Peaceful Parenting Part 1 - The Untold Truth About How It Affected My Marriage

There is a lot going around these days about "peaceful parenting" and "attachment parenting."  I could talk about these for hours.  I do peaceful parent and I attachment parent, even with my teen. But I'm not here to talk about those.  EVERYONE talks about those.  I'm here to talk about Peaceful Parenting in my marriage.

You see, like many peaceful and attachment parenting households my marriage has been put on the back burner for quite some time.  I know, I know...if you don't have a strong marriage what are you teaching your children?  Some say to put your spouse first. I don't. My first child came before my spouse. She came first. My children come first. I won't deny it.

I married Hubby because he put his children first. It was why I fell in love with him. We are both okay putting the children first; but that doesn't mean we don't miss each other.

Things have gotten particularly bad recently. I'm not talking fighting or arguing or even disagreeing. I'm talking like two silent ships passing in the night, not even knowing what country the other is from. We have become good friends who co-habitate. He earns the money. I pay the bills and raise the children. He helps out around the house when he's home. I do the rest of the stuff. It's a comfortable arrangement. There is no pain. There is no upsetment. There is no....passion.

I miss passion.

So, while I was sitting by the pool the other day listening to Boo Bear and her friend play, I had a moment to reflect on my life and peaceful/attachment parenting and here is the thought which came into my mind.  I'd like to share it with you.

Peaceful and attachment parenting both end with the word PARENT in it. Wow. Epiphany moment for me.  Okay, it sounds stupid and so obvious, but we have been neglecting to be "parents" to on another. Not mother/father parents - but peaceful, accepting and loving with one another.

I have grown irritated at Hubby for not finishing up his projects, whether it be folding laundry or cleaning. He leaves things half done all the time.  Leaving something half done, to me, is worse than not doing it all. To me, leaving something half done means you are purposefully leaving it for me to finish. I wish it had never been started in the first place.  Example: we did our big spring cleaning where all the furniture is moved around. We have a portable fireplace. He moved it into the middle of the entranceway...for days. When I asked him when he was going to bring it out to the shed (where he said he had wanted to put it), his response was: "Eventually."  To me, that pissed me off. HE'S the one who wanted to move it out to the shed, not me. Why didn't he just finish it right then?! I was left with this heavy fireplace, in the middle of my entranceway, and a passive aggressive husband.

I had two choices at that point: get angry OR be peaceful and attached to my husband.  Gotta be honest, the former is what I wanted to be but I chose the latter. You see, I wouldn't get angry at my children for doing the same behavior. I would talk to Honey Bunny or Boo Bear and remind them that when something is left in the front entranceway, it makes it difficult to walk in and out the front door and I would like it very much if they would please put it away. Yet, my first inclination was to not give my husband the same respect I give my children. WOW! Another epiphany moment.

My husband and I were raised in authoritarian households.  I'm going to wager a guess and say you were too, Reader, weren't you?  In my household, my father's favorite line was: "Because I said so."  Yep. That was the only explanation I got. If I asked how to spell a word, he would call out to me: "D.i.c.t.i.o.n.a.r.y." We learned, after I graduated, that I have severe learning disabilities. I never could find a word in the freaking dictionary because I can't hear the difference between the soft vowels!  It was horribly humiliating. Hubby's father, to this day, is critical and enough is never enough. Nothing is ever good enough.

So here we are, two imperfect humans, who weren't raised with unconditional respect and acceptance trying to raise our children with it.  We sometimes fail, but more often with each other rather than the children.  We forget that our inner child is still there.  He/She are still looking for love. Looking for acceptance. Looking for unconditional respect and it is very easy to fall back into our old ways with one another.

To peaceful parent is also to be peaceful with the other parent.

So what did I do about that damn heater? Well, first I hauled it back into the front room because that is where it belongs. I would do the same for the kids. I should do so for Hubby.  Leaving it there would only shame him and the intention would be to shame if I could move it on my own.  When he came home that night, we shared our nightly glass of wine and I told him it really annoyed me when he told me he'd move the heater "eventually." I would prefer in the future if he was going to start a project like that to please finish it. He sat there in dumb silence. Not that he's dumb but because he didn't know how to react. There was no drama. There was no manipulation. I'm not known for either of those, but I can seethe inside.

A few days later, we arranged for a date night. I decided if our marriage is going to get back to being a marriage we needed a date night. I'd arraigned with Honey Bunny to watch Boo Bear for about 90 minutes so he and I could just go out. She said sure. Boo Bear, on the other hand, ended up flipping out and having a massive manipulative panic attack. It started out as pure manipulation and ended as an over the top panic attack. We couldn't leave. I was pissed at her. Hubby wasn't. He was cool as a cucumber. I'd made a beautiful dinner. I'd made a cake. I'd made it all special and here was Boo Bear freaking out. And there he was, being a peaceful parent. I had gone into the garage, after Boo Bear had gone inside, grabbed Hubby by the shoulders-shook them, and through gritted teach said: "All I fucking wanted was 90 fucking minutes with my fucking husband so we can get our fucking marriage back on track!" Then, I composed myself, went inside and held Boo Bear while she cried.

Hubby and I  poured ourselves a glass of wine, ate our cake in the front room, watched a movie there (she pretty much left us alone) and admitted we both miss each other. We miss our marriage. We miss sex. We miss being held. We miss laughing. We miss cuddling. We truly don't even have a marriage. We have a friendship that lives together. Peaceful and attachment parenting has gotten in the way of our marriage.

It's time to take back our marriage.

But not in a forceful way. We asked Boo Bear if she'd like to sleep at the foot of our bed on a cot. She said yes. On weekends we now sleep together as husband and wife. Boo Bear starts off on the cot and usually ends up as a little furnace next to one of us while we are cast off to the sides of a king size bed and she is the post between us, eventually turning us into a human the letter H.  But we're back to falling asleep touching feet, like we used to. We both even woke up early one morning and went up to the guest room to do the naughty and had time alone...until we both thought we heard feet, leaped out of bed, threw back on our pajamas and silenced crept down the stairs only to find out no one was awake but us. We laughed, put on the coffee and 3 hours later, the children woke up. LOL

Yesterday, he began to rub my back early in the morning hoping for a repeat. Instead, he was greeted by an Orc like creature from Lord of the Rings because I'd gone to be 3 hours after him and was not up for a 5am romp in the hay. Poor guy. He did know better when I growled at him. Again, peaceful parenting means respecting the other person's boundaries. Don't touch me if I'm sleeping. He'd forgotten about that one. :)

The point is, in my opinion, we can't be practicing peaceful and attachment parenting with our children if we aren't modeling it with ourselves and our spouses.  We are the model for our children to chose their spouses. If we are raising them to be respected and to expect gentleness yet we are modeling for them that we don't respect our spouse or we accept not being respected by our spouse, then what are we really teaching them? To me, to peaceful parent means to also be peaceful with your inner child and your spouses inner child.

I suppose all of this is just a new experiment and maybe I'll change my tune on this if it doesn't work. What I CAN tell you is if I treat my husband like an adult to be respected, my children will treat him the same way. If he treats me with respect, they will treat me with respect. If he respects them, they will respect him. If I respect them, they will respect me.

Peaceful and attachment parenting isn't just for children. It needs to also be done between the parents. It IS called PARENTing, isn't it?