Crisis of family life: 5 years of marriage. Ways to overcome

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Each stage in the development of family relations is accompanied by a more or less acute crisis period, when the strength of the marriage union seems to pass a series of tests and proves its right to continue to exist. The crisis of family life 5 years is one of the most important, key moments, marking the transition of marital relations to a deeper mutual understanding.

The danger of this phase lies in the fact that for the first time a young family is faced with the whole mass of difficulties that accumulate gradually over the years of living together, and may not withstand this blow. All you need to know about the signs of a crisis in family life 5 years and how to overcome this difficult threshold - further in the article.

Features of the 5-year period: women

According to statistics, most often it is a woman who initiates a break in relations at the end of the first five years after marriage. Until that time, all the important family roles in her life succeeded each other sequentially: she was a young mistress, to whom manymistakes, then a new mother with priority care for the baby.

Coming out of maternity leave and faced with the need to run a household, raise a preschooler, take care of her own career growth and personal development at the same time, a woman is experiencing extreme stress. This state remains invisible to her husband and her close people for a long time, until the so-called boiling point occurs. The crisis of family life of 5 years for a woman originates from the moment when general fatigue and dissatisfaction with the current situation pushes the young spouse to search for a new “resource of strength”.

If the relationship between spouses is far from trusting, or the husband stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the changes that have taken place in his wife's life, such manifestations of internal aggression in relation to the situation as a whole are possible on her part:

• reducing sexual activity or ignoring spouse in bed;
• the desire to quickly climb the career ladder, bordering on workaholism;
• loss of interest in one's appearance;
• tendency to flirt and adultery.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that the spouses during the crisis of family life for 5 years cease to be sincerely interested in each other's life and completely go into their own problems. Desperate to be heard by her husband and not trying, in turn, to understand him, a woman gradually moves away from the role of a wife and finds solace in the area that maximizes her ambitions.

Features of dangerousperiod: men

A man reacts less sharply to the changes that the birth of a baby and cares for his upbringing bring to his life, but he instantly catches the “desalination” of love experiences from his wife. For him, ways to overcome the crisis of family life 5 years seem to be a struggle for the attention of a woman who has become “indifferent”, “out of love” and generally “lost interest in him.”

It is rare that a husband, faced with such difficulties, completely takes the side of his wife and is ready to accept her new state as natural in this situation. It seems to them that during the crisis of family life for 5 years, a woman demands increased attention to herself, lowering the importance of a man to a dumb earner, and this will always continue.

Faced with the sexual cooling of his wife and taking this fact for insulting neglect, a man involuntarily begins to look for an outlet for his unrealized energy. This is manifested in an increase in his efficiency, up to painful workaholism, or building an intimate life outside the family.

Cheating can be a challenge - a man wants to prove to himself that he is still capable of much, and shift the blame to the one who could not appreciate him. But unlike a woman who, being carried away by a new partner, in half of all cases breaks the marriage union, a man, in an attempt to overcome the crisis of family life, is temporarily removed from his wife for 5 years. Moreover, if the betrayal is revealed, he effortlessly leaves his mistress and again returns to the role of an exemplary husband.

Crisis of family life 5 years - how to understand that it has come

The main symptom of the approaching turning point, psychologists call the feeling of irritation, equally attending both spouses in relation to each other. With strangers, the husband and wife communicate quite positively, but in private it is difficult for them to conduct even an ordinary dialogue. The crisis of family life 5 years is a time of heavy, protracted scandals, the cause of which is unclear even to the instigator.

Other characteristic moments of this phase:

• lack of sexual desire in spouses;
• outbursts of aggression with the sole intention of proving to the partner that he is wrong at any cost;
• reluctance to take care of yourself at home and loss of desire to please your partner;
• reducing the need for collaborative decision-making;
• desire to do something to spite your spouse.

An important sign of the crisis of family life for 5 years will be a temporary lull in the house. Husband and wife, being under the same roof, seem to withdraw into themselves and can not communicate with each other for whole days without visible conflict. Both are covered by apathy and mental laziness, passing only when the spouses are apart.

Key reasons for changes in spouse behavior

Signs of a crisis in family life 5 years appear gradually and at an increasing pace, while each individual episode of the conflict is the result of a combination of many reasons. A provocative moment, generating another scandal or resentment,it is usually a minor event that would not have bad consequences in another situation.

What factors lead to the development of a negative attitude of spouses towards each other:

1. "Today is like yesterday." The monotony of repetitive daily events, the lack of memorable joyful moments leads to the fact that the spouses begin to see their life as unpromising, dead-end.
2. "Let him accept me the way I am." Partners no longer try to earn each other's approval, stop watching their words and disguising their bad habits and inclinations.
3. "Holidays are not for us." Surprises and gifts are a thing of the past, and spouses are no longer supported by the feeling of pleasant anticipation with which they used to expect memorable dates.
4. "Someone alone." A woman, absorbed in caring for a child, finds less and less time to communicate with her husband, explaining this by the fact that "she is not enough for everyone." This gives rise to discontent in a man deprived of attention or even jealousy on his part for the baby.

Difficult situation can be exacerbated if the family is plagued by financial difficulties or if one of the spouses is regularly subjected to stress at work. Then, to the general everyday problems that undermine the well-being of the family, dissatisfaction provoked by external factors is added.

Save or destroy?

The crisis of family life has come 5 years - what to do if one of the spouses has already seriously thought about what is better: to save the marriage or start everything from scratch?Many, finding themselves at a crossroads, are looking for clues on the side, offering to solve this problem with relatives or even acquaintances who have experienced the sad experience of a family conflict. As a result, a person receives a large number of diverse opinions that have nothing to do with a particular case. Such an attitude to the issue threatens not only the integrity of the marriage, but can also deprive the indecisive spouse of the partner's respect.

Psychologists offer spouses to make this important decision after testing, called Cartesian. It includes 4 questions, each of which requires an internal rethinking of the situation. A person needs to answer the questionnaire alone and with sufficient free time.

Cartesian Questions

In mentally imagining all the proposed scenarios, a person should focus on the feeling of comfort. If at some point this feeling disappears, it means that the person's subconscious mind resists this alternative and it is not acceptable.

These are the questions to ask a spouse who is hesitating whether to keep a marriage union:

1. "What will happen if you do this?" Asking this question, a person must mentally recreate the algorithm of events that, presumably, will follow his decision to leave the relationship. It is best to create 2-3 alternative algorithms, listening to your inner feelings as you follow each path.
2. "What won't happen if you do this?". Now the spouse needs to realize that he will irrevocably leave his life,if he files for divorce. Perhaps the list of apparent benefits will be much shorter than the list of painful losses.
3. "What won't happen if you don't do this?". The method is similar to the one under the first paragraph, but now the test-taker must think through the possible realities in the case if he decides to save the marriage.
4. "What happens if you don't do this?". The last point invites the test-taker to fantasize about what would happen if he simply surrendered to the current and did not make any critical decisions. Most likely, the conflict will resolve itself and then you will not have to regret the hastily piled up mistakes.

The main advantage of following the Cartesian method of decision-making is that a person transfers his personal problem to a comprehensive consideration and begins to clearly understand what he will lose and what he will gain in the end.

How to get out of the crisis of family life 5 years

It is very difficult to remain calm when it seems that the other half is deliberately trying to provoke a quarrel, and it is even more difficult to try on the role of a follower in a relationship and be the first to yield in all conflict situations. Psychologists say that in this way it will be possible to save the marriage, but it will no longer be possible to return the former respect to the union of two people. Having become accustomed to meeting submissive consent in everything, the provocateur partner will no longer soberly assess the consequences of his actions and can turn the life of his spouse into a hell of a hell.

But how to overcome the crisis of family life for 5 years, if not through compromises? No way, but give in, get into position and sacrifice your desiresboth spouses owe equally.

In order not to stir up a dispute on each episode, when a decision needs to be made, the husband and wife can discuss in advance the "areas of competence" of each family member. For example, on matters of household purchases, the last word will remain with the woman, and the family will purchase materials for home repairs only with the approval of the man. Those tasks that do not carry a large specific load, the couple can discuss together and at the same time practice maintaining a respectful and friendly dialogue.

A good test for yourself and your feelings will be a brief fantasy on the topic "What if he did not exist." A spouse who seems to have already “reached the point” just needs to retire and in a calm environment visualize a life in which his current partner does not exist. Is there a feeling of comfort and lightness? Or is it a feeling of emptiness and regret?

After listening to one's feelings, it is not difficult for a person to understand exactly what place the beloved occupies in his reality and whether the current relationship is a heavy duty or a vital necessity.

5 golden rules for he althy relationships

Not only women, but also men in search of an option on how to survive the crisis of family life for 5 years, often try on the experience of familiar married couples or ask advice from friends whose competence in matters of psychology is doubtful. As a rule, a person seeks help from those who have already experienced a family tragedy and, as a result, receives an approximatescheme of actions leading him to the same sad outcome.

Specialists strongly recommend that the couple not talk about their problems, making them public. In the arsenal of a husband and wife who have temporarily lost mutual understanding, there are 5 reliable and proven ways to convey information and be heard by each other:

• you can’t accumulate negativity in yourself - if the spouse acted recklessly or said an offensive thing, this situation should be immediately brought up for discussion;
• speaking about what causes irritation in a partner, you need to say: “it upsets me” or “it’s hard for me”, and not “you are to blame” or “you are doing it wrong”;
• in a conversation, you need to use the pronouns “we”, “us”, “our” more often;
• if the offense inflicted by a partner is very heavy, you need to “keep silent” for at least one hour, otherwise there is a risk of aggravating the conflict by making counterclaims;
• partner must feel his family importance all the time - this will not allow him to start looking for understanding from strangers.

So that the indications of the mistakes of the erring spouse do not look like reproaches, they can be presented in a veiled manner. In this case, the partner should tell a fictional story from the life of his distant acquaintances in a friendly atmosphere, describing the controversial situation in the form of a problem that they have. Getting involved in the discussion, the spouse will have the opportunity to look at his mistake from the outside, and also find out the opinion of his soulmate on this matter.

Joint steps to overcomedifficulties

No matter how reasonable and correct the steps of one of the partners to establish family life, if the second spouse stands still or moves in the opposite direction, it will not be possible to save the marriage. It is impossible to predict from what point the initiative spouse's attempts will meet with a positive response, but at first he will have to exert twice as much patience and effort to "stir up" a passive partner.

Happy time ideas to help keep your marriage together:

• caring for a baby can be an exciting adventure if you diversify your time at home with fun photo shoots with your baby, painting together, playing hide and seek, etc.;
• spouses need to enroll in some kind of interest group or sports section and be sure to attend classes together;
• need to promise each other once a week by all means to arrange small "outings" to the cinema, cafe or just to nature;
• we definitely need to learn some new kind of creativity together, study a foreign language or a philosophical direction, and in our free time discuss the learned information.

An important condition for maintaining a he althy marriage will be the taboo on refusing to have sex - even after a quarrel, spouses should sleep in the same bed and receive physical pleasure from each other.

Summing up

We must not forget that in a family without children, the crisis of family life of 5 years is no less acute. This is due to -the mutual addiction of partners, the setting of the wrong priorities, which may be headed by work or friends, as well as the erroneous opinion that the beloved "will not go anywhere anyway."

Psychologists advise spouses, at the first alarming sign of the onset of a critical period, to remember themselves as they were in the days of the first exciting dates. As soon as the partners awaken again sensual desires, and they again learn to give and receive signs of attention, their relationship will move to the next level and the marriage will be out of danger.