What Is a Healthy Marriage?

I have been married for eleven years, this month. We have moved across the country three times—west to east, east to west, and west to east again.  We have three daughters: identical twin girls, born before we’d been married for two years; a singleton, Julia, born right before our third move across country. During our marriage my husband has had eight jobs, attended two and a half years of graduate school, and enjoyed a three-year-tenure as the stay at home parent while I worked full time to support our family. Life has been tumultuous, joyous, painful, the full catastrophe, if you will. But sometimes I ask myself, are we happy? Do we have a healthy marriage?

I grapple with this during moments of discontent—right after an argument, or when I’m left in front of my computer with our bills laid out all around me, trying to figure out how to have a conversation with my husband, who doesn't like dealing with the details, and who actually despite his love for me, can't help but relegate me to the role of hard-ass, Angela, the accounting woman from “The Office.” The person he dreads coming up the stairs to because I may slam him with a detail he isn't interested in dealing with or hearing about. Like right now. I’m fuming, actually, and feel like giving him this pile of papers, the camp sign-up forms for the girls, the bill from my therapist, his life insurance statement, and telling him to handle them. I bet then he’d see there are actually details involved in running a marriage, a household, a family ... but wait. There’s got to be a better way. I know I'm not the type to suffer in silence, nor am I happy knowing that there are time when my husband sees me as Angela, the accounting woman from “The Office.” (You have no idea how offensive this is to me. She is the person I most fear becoming!) How can I tackle this issue, the one that makes my wheels turn, my head spin, asking myself, despite the levity and joy that pervade our full catastrophe living with these three beautiful girls, are we happy?

Maybe there isn't an answer to this. Maybe I can’t change his mind.  Maybe, just maybe, I can work a little bit on my approach, and on balancing my detail-driven mind with his big picture, dream-filled one.  As for the happiness question, there are days when we are, days when we’re not. There are times, like right now, where I feel like I can’t believe I’m stuck here. I want to take my laptop, pack an overnight bag (let’s face it, pack a wardrobe), and head directly out of town. Then, I may hear the twin’s laughter trickle downstairs, smell the familiar aroma of the omelet my husband is making for himself for lunch, listen to my dog’s tags jingle as he trots downstairs to jump up onto my lap while I’m here at my desk typing. It’s this, my life. Jon Kabat-Zinn writes in his book Full Catastrophe Living about this very thing. Here's what I realize, it’s fluid, happiness, if you let it be.  It ebbs, it flows ... but it’s always there. The act of thinking about it, and allowing myself the time to ponder, brings clarity, and for me, encourages the happiness to flow. I think I’ll go hug my husband and tell him I love him. Then, I’ll come back down and pay some bills.