# Talk about difficult topics



## JohnnyJo (8 mo ago)

Hi Everybody,

Marriage and family can get really tough. And raising kids too. Much more than we can realize when we get married and decide to have kids. One, two and then three. Some people will even tell you at the beginning that the marriage is hard, but because you are at the start of this journey, you just can't realize what they are talking about and you are entering the relationship with ideas, principles and goals to make it better than everybody else. And then things get tough... really tough.

We have been married for 12 years and known each other for 14 years. When we moved together to Switzerland after I got a great career opportunity here, we had known each other for one year. My girlfriend (at that time) was fed up with her job decided to quit and took my offer to move here with me. She has been living here with me for one year before we got married and then had kids. She lived out of my income and I also paid her a daily German course for one full year to make sure she can integrate and start to work here. We have two older boys and one daughter, the boy is 10 and he has been a really difficult child, much more than ordinary kids. His brother and sister are very active and demanding, yet manageable. The kids were born before she started to work again, so now she has been a full-time mom for around 10 years.

I am a man born in late 80s, coming from Eastern Europe and holding a postgrad. degree from a renowned west European university and I still have the same goals, as at the beginning of our relationship - to have a strong family and raise independent and happy children. But ideas and principles seem to vanish. I feel that I am constantly failing on social and family expectations, I am very tired and developed depression that lasts now more than 2 years. It is difficult to say how much of it is self-inflicted, related to our current situation and how much is caused by my wife's attitude. 

One of the biggest issues that I have is our sex life. I hope to be able to discuss here topics and thoughts particularly about sex which are socially questionable. And also to discuss other topics related to my interests and thoughts, which is complicated to discuss with people around me and look forward to hear about your experience, feedback or just to share my point of view.

Thank you.


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## jonty30 (Oct 23, 2021)

JohnnyJo said:


> Hi Everybody,
> 
> Marriage and family can get really tough. And raising kids too. Much more than we can realize when we get married and decide to have kids. One, two and then three. Some people will even tell you at the beginning that the marriage is hard, but because you are at the start of this journey, you just can't realize what they are talking about and you are entering the relationship with ideas, principles and goals to make it better than everybody else. And then things get tough... really tough.
> 
> ...


Please bounce your thoughts onto us and we will give you good feedback before you approach her with this topic.


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## BigDaddyNY (May 19, 2021)

JohnnyJo said:


> Hi Everybody,
> 
> Marriage and family can get really tough. And raising kids too. Much more than we can realize when we get married and decide to have kids. One, two and then three. Some people will even tell you at the beginning that the marriage is hard, but because you are at the start of this journey, you just can't realize what they are talking about and you are entering the relationship with ideas, principles and goals to make it better than everybody else. And then things get tough... really tough.
> 
> ...


Your story is not that unique. Quite often we have great plans, then life happens. We can only do our best, recognize our shortcomings then work to improve. We've been married 32 years and have two adult children, so we've been through much of what you are currently experiencing in life. 

If you are truly depressed, as in clinical depression you should consider therapy and possibly medication.

You also aren't unique in reporting that sex life drops off and can take a backseat to all the other things life throws at you. You can't let that go unaddressed. It doesn't have to get back to where it was when you first met, but it cannot be allowed to die out. Let me say that again, it CANNOT be allow to die out. I am convinced that if you value sex and physical intimacy at all, you have to find a way to keep it alive in during the busiest and most trying times in your life. It is a lot easier to keep it alive than it is to bring it back from the dead. 

I earned my BS in EE and an MBA while working full time and we had two young kids. My wife was a stay at home mom until they were in middle school, at which time she went back to work full time. The kids had tons of activities and it was a hectic time. So, I understand how busy life can get. We did our best to share the work. We were both tired, but we made a genuine effort to keep our sex life and physical intimacy high on the priority list. This wasn't easy. We didn't live near any of our relatives, so no built in babysitters for date nights. We just took our kids with us. We took them to dinner, weekend getaways and even took them with us when we went away for our anniversary when they were old enough to engage in activities at resorts without us. It wasn't easy, but we made it work. 

There are two big things I credit for helping our physical intimacy that take almost no work. First is we have ALWAYS slept in the nude. We spend the entire night in contact with each other with no barrier. Besides that simple physical contact it also made it a lot easier for us to have sex in the morning as we were getting up for the day. That was a rare free time in our schedule and it worked for us. We have also made it a habit of showering together. Throughout our marriage it has been very rare for us to shower separately unless I was deployed or traveling for work. This was another time of the day when the kids weren't around and we had even a short amount of alone time together. 

That is some generic advice. If you have some specific issues or questions, post them and let's see what we all can come up with.


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