We're running with 25% power

This week has not been a good week for us. Chris has been sick with a stomach bug and so all is left to me. So you'd say "Well, then you are running at 50%" yeah, not so much. Without Chris in commission I get wore out a lot easier. I'm high strung, and snapping at the kids. It's times like this you realize how important your partnership is. When you don't have the other person to field some of the kid's wants you tend to lose your patience a little bit quicker. Not only that we are financially strapped this month due to shelling out money to fix the furnace from the flood in August. I cannot wait for this week to be over!

Date nights

If you talk to any happily married couple they will tell you that one of their secrets to success is date night. It has been roughly 8 months since my husband and I have had a date night. During one of our last "sessions" my husband told me "we need a date night". He's right but between the kids, the cost, the time, when are we going to do it? I know my quest is almost up, but I have learned several things from it. One thing I am going to make sure I schedule in each month is date night or date day.

Different lives

I became a corrections officer in June of this year. This has been a lifelong dream of mine. My husband doesn't understand it but he supports me. My husband has no idea what I go through on a daily basis at work. He doesn't know the stress, and when I try to explain it he still doesn't get it.
I've talked to co-workers who have spouses that work "normal" jobs and they all say the same thing. "They don't get it and they never will and you will forever have this problem". The divorce rate among law enforcement is high. Spouses don't understand the connection you have with your coworkers. I live 10 minutes away from my job however I don't come home from work until an hour or more after my shift ends. My husband has jokingly brought up that I have a "boyfriend" at work. This is absolutley not the case. I try to explain to him that we all are connected and we all "debrief" in the parking lot after work. In this line of work it's important to have that communication with your coworkers because they are the one that are going to save your ass if something goes down. We go through a lot together.
Many of the officers where I work are married to each other. When I first started I thought it was weird. Now that I've been there 5 months I realize how much easier it would be to have someone that knows exactly what you go through.... and this realization scares me.

The cost of following your dreams

In August of 2008 we had our 3rd son Leopold. Our middle son Xavier was only 3 and the cost to have both of our kids in daycare would add up to $13,000.00 a year. My husband had a job that he hated and after the cost of two car payments and paying daycare we would have a whopping $75.00 left over each month from his paycheck. This was not worth it. So we decided that in October when I returned to work Chris would become a stay at home dad. This was quite the struggle at first. We went down to one car but in the end it was worth it. A year later my husband realized his dream was to become a baker. We were getting by just fine so we decided he should go to school and get his degree since he was home anyway. So Chris started school in the spring of 2010. We've been doing good financially. We have been able to get caught up on bills, get out of any BAD debt things were on the up and up all while living on ONE income. This wouldn't last long. In February we paid off our one car loan and then decided to pick up another used car and pay cash. The goal was to put the money we had been spending on a car payment ($270.00) into a savings account. This went well until April... yes one month later. When the car that we just paid off took a shit and we had to pay $500.00 to repair it. So there went that savings. Then in May I was offered my dream job BUT the pay was less. Approximatley $300.00 a month less. That's OK we thought because that was money we were putting in savings and in the long run it would work out better for us. So we got by for the summer... until the flooding in August hit and we got 8 inches of water in our basement. This ruined our 2 year old washing machine. We filed a claim with FEMA as insurance didn't cover flooding and we received a check to just cover replacing our washing machine. Then October came and it started getting cold so we kick on the furnace and we got NOTHING. NOTHING coming out of our 4 year old furnace. The flooding ruined the circuit board, gas valve and ignitor. Then add on the $50.00 an hour for labor and we end up with a bill of $475.00.
You may ask what this has to do with marriage. I'll tell you what. I constantly think about money, I constantly worry about what we're going to do. As it stands it's October 27th and I still haven't been able to pay the October mortgage because we had to fix the furnace. I couldn't catch up with the next paycheck or else that would cause other bills to be late and the total amount of those late fees would add up to more than just being late on the mortgage payment. I am the one that handles our finances so this stress keeps me up at night. It makes me a nervous wreck. My husband doesn't stress as much. He tells me that something always works out. My response to that is "I MAKE IT WORK OUT, IT'S ME!!!" I understand why most divorces are the results of arguing over money.

Blog you should follow.

http://heathersunwrittenblog.blogspot.com/

I love this blog, it's written by a girl I graduated school with. Her story is amazing. You watch her grow from the wife of a drug addict, to a mother, to a single mother and then to a happily engaged woman. It's just an awesome story. I love how she writes and how honest she is.

We've NOT lost that loving feeling!

My days off are Wednesday's and Thursday's and this week the whole family has been sick. The hubby and I found it easier to spend some quality time together. We've enjoyed spending extra time on the couch being hacking and sniffling away. We were even able to fit in some "boom boom time" which made the both of us feel more connected. I don't know what it is about being physically with each other makes us feel closer emotionally. I guess that's why they say sex is such an important part of a relationship.

How do others make their marriages work?

I interviewed a couple that are close friends of mine regarding their relationship. I wanted to know how they have kept their marriage together for the past 10 years. I also wanted to know what advice they would offer to other couples. Here are a few snippits of our conversation:
Has marriage always come easily? Ian’s answer was a laugh. Whitney was more verbal with her response, “Oh hell no, it took us probably 3 years to finally get used to living with each other. I mean we weren’t living in my mom’s basement anymore playing house. Now we had a mortgage, and responsibilities and that was an adjustment that each of us went through differently. There were plenty of arguments and I’m pretty sure if we weren’t so broke we would’ve divorced!”

WHat advice would this couple offer to other couples? “Always make sure you take time for yourself and for you as a couple. In the end that’s what you have your marriage. It’s so important and it should be the one thing people cherish but yet we throw it on the backburner. Make sure you get one date night a month. The sooner you make that the easier it will be to continue on with it.”