How Gratitude Saved My Marriage

Hi Friendships,

If you’ve been with me for a while and watch my Instagram stories you know that every day [typically 5 out of 7 let’s be real, life happens!] I write down my gratitude for the day in a notebook. If you got my free planning ebook you also know I write down daily affirmations and my dreams. The other day someone asked me why I do this and the point of it all. There are several reasons for this but they were basically asking does it really change anything. I simply responded, “gratitude saved my marriage”.  I know first hand that focusing on all the good you do have in your life changes your perspective. It causes you to acknowledge how good you actually do have it and is a constant reminder that life is good. I tested practicing gratitude with one of the most important parts of my life, my marriage.

After having a meltdown of epic proportions (you can read about me here and here for a little more back story) I eventually decided that I need help and sought out therapy. I had postpartum depression, at the time I had a child who refused to follow the rules, and I was unhappy in my job, my mothering and most certainly in my marriage. I felt alone and like no one was fighting for me. I had several thoughts and some of them were, “My husband is a good man. Why do I hate him so much?” Another was, “What has changed from the beginning? He hasn’t changed hardly at all?” and “I don’t want a divorce, I don’t want anyone else. I want to be married to him, but I can not keep living like this feeling the way I’m feeling.” The big eye opener for me was the thought that, “It doesn’t matter what he does it won’t make me happy” RED FLAG. He could have given me the world and I would have cared less. Hellllooooo dysfunction.

It should be said that our whole marriage up until a couple years ago I was operating out of the place of needing to be perfect. We just went on living our lives and not really communicating about any real issues. We’d get mad, we’d fight, not talk for 3 days and everything would then be “fine”. Business as usual. In my husbands defense me saying things like, “it must be nice to have someone help” or “thanks a lot for doing the dishes” when I’d clearly done it, isn’t communicating. Being passive aggressive towards your spouse and expecting them to know exactly what you want isn’t communicating. If you have ever said, “I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO TELL HIM.”  I’m going to need for you to stop and think that through. Is your spouse a mind reader? Did he study under Miss Cleo? Does he know your love languages, your enneagram number, your top 5 strengths and what makes you tick? I’m guessing no. Disclaimer, even if you husband does know those things from any personality tests, I’ll will say he has a leg up but also that, he still probably hasn’t studied under Miss Cleo so the jig is up – you need to TELL HIM how you feel.

I went to therapy on my own, not couples, just me. I knew I was the one that had changed and knew I was lost. I filled out the papers, 98% of what I wanted to work on was about me with subtle hints that I wanted everyone around me to change as well. I’m not controlling at all. 😉  At the very bottom of the papers it asked what else I wanted. In the worlds smallest of hand writing I wrote, “I want to be happy.” and “I want to love my husband.” I can still see the writing in my mind. My heart broke, it was the first time I ever acknowledged that I didn’t feel like I was “in love” anymore.  A huge part of putting off therapy for so long was the thought that if I get better we’ll grow apart. I’d like to say that while that’s a very real thing and does happen, it got to the point that it was a risk I was willing to take in order to be happy. Let’s move forward. I had been going for several months and things were getting better. I was getting healing and moving forward. The therapist was giving me ways to deal with all the moving parts of our relationship. I was starting to find freedom but hadn’t completely fell back in love [for lack of a better way to say it].

There was one session where we were talking and I had noticed this a couple of times, she had asked more than once, “What does he do right?” I’d answer and we’d move on because remember, it didn’t matter what he did. It wasn’t good enough. What can I say? I’m hard headed. Also, my top strength is BELIEF, it’s a blessing and a curse. Later that day I had been thinking about all the things that he does do “right,” again, my husband is a good man. I wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t. I was sitting in my office and I had just opened up a fresh stack of post it notes. I held them in my hands flipping the pages and thinking. We are around 7 years of marriage at this point, “is this the 7 year itch?” I decided I didn’t believe in that, so if that’s not real, what’s going on? I forgot to be thankful. I lost all my gratitude for all the things my husband is and does for me and our family. There is no 7 year itch, I fell out of love. I believe that 7 years just has to be the roundabout time that things aren’t new anymore. You’ve most likely had kids, you’ve traveled, you have a routine and you’re solid in your marriage. It’s not as fun as it was and it’s really taking work to be together. These aren’t scientific facts and I don’t know if there are studies out there. I didn’t look, but if you mean to tell me that you wake up at 7 years and all of the sudden think, “thank you, next” I’m going to call bullshit on it. Why? What has happened? I bet in the top 3 if not the very top reason why things are going sideways if you were truly honest with yourself it’s because you [we] forget to be grateful for what we have right in front of us. Other marriages, other things start looking better. Why? Because your husband leaves his underwear on the floor and Leslie’s new husband brings her coffee in bed.

I put the post its’ on my desk, got a pen and wrote “I am thankful you work so hard”. I put it in his underwear drawer [simply because that’s the first place he goes every morning before getting in the shower] and I committed to 100 days whether I felt it or not I would write down what I was thankful for and not keep it to myself but share it with him. It wasn’t easy but things changed.

Here’s us circa 2015 with an unprofessional photo because, real life 😉

I don’t even remember what his initial response was; it wasn’t something I told him why I was doing it I just started doing it. I don’t even think I’ve ever asked him what he thought about it.  Maybe when he’s editing this he can type it here:

So, funny as I was reading the above paragraph (husband writing as I am the editor). I was about to insert a comment stating how much I really did appreciate the notes. It was a great feeling first thing in the morning to see a sweet little note and made me feel very happy.

I didn’t tell him why I was doing it because it wasn’t about him. It was about me. It was about  remembering what I had in front of me. Even on the hard days I still wrote him something. Sometimes they were serious things and others they were cute and playful, but what happened was our marriage started to transform. I can’t speak for him but I believe it did for both of us.

He wasn’t hearing all the things he was doing wrong. He also wasn’t getting a passive aggressive remark about what he didn’t do that day. He was hearing about all the things he was doing right. Was he perfect? No. Is he perfect now? No.  Is he perfect for me? Yes.

I’ll tell you what else started to happen, he realized I was thankful for things he didn’t even think twice about. So in return, what I believe to be very subconsciously, he started doing more of those things because he now knew it was important to me.

Do we still have things in our relationship that need work? Absolutely. I’m not saying writing on post its will transform your marriage so there aren’t any problems. What I’m saying is you have to shift your mindset. Remember all the good that is there to be able to make it even better and fall in love all over again through all the seasons that life brings you.