They Say You Lose 90%

Mohen got this book call The Power of Giving.

This post is not about the book though. I did however, read 2 chapters of it and recommend you to get it if you like self-help / motivational book because the style of writing is easy and natural. I literally felt light when I was reading it.

The chapter that I chose to read was about love (naturally).

It talks about how to give more in order to receive more love. I’m pretty sure if you’ve heard this one before you’d be rolling your eyes by now but the book talked about it from quite a different angle that I find myself reading the whole chapter on giving love. Anyway, I’m not much of a self-help / motivational book so I only read that one topic.

One sentence brought tears to my eyes the moment I finished the last word.
” – But after children arrive, a couple’s ability to spend quality one-on-one time is reduced by 90%.”

Because to be honest, that was exactly how I felt ever since Eros was born. In fact, I feel that we might be losing more than 90% because Mohen and I were that close. See, even now I used past tense to describe how close we were. And that is just really painful.

I know that we really love each other.

We both know that we sort of drifted apart despite of ourselves. It wasn’t as if we wanted to but domestic things come between us more than anything else. Sure we try to connect after the children are in bed. We still have our late night talks over coffee and cigarette but somehow it doesn’t feel the same.

The heat of the moment is no longer as fierce. Mainly because we have sleep on both our minds. As mundane as that sounds, sleep has been deprived from us since our first baby. What more now with Mohen’s crazy work hours and me with my midnight (read all night through to morning) feed with our daughter.

I miss Mohen with every vein in my body.

He sleeps next to me every night. He kisses me before he goes to work everyday. He calls me during his break time each time. Just as he has since we were first together but it doesn’t feel the same and it hurts me not to know why.

I know that children are supposed to bring the parents together but I can’t help but feel somehow for us, it drives us apart. Not in a bad way because we both love our children with all our hearts but perhaps we love them both with all our hearts, we left little room for each other now.

We're both crazy about our son, Eros.

So when we’ve drifted apart this way, the arguments become more often. Sometimes over stupid little things, sometimes over something that both of us have kept buried for so long. Either way, no matter how big or small the argument was, it hurts each time because it makes me feel as though we do nothing now but argue.

Mohen is your typical Mars male where he goes to his cave to brood when he has a problem. And I’m your typical Venus female where I want to talk if there’s anything that’s bothering either of us. I tried to understand him this way but sometimes it’s really hard. I told him many times that if he talks to me or when I want to talk, it doesn’t mean that I need a solution. I just want to talk so someone would listen or that he knows I’m here for him to listen to him.

When things were simpler.

I would like to think when our kids are a little older and a little more independent than they are now, we would have time for each other again. We would be back to how we were before. But to wait for that day and go through this feeling each day until that day comes, is just too torturing for me.

Relationships have its up and down, I know. Relationships can last a long time despite all the problems it went through, I know.

But I want mine to always have the same fire we had few years back. I tried to bring it back most of the times but Mohen seems so far away that it makes me feel rejected to even try. I want him to remember what we had, I want him to remember how we were with each other.

Maybe he does remember but patriarchal responsibility has probably made him the way he is today. I can never blame him for wanting to be a good dad and a good partner. And I can never blame him if he can’t be both because I don’t think I can be both either.

Do we lose 90%? It feels a whole lot more than that…

About these ads