Perhaps the hardest point of my marriage was when my husband and I lost our youngest son. We were only 10 short days from our due date when it happened. Our due date, oddly enough, was also our 4th wedding anniversary. That entire experience was hard, but the month after was the worst by far.
I distinctly remember yelling a lot and fighting about every little thing. Nothing we did was right and the spark we had was gone. At one point, we gave each other our rings and put our thoughts and emotions on hold for about a week. I honestly thought everything was over.
At the end of that week we realized our issue was we were telling each other how to grieve and move on from our loss instead of supporting each other. Gottman (2015) has a principle in his book about turning toward each other. We had to learn this.
One activity he has in this principle is the emotional bank account. It is essentially where you and your spouse go over thoughts, needs, and emotions with each other and how to fulfill those together. It also has activities to help fill that account we all have. I wish had this then. It really would have helped us to focus on each other instead of ourselves and our own grief.
Perhaps our biggest struggle was our inability to cope with each other’s fear and stress. We both shut ourselves inside mentally and refused to not only allow another in, but also to try and open up enough to be able to care for the other.
After a long knock down, drag out, screaming match until 2 in the morning, it clicked that what each of us needed was the other. We needed to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start to feel sorry together. If only Gottman had been there to help from the beginning. So much time and breath waste on yelling and hurting could have been avoided.
I am happy to say that everything is better now. We focus on each other and, a year and a half after the event, are doing remarkably well. Our communication and ability to turn toward each other in order to find strength has increased dramatically and we have honestly never been happier in our marriage.
To Eternity and Beyond 