Marriage Hard Work?

I've always hated the thought of looking at marriage as "work". I've even had an issue with books and experts which give you therapy advice on how to work on your marriage and even homework. Although, I do still think that a big part of the romance and attraction has to be natural, I am beginning to realize that there is a big need for "work" in order for the marriage to last the long term. Being the eternal romantic I always thought meeting your soul mate and getting married would just be enough.... yeah right.

Afterall compromise can be hard work and you definitely need to compromise if your marriage is going to go the distance. About 6 months ago I started noticing my marriage wasn't flowing as naturally as it always had, we didn't laugh as easily or share things with as much excitement. A lot of it I know has to do with our busy lives and raising three kids but there really is no excuse for letting your marriage go.

My husband and I talked about this and saw it as a rough spot and recognized it was time to do a bit of "work". We've made and are still making some much needed time for us and more importantly I'm slowly getting back to the person I used to be. I think a lot of marriages fail because one (or sometimes both) people change and three kids, moving to a different country and 20 extra pounds was enough to make me change.

I've taken some good advice from Alice and some of the other moms at Moms Talk Forum and have started taking time out for me and really starting to like me again, which is certainly helping my marriage.

The strangest part of all this is how quickly things can change for both the bad or good and how much effort and "work" it actually takes to undo the damage... but I know it's totally worth it. I'm just glad that I realized this before it was too late, well it's never too late but before things got worst.