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Community Corner

Where Have All the Good Marriages Gone?

I used to refer moms to postpartum specialists, now it's to divorce attorneys. What is going on here on the Eastside?

Editor's Note: Kat Stremlau is the parenting columnist and author of Friday Family Files for our neighboring Web site, Woodinville Patch.

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IT'S HARD to write this article without “Another One Bites the Dust” going through my head. I hate to be so cold about it, but I can’t count on two hands the number of couples I’ve seen split up in the past year. That’s right. Can’t. Really. It’s more than 10. I still wonder, however, where that breaking point is between being annoyed at your spouse and leaving your family.

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I will be the first to admit that my marriage isn’t perfect. And I imagine that there exists no such thing with young children in the house. I can’t, however, imagine making a shortsighted decision to leave my husband over things we didn’t even try to fix and I’m frankly shocked to see families destroying themselves so easily. Hell, my parents were miserable, but they stayed together.

It’s not our parents' marriage. I get that. I’ve seen marriages collapse over affairs (one in which the wife caught her husband with his arm around his mistress while driving on I-90 … and called him on his phone and then chased him to his office parking lot) and over boredom (the “I work hard all day and I feel like we are just roommates” vibe) and over children (you’ve let yourself go and are no fun anymore and, gee whiz, Sally in accounting has a cool condo and a cat in Bellevue and wants to try paragliding).

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Far be it from me to recommend anyone stay to together for the sake of their children because, in some cases, it is for the best. I do however, recommend saving 25-30K and trying a marriage counselor first.

Moms in our generation (and especially on the Eastside) are really overextending themselves. Rushing from school to school to sport to activity is draining and, frankly, not fun. Spending our days mired in baby muck or preschool activities or sport schedules is not how we all envisioned motherhood and having not a MOMENT to ourselves to recoup makes it particularly difficult to switch from Mommy to Wife. There are days my shoes don’t match -- much less my bra and panties. Not exactly the fantasy my husband signed up for 13 years ago!

We’ve spent months if not years preparing for our children and doing what’s best for them. We did not, however, plan for our marriages falling apart. Or letting our blood boil over the same fight. Or discovering that our husband has had an affair. Or losing all interest in doing anything other than climbing into our bed at night and falling asleep.

I wish spouses would spend a little more time planning on their marriages being rocky and looking ahead to what their relationship would look like when the children are grown. I also wish parents would imagine the pain and suffering you and your children will feel when they call out to you at night and you aren’t there to comfort them because it isn’t “your night” with them. Makes a few weeks at an intensive marriage counseling office seem pretty attractive.

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