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Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Life is chaotic in the Riot houshold, MrRiot and I rarely get to spend any time together on our own (as he has his son Friday-Monday every week), his 3 year old son has social services involved because his son's mother has mental health issues which aren't being kept in check and shes involved with a violent man. On top of that, his job in very stressful and he's looking for a new one, I'm trying to move house, theres the court case still going on, my health is on the up but still makes life stressful not being able to walk very far. So in some ways it not bloody surprising that we argue (mainly about silly things like his fussiness with food which drives me bonkers at times), but our sex life is non-existent right now (partly because of the no free time without child issue) and things aren't exactly rosy! But we love each other very much and want to make this all work but living 50+ miles apart and only seeing each other on weekends with all of this stuff combined is making life difficult.
So what I guess I'm looking for is ways for us to make things easier and find ways of being able to communicate better - he's not a "sit down and tell me all about it" sort of person and I am and looking after a 3 year old is hard enough without having to undo some of the things the other parent does, without all of the additional crap thats going on in our lives! We're trying to arrange one child-free night a month, but what other things can we do? He's exhausted all the time and the pair of us are stressed out!
So what I guess I'm looking for is ways for us to make things easier and find ways of being able to communicate better - he's not a "sit down and tell me all about it" sort of person and I am and looking after a 3 year old is hard enough without having to undo some of the things the other parent does, without all of the additional crap thats going on in our lives! We're trying to arrange one child-free night a month, but what other things can we do? He's exhausted all the time and the pair of us are stressed out!
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That does sound chaotic, and there's no way around it being hard. But it sounds like you're really committed to making things work, which is really positive
Some people find that emails or letters can be an easier way to get certain feelings across, especially people who find it harder to talk face to face. So that might be worth a try if you haven't already?
The child-free night sounds a really good idea. I wonder if there are other bits of time that you could put boundaries around. So, you could arrange for an evening, or an hour, or a phone call, where practical things are banned. Maybe you could cut out work, moving, court, health. Sometimes that can be really freeing, and having those boundaries agreed between you makes it easier to enjoy some space.
And this one may or not suit you, but I was introduced to this list of "36 question to make you fall in love" in a YouthNet workshop. When everyday, practical life feels like it's eating up all your space, sometimes a different structure can help you connect more. I think some of them at least are really interesting questions