219 | Three Ways I Almost Killed My Marriage

In this episode, I share three ways that I was damaging my relationship with my husband. It takes two to make or break a relationship, but I believe that changes one partner makes can have a profound impact on the relationship itself. The changes I made allowed me to show up as my authentic self, ultimately saving our marriage. 

To schedule a 15 minute consultation to see if therapy could help with your journey, go to www.momswithoutcapes.com/start (This is for moms who live in Montana ONLY)

Transcript

Almost killed my marriage
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[00:00:00] Picture this: I'm in the kitchen scrubbing dishes like there's no tomorrow. The clinking and clattering echoing through the house. Meanwhile, my husband's outside chilling on the deck without a care in the world Vacuuming the rugs like my life depended on it, while he's glued to the TV just relaxing and watching football.

I felt overwhelmed and like he didn't appreciate all the hard work that I was doing. The resentment was building up and it got so bad that I actually thought about leaving him, but then something clicked. In this episode. I'm going to share the moment that changed everything and how we saved our marriage from falling apart.

Welcome to moms without capes, the podcast where you'll get practical strategies for reclaiming your sense of self. I'm Onnie Michalsky and my goal is to help you prioritize your needs and carve out space for yourself so that you can [00:01:00] discover who you are beyond your role as a mom. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out how to get past the piles of dishes and the loads of laundry to do something that didn't revolve around my family.

I felt overwhelmed and underappreciated. That is until I started doing the work to move myself further up on my own to do list, and I began doing things that brought me joy. I discovered that this is the key to not losing ourselves in motherhood.

Over the years of raising half a dozen kiddos, I can confidently hang up my super mom cape and now I want to help you do the same. This is Moms Without Capes.

In this episode I'm going to be sharing with you three ways. I almost killed my marriage Let me preface this by saying that this summer My husband and I will be celebrating 25 years of marriage.

There have been hills and valleys and the journey has definitely been an adventurous one. Neither one of us is [00:02:00] perfect. And of course we both showed up with some baggage. What I'll share with you today are three things that I was doing that impacted our marriage in such a way that we almost lost what we had built.

My hope for you is that you begin to recognize how you are showing up in the relationship with your partner. It takes two to make or break a relationship, but I believe that changes that one partner makes can have a profound impact on the relationship as a whole.

Once I started making changes, I not only found that our relationship improved, I started to feel more appreciated and less overwhelmed, and it allowed me to show up differently and more like my authentic self.

I hope what I share today helps you, especially if you are struggling in your marriage. Let's get into today's show. the first thing that I was doing that was having a negative [00:03:00] impact on my marriage was I was being a martyr. Martyrdom refers to the tendency of one partner to sacrifice their own needs, desires, and being excessively for the sake of the relationship or for the partner.

It involves self sacrifice to the point of neglecting happiness, fulfillment, and even basic self care. I was doing this and I thought that I should be rewarded for it, I didn't really have any other peers that were in my same season.

I got married three days after I turned 23. And. I had grown up, my mom was a stay at home mom, my dad, he worked his own construction business, we were a blue collar family and I grew up seeing my mom sacrifice so much for us, for her family and for her kids and that was just what I knew.

So I shelved anything that I was interested in or any kind of [00:04:00] passions that I had or any kind of desires that were burning inside me. I shelved them because I was like, okay, job. this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. And with that, when I shelved all those passions and interests and desires, I also shelved my happiness, my fulfillment.

I gradually , discovered that this was not the life that I wanted to build. And what was missing was that joy. I tried to find it- we moved to Montana with a dream and thinking, I'm going to simplify, I'm going to do these things.

But I was constantly seeking for happiness and I didn't realize that I had shelved it along with all of the other things that I had shelved when I became married. And it was hard.

It was really hard. Martyrdom can manifest in a lot of different ways. It can manifest in pushing your partner's needs ahead of your own. Putting yourself on the back burner. [00:05:00] I know many of us have taking on an unequal share of responsibilities without complaint or suppressing your own emotions and desires to avoid conflict or just pleasing your spouse.

This was a big one and this is a whole separate one, but this was part of the martyrdom. This was part of my self sacrifice was not really sharing what I was feeling or How I was affected by different experiences. I kept a lot of things inside and It led to me feeling imbalanced and very much resentful of my husband and of my Relationship even of my kids 

That was so sad Like I even resented being a mother because I had completely sacrificed my own needs For the pursuit of this relationship, and that started [00:06:00] coming out as feeling resentment towards my kids, Jason. That's my husband he loves hunting. We are in Montana! He grew up here in Montana and he is a big hunter.

In fact, when we lived in Pennsylvania, he flew back a few times and went hunting with his dad. He grew up hunting. and so when we moved here, that was what he did. And every time the fall came around, I would get a pit in my stomach. I felt abandoned. I felt like, how dare he like. I'm putting it all into this marriage and into our family.

How dare he go and hunt and do something that he enjoys. And I just felt, and even like with his dad and here I am like 2000 miles away from my family and there were a lot of emotions that I was feeling, but I kept them all inside and I felt trapped. He would [00:07:00] go with his family to hunt and I felt completely slighted.

I don't even remember how it happened, but there is this moment where I just had this like light bulb moment realization that I am the one keeping myself trapped and I realize I can do what I want. Now, of course, I had to figure out like, what is it that I like to do?

What do I want to do? What have I always enjoyed? And I had to do some work digging all of that out, but giving myself permission to do the things that I like started chipping away at that resentment, I started realizing like I am in charge of my own happiness. He isn't in charge of my happiness.

You know what? Do I want him to stop hunting? Honestly, I did because it was making me feel like I was feeling jealous and I was feeling resentment, [00:08:00] right? But what good would that have been? So we both sit around and be miserable. That's not going to work. That was when I started going on the solo cations and I started getting out and I started dancing and doing things that brought me joy.

It was that flip of the switch that allowed me to stop feeling resentment, to stop feeling like I had to sacrifice my own needs, wants, and desires for my family. And guys, I gotta tell you, it transformed my relationship because no longer was I and all mad about him going hunting and doing the things that he wanted to do.

I actually was like, okay, this is hunting season. I've got my season. I've got my things that I'm going to be doing. And it was a game changer. The second thing, which I touched on a little bit. This, you saw I got a little emotional.

Good thing I [00:09:00] didn't put highlighter on this morning. All right. So the second thing that I alluded to was not speaking my needs and feelings. This is something that I know I'm not alone in. I know so many of us struggle to be vulnerable because speaking our feelings and our needs like first we have to say what am I feeling and what do I need but then being able to communicate that, that's going to change things.

Communication is the lifeblood of any healthy marriage, serving as the primary means by which partners connect, understand each other's needs and navigate the inevitable challenges that arise. At its core, effective communication fosters intimacy, trust, and emotional connection between spouses. When I am working with clients who are struggling in their marriage, communication is definitely an area that we focus on 

I work primarily [00:10:00] just with the woman or the wife and often it is when communication erodes that trouble starts happening. It takes courage. It takes introspection to say what am I feeling? What is safe for me to share? what do I want to show?

That's all my heart. It's important to create that safe space for vulnerability so that you can get the validation in. One of the things that I learned recently, and I did a whole episode on this, are our relational needs. 22 relational needs that were identified by John Townsend. 

Often, you might walk away from a conversation with your partner, and you still feel empty, or you still feel frustrated or whatever. It could be that you did not get what you needed from that conversation. I know for my husband, and I think most men are quick to give advice .

They will jump in, they're [00:11:00] very solution oriented, and I know that's a blanket statement and that might not be your husband, but he wants a solution. He sees that I'm struggling or I'm hurt and he wants to provide a solution because to him, that solution would make me feel better.

And often that's not what I need. And so I've gotten really good at saying, I just need you to sit here with me. I just need you to validate that what I'm feeling is okay. I just need your encouragement. I need you to affirm the situation. I need you to be on my side. I need you to come and sit in the hole with me and just be there with me rather than give me your advice.

Unless we stop and ask ourselves, what do I need? We can't expect our partner to mind read. We can't expect our partner to know what we need if we don't even know what we need. So with 22 relational needs, it may not be what he's thinking.

Knowing these [00:12:00] needs and then asking yourself, what do I need? And having your partner say, what does he need? And then coming together and being able to communicate effectively.

That's going to change. how you respond to one another, how you are towards one another. It cultivates that deep intimacy that might be missing from your relationship. We need to feel emotionally close to our partners. And if we're not expressing our needs or expressing the way we feel or letting our partner see our heart, it's creating that wall and that disconnect.

Communication is a vital tool for resolving conflicts and addressing issues before they escalate., I just had a very hard conversation recently, and I learned this framework for resolving conflict. I was able to say what I wanted to say and resolve a conflict that has been in my heart for years now.

I [00:13:00] used to hold my feelings and my hurts in. I would cry at night. My husband would go to sleep. Sometimes he wasn't even asleep and I would roll over on my side and I would just cry. Doing the dishes was another time that I don't know, it was just something about the sudsy water and the tears would just fall.

Or worse, I would just erupt. I'd be building up all of this tension in me for days. And then I would blow up. These are all unhealthy ways of communicating or not communicating. And it was damaging us. It was chipping away little by little me holding in my feelings. I wasn't fostering that safe space for my husband and I to have intimacy. It led to misunderstandings. It also led to resentment and it created a huge distance between us. I recognizing that, just like motherhood, there's no instruction book. 

Yes, there are plenty of books written on marriages, but we need to [00:14:00] find out what is going to work for us. I started looking at it like I looked at my counseling license. I need continuing education. We need, my husband and I, we need to learn the skills that are going to support a healthy marriage. 

So we started looking for different classes online, in person retreats, making sure that we were treating our marriage as a priority. And I started myself learning more words to describe how I feel. The feelings wheel is a great tool that can, expand emotional vocabulary.

Once I started doing these things, once I started not self sacrificing, realizing that I do not have to sacrifice who I was. for my family and I started expressing my needs and my feelings, my marriage started changing. The [00:15:00] third thing, let me take a drink of, I've got this iced coffee.

It's really good. We started drinking decaf.

all right, the third thing that I was doing that was damaging the foundation of our marriage was busyness. Guys, this is something that you know, I preach about being so busy is Detrimental I was doing so many things and I would wear it as a badge of honor.

Like I was like, yes, I am killing it because I was doing all of these things. I was homeschooling all six of our children at one time. we had bought a hotel. It was like a rundown hotel that we were fixing up. So we were running and it was operable. So we were running it and doing all of the things behind the scenes.

We were maintaining friendships. We had a lot of couple and they take work, right? I was [00:16:00] volunteering on different community boards. I was on the friends of the pool. I was in chamber of commerce. I think I was on PTA at one point. I was coaching soccer. I was instructing.

was even when I was being the Zumba instructor, right? Like I was still doing all the things throughout the early on in our marriage, I was leading Girl Scouts, which takes a lot of we had an awesome troop and it took A lot of my time. I was being super mom.

the way we spend our time reflects our priorities and my priorities clearly were not on our marriage. so I needed to switch some things up. I needed to build us as the rock but I wasn't doing that.

And because of that. I felt extremely disconnected. Now I mentioned that I was on the verge of separating. I was actually looking at divorced lawyers because that disconnection was so huge. [00:17:00] I didn't feel that Jason was the man that I married but I wasn't the person that he married either.

I was neglecting our marriage and I was sacrificing quality time spent together in favor of completing tasks and meeting external applications, which left little room for meaningful connection. we weren't really having shared experiences, unless you counted when he helped me carry in the stuff for the Friends of the Pool fundraiser.

We were not having quality time that a marriage needs to foster. And this neglect chipped away at the foundation of our relationship. It caused, again, those feelings of resentment. But also loneliness and dissatisfaction, I realized that I had to slow down and shift my priorities if I wanted our relationship to improve.

There was even a time a few summers ago and I was going back to Pennsylvania to visit my family andfor like months, I was like, I don't know, should I leave? Should I stay? Should I leave? Should I [00:18:00] stay? I like read books on it and Google things.

And my counselor was like, listen, you need to talk to him. You need to share your feelings with him because I was going through a battle alone and it involved both of us and sharing my feelings something that I was not used to doing. But when I did open up to him.

And I said this is what I need, Jace. This is what I need. He responded in a way that I did not think, right? Because we think about all these worst case scenarios. And I'm like, he's never going to talk to me again. It's over the minute I open my mouth, right? But he didn't. He responded with love.

He responded with what I needed because I asked him, this is what I needed. And I went back to Pennsylvania with this not an but it was like, Hey, you need to make a decision. Like we can't live in this limbo thing. You're either out or you're in. And I left. And I even [00:19:00] remember getting in the car with my friends when I was there.

And I was like, I'm done. I'm so done. I came back home and I resolved in my heart. This is it. I am all in. I am all in and I started chipping away at the resentment and I started doing the things that I needed to do to make the marriage work.

So I share this with you today because I want you to realize what your role is in your partner relationship. What are you doing? Are you self sacrificing? Are you expressing your needs? Are you learning how to express your needs in a healthier way? And lastly, are you too busy,Because the way you spend your time is a reflection of your priorities.

And when you look at your schedule and you look at your planner, what are you doing today that shows what is the most important thing in your life, often I'll [00:20:00] talk to moms who will say, my kids are the most important thing, but I want you to step back for a minute. Okay. And see, is that serving you?

Is that serving you to have your kids above your relationship with your partner because you built this family together? And I understand there are some of you in unsafe situations and If you are in an unsafe relationship, you need to take more than just changing these three things,

If you are in danger, if you are feeling like you are emotionally, sexually, physically abused. No, that's not a safe relationship at all. I do want you to look at these things because I know that these things were really detrimental to my own relationship and I share them with you with tears because I am feeling so passionate about helping you get connected.

You need to be connected. You need to feel that you can be safe and have that place where you can show what's on [00:21:00] your heart. Because what's on your heart is huge and you are meant to share it with the world. 

So if today's episode resonated with you in any way, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a minute to just leave a review for Moms Without Capes. It's either on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Your feedback not only helps me understand how I've been able to help you, but it also spreads the word to other women who may have lost touch with themselves since becoming moms. 

I took the responsibility for my own actions and I was able to make positive changes. Making these changes not only improved my relationship, but it also allowed me to show up as my authentic self.

If struggling in your own marriage, I encourage you to reflect on your own behaviors and consider making some changes. You are 100 percent responsible for your own life and for creating the happiness you want to feel. Stop living on autopilot. Slow [00:22:00] down, check in with yourself, and please, above all, take care of yourself because friend, are worth it.