My mission is to help sensitive women like you own that you have a right to a love life you love — for no other reason than you are alive. So, first, hear me loud and clear:
You need no reason other than you are alive and you WANT it, to give yourself the gift of making your marriage into one you love. You don’t need to do it to BE a better person or to make anyone else's life better. YOU can just do it FOR YOU. Because you are way more than WORTHY of it.
But the truth is, many of us still think we need “better, more legitimate reasons” (and again, my love, you truly do not) to really put ourselves into improving our marriages. And sometimes having a reason outside of our own desires can help give us permission to invest the necessary energy into improving our marriages.
So if you think you need one of those reasons, here's a huge one: Your children, future children, or grandchildren, and all the children that come after them.
YOU getting to the place where you are so emotionally well, feeling so supported and loved, where your home life is a sanctuary of connection and calm and emotional nourishment IS a huge part of what determines your children and grandchildren's deep, life-long emotional wellbeing, physical health, and success in THEIR relationships!
Here’s why (let’s get the bad news over with first):
There's a long list of chronic health and emotional conditions that are connected to adversity in children's early lives and being in constant low-level stress environments — such as when there is unhappiness or discord in their parents' marriage!
It takes a massive toll on their sense of safety, security, and stress levels —and when this happens in their formative years, it can wire that into them in a way that makes it hard later in life to feel safe, secure, and emotionally balanced. It can lead to having a very hard time in their future life partnership, as well as depression, anxiety, and chronic health issues such as autoimmune diseases and more.
It’s been shown that this is true when children grow up in a home with parents who are "sticking together for the kids," but actually hate each other (or fighting a ton or just having a chronic cold war)...
So, if you're unhappy, just staying in your marriage isn't the solution!
YOUR emotional well-being is the solution.
Because, so much of a child's well-being and success in life can be traced to MAMA’s well-being in those early years!!
Especially in those first few years, if mom is feeling at all unsupported or is hurting, stressed, or emotionally off-kilter (as we sensitives most often are if things in our marriage are hard), the young child does NOT get what it needs to develop its nervous system properly.
And when that happens, all of the above emotional and physical health issues can haunt a child for life (if not addressed and healed).
And to go a bit further, we can trace much of the most horrific aspects of our modern world (such as the rise of gun violence) to dysfunction in the home of origin—and, my guess is, to Mama not being emotionally well—because she herself did not have the emotional support she needed!! (Read this old post of mine for more loving insight on this: Nothing Matters More than Healthy Relationships — this one's gut wrenching, and so inspiring, so be ready...)
Now, none of this is to guilt trip you, my friend! It is instead to empower you, and to show you how much YOUR EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING MATTERS! YOU becoming emotionally and relationally well is essential for the well-being of the future of the children you know and love (or will know and love soon) — and the adults they become.
Which actually means: Your well-being determines the future of our planet. And the health of our world hinges on you having healthy relationships.
(And, hear me, love, if you are unhappy, it's not YOUR fault. It’s a cultural problem...one that YOU can absolutely change in your own little sphere of the world!)
THE GOOD NEWS is that what makes the future humans well is YOU being well.
It's not selfish to invest in your desire for the loving marriage you want.Whether you're a mom or a grandma. YOU being well, you having the marriage that will fulfill and nourish you, will nourish your offspring, your offspring's offspring, and on and on into the future.
(Though it sounds poetic, it’s actually science.)
What you do today for YOU is for all of THEM who come after you.
So you need no further excuse to finally heal the old hurtful patterns that keep you less than happy in your marriage and learn the skills it takes to make your marriage the connected, loving, nourishing one you want so badly.
It’s time to put your well-being in your marriage first. YOU, and all of us, don't just deserve it, but NEED IT!