Many spouses are tormented by the same question: “What are crises of family life and can they be avoided? Not everyone will like the answer, since crises are a phenomenon that all couples experience in one form or another. The main point of the problem stages is , in order to survive them with the least losses and expenditure of forces, a small educational program on the characteristics of the most dangerous stages of family life can help in this, as well as some effective tips on what to do at each of them.
What is the crisis of family life
The crisis of family life is a stressful period in the life of spouses, arising with a certain frequency. All crises have different causes, but are characterized by a number of common symptoms. Having survived a crucial stage, relations between family members are reaching a new level.
Symptoms of the crisis:
- avoiding intimacy;
- lack of desire to like each other;
- any problematic issues develop into a quarrel or showdown;
- disagreement in everything, the manifestation of principles;
- one of the partners considers himself to be underestimated; • no need for friendly communication with the spouse.
Psychologists identify the most dangerous periods in the life of a married couple, conditionally tying them to the years lived together or the events that happened. Each crisis has its own distinctive features and ways to overcome.
Dangerous family crises
First year crisis
What's happening?
During the first year of living together, the newly-wed spouses begin to “tune in” to each other. The difficulty is that the wife can be a lark, and the husband can be an owl, she is a lover of steaks, and he is a vegan and so on. The road to achieving balance is accompanied by conflicts, mutual recriminations, clarification of relations. Also, the reasons for the emergence of the first crisis of family life are cardinal changes in lifestyle and the unresolved question of who should perform what duties.
How to survive?
- Address the experience of parents, analyzing which mistakes or behaviors were transferred to their own family.
- Do not be silent. If insults and claims do not speak with your loved one, a wall may be built from them, through which it will become even more difficult to shout to each other.
- No abrupt changes! The transition from candy-bouquet period to family life is desirable to implement smoothly, while maintaining romance and variety in leisure activities.
Third year of family life
What's happening?
After some time, the illusions about an ideal marriage dissipate and the spouses are faced with a cruel reality: financial need is growing, housing problems are not solved, and the romance of relationships has evaporated somewhere.
The husband and wife begin to speak in different languages, as she already wants to have a child, and he claims that he is not ready for this. Disagreement occurs because in this period men tend to build a career, becoming financially independent, and women to realize themselves in motherhood.
How to overcome?
- The forces of mutual claims leading to misunderstanding should be allowed to draw up a family spending plan, discussing what can be saved.
- Do not put pressure on each other: the desire to have children should be mutual.
- To build approximate plans for the next 5 years, to find the "golden mean", to determine their priority.
The crisis of the firstborn
What's happening?
When the balance in a relationship is established, the firstborn appears most often in the family, and with it the crisis of family relations. With the birth of a child, spouses who live in the roles of husband and wife now master a new task - to become a mom and dad. They no longer belong to each other, do not manage their own time or money. There are many new worries that are a real test for a young family.
Men tend to be offended during this period, feeling deprived of attention, and women to withdraw into themselves, experiencing postpartum depression.
How to survive?
- Clearly assign responsibilities for child care and homework, optimizing time, self-reliance, and financial expenses.
- More time to spend with the whole family. Traveling, walking, photo shoots, and receiving guests is a good cure for a disease called family crisis.
Double load crisis
What's happening?
When the child has matured, and maternity leave has come to an end, the woman needs to return to work, but at the same time her responsibilities for home and child care remain. Sudden changes in an established lifestyle are stressful for all family members, as well as the cause of a family crisis.
In addition, the husband, who is used to seeing his wife in a dressing-gown, begins to appear jealous at the sight of a change in clothes, hairstyle, and a complete image. Often his fears are not unfounded, because after feeling not only a mother, but also a young attractive woman, a woman needs compliment and male attention as never before.
How to survive?
- Strive to spend free time with the whole family, and not one by one. To do this, you can do the general unifying business, for example, building a birdhouse, cooking sweets or decorating the house for any holiday. The main thing is to choose the occupation that everyone will like, because forced involvement will ruin everything and only aggravate the crisis in the family.
- Spouses should take the beginning of separation (separation of the child from the parents for the purpose of independent life). Excessive care for the child puts the husband and wife in the background, hampering important processes in the development of the child. It is time to give the baby more freedom, thereby freeing up space for a variety of relationships.
- Bring color to your sex life by going on an extraordinary honeymoon.
7 years of marriage or a crisis of monotony
What's happening?
It would seem, from what a crisis of family relations can appear, when all the "lapping" has long been completed, the responsibilities are distributed, and the children are slowly growing up, pleasing with their achievements? But the enemy, as they say, does not sleep, so the relationship again falls into danger. The reason for the new turmoil are excessive calm, monotony, monotony, gray ordinance. Now one of the spouses can offer to live separately, to make contact on the side or completely lose interest in the life of the household.
How to survive?
- Talking in the kitchen until late is the primary universal remedy that helps to put the necessary accents, eliminating the lack of understanding.
- Relationships require emergency assistance in the form of diversity, fundamental changes and innovations. Change of housing or capital repairs, a joint trip to new places, as well as a second pregnancy will do.
- Not bad in this period to return memories of the first kiss, declaration of love, dating. Having found the old postcards, reviewing the photos and going to the "hot" places together spent time, you can give feelings to break out with a new force and overcome any crisis in family life.
The crisis of the forties
What's happening?
At this time, most often in both spouses occurs personal crisis of middle age. Now, the “I” of each person comes out on top, and not the general interests of the family. Thicken the paint, exacerbating the difficult situation, especially adolescence, which is experiencing at this time the child. The danger is that everyone can withdraw into themselves, moving away from each other. In this state, people are trying to find solace in alcohol, drugs or another person.
How to survive?
- Consultations of experts in the field of psychology are welcome, which will help to understand each other better and take a step forward.
- An important point is the acceptance of the crisis, based on experience and understanding that this is a temporary inevitable phenomenon that you just need to survive.
Crisis of family relationships 15+ together or the "empty nest"
What's happening?
Children become adults and create their families, spending less time with their parents. During this period, there may be a feeling of emptiness and the feeling that everything has lost its meaning, and once bright colors faded. Such feelings are enhanced if one of the spouses deteriorates health.
How to survive?
- In the world for a long time there is a good practice of joint visits by husband and wife to master classes or various dance classes in order to have fun, having mastered something new. With us, couples have resorted to such therapy relatively recently, but the ranks of its adherents are getting more and more crowded every year. The reason is clear - this is an effective way to deal with a family crisis.
- Try to think globally: or fall in love again with your spouse and enjoy life together, or plunge headlong into depressing depression, assuming the appearance of a grumpy old woman. If you stand before the choice of two states, the first will seem much more tempting.
Without exception, crises of family life can be easily overcome. But this can be done only when both spouses will strive for this. For those who remember that irritation is eliminated by humor, hatred is overcome by love, and care alleviates anger and despair, no crisis can hurt.
