Goodbye curtain.

My husband and I went away for the weekend last fall. We needed some time together to regroup and recharge our relationship. Just the two of us, in the middle of the woods in a tiny house on wheels. No kids, no cell service, and no clue what to do for 3 days.

Our daily lives are scheduled to the max. As anyone with young children knows, their schedules are full. Which means our schedules are full. So when presented with 72 hours of schedule-free time, it can be daunting to come up with things to do. The vehicle of our life just went from moving at 70 mph to zero.

Sex was our first priority when we booked this trip. Lots and lots of sex. Without worrying about anyone walking in on us or hearing us or needing us. Just focusing on each others bodies and needs. Oh so many needs.

And then my body decided to laugh at that plan and my period came early. Hip hip hooray. The shower was way too small for both of us, so what was supposed to be a weekend full of mutual orgasms turned into a weekend full of orgasms for one. Bummer for me but it was still nice to have some level of intimacy without worrying about a child bursting in or calling my name (yep, they only call my name. Our kids never call my husbands name. And if we are trying to sneak in a 2 minute sex session, you can be sure my name gets called at least once. It’s amazing how you can multitask in desperate situations such as these. I have had to stop mid-climax to go help a child countless times. Such is the burden we bear as moms. The gratitude is never ending.)

But I digress. Back to our weekend away.

We decided to grocery shop and spend the gorgeous fall day sitting around the campfire cooking and reading. Just a few novelties that have waned since growing our family…sitting around and reading. I don’t find time to do much of either of those anymore.

I found a book in our tiny house that our hosts were kind enough to share with us. It contained suggested questions to ask your spouse in an effort to get to know them better. Right up my alley. Matt agreed to be a willing participant simply because he loves me and wants to make me happy. If it were up to him he would have just enjoyed the silence rather than his wife peppering him with interrogation. But like i said, he loves me.

We bantered back and forth, going through the questions with ease. What are your 3 favorite things about me? What would you change about our sex life? How can I be a better spouse? Tell me 1 place on your bucket list. What are 3 things you would change about me?

This last one was a doozy. As my husband was sharing the 3 things he would change about me, he stated “I know I don’t fill all of your buckets. You need things that I can’t give you.”

Whoa, hold the phone. What?

I looked at him as an immense wave of guilt crashed over me. Do I need too much? Have I made my husband feel that he is not enough? Why does he think this? How have we never discussed this before? I felt the panic start to creep up as I thought about the gravity of his statement.

My initial reaction was to reassure him that he was more than enough. But was he? Would that just be a way to make him feel better while lying to both of us?

I sat there for a few moments and said nothing, absorbing the impact of his statement and allowing myself to truly think about what he said. He didn’t say it with accusation or sadness. He just said it matter-of-factly.

Finally I spoke. “You’re right.” I said heavily. “You don’t fill all of my buckets. But I’m sure I don’t fill all of yours either. That’s an impossible ask, to be everything that each other needs. We are individuals with our own individual needs and it is unfair of us to expect each other to be the single source of all of that.”

I held my husbands gaze. Please tell me I’m right, I thought. Please tell me you feel the same. But at the same time I just as desperately wanted him to tell me I was wrong. I wanted him to reassure me that I do fill all of his buckets. That I am everything he needs.

“You’re right,” he said while stoking the fire. “There are some needs that I have that you don’t fulfill.”

My heart sank. In that moment I felt sad and deflated. My logical brain knew that this was a rational and honest conversation, but my heart wanted the romantic response. My heart wanted my husband to lovingly say “You are everything I need and more.” But he didn’t. He was honest, just as I had been.

In our 18 years of being together, I’m not sure we’ve ever had a moment as honest and vulnerable as that moment. The illusion of marriage giving you everything you’d need was no longer present. The curtain had been pulled back.

As heartbreaking as it was for me, it was also freeing. No longer did I need to pretend that being a wife and a mother was enough to fulfill me. My husband already knew. How long had he known and why had he not said something sooner? Apparently I hadn’t been as good at hiding it as I had hoped. And what happens from here?

This conversation was the permission I needed to start focusing on me. Now, I know using the word “permission” sounds awful. We should never need permission to focus on ourselves. But, sometimes it’s hard to focus on ourselves when we have people depending on us. Sometimes it becomes ingrained in us to take care of everyone else first. They say it takes 30 days to create a habit. So just imagine what 10 years can do. If you make it a habit to put everyone else ahead of yourself for an extended period of time, it takes a concerted effort to change. And if that effort causes disruption in the lives of those who depend on you, the risk of continuing the self-sacrifice exponentially increases. You’ve conditioned yourself to ignore your needs for so long that you find yourself thinking “What’s just a few more years? Once the kids are off to school, once they’ve graduated, once they’re married…” Frankly it’s just easier to focus on them and ignore me. It’s a lot of additional work taking on the responsibility of making yourself happy. It’s much easier to just blame someone else for not making you happy.

So here we are. After that monumental campfire conversation with my husband,  I couldn’t go back. I had to take responsibility for filling the buckets that only I could fill. Exercise, solitude, creativity, nature. These 4 tenements are the tent pegs that hold me up enough to blanket my family with joy and love. Focusing on these every week allow me to be a much better mom, wife, friend and daughter. They remind me that I am important. My needs are important.

And surprisingly enough, the anticipated fallout never came. My kids adjusted, albeit with a few hiccups along the way. My husband encourages and supports me. Some days he comes home and a 4-course meal is on the table, and other days he comes home and eats cheese and crackers for dinner. This is our balance. This is our happy life.

As they say, there is an “I” in happiness. :)