationship and see where you might stop expecting change from your partner and instead take responsibility for your own needs.

Trust me, it’s worth it, knowing that you saved your marriage from certain doom.

1. Follow Neeraj on Medium