Stress in Young Marriage: Should I Hang On or Leave?

Reader’s Question

I have been with my husband just over a year. We met and about 2 months later I accidentally got pregnant. Then we decided to get married when I was about 4 months pregnant. So in total we’ve known each other for about 1 1/2 years. First mistake. Things were pretty smooth up until about 3 months ago. He has always had a bad temper at times but now he’s become more and more angry and is doing things that are just down right irresponsible and immature. I am 35, he is 28…and I am just sick and tired of his miserable attitude. He rarely smiles, and everything that goes wrong in his day is taken out on me. He’s cold, and if he says he’s sorry it only lasts a couple days and he’s back to being mean and gives me the silent treatment. I have put my foot down and have told him to stop drinking beer every day — because that doesn’t help — and to genuinely change his behavior or I am calling it quits. Of course this only makes him more angry because I’m defending myself. He is a very good father. Our son is 7 months old. We started seeing a marriage counselor last week but sometimes I feel so hurt and torn up inside from all the ways he’s hurt me and lied to me that I sometimes wonder if I will ever believe in him again and want to continue the marriage. Should I just keep my mouth shut and bear it while we go to a few more sessions with the marriage counselor or should I just ask him to leave for now and hope that he will continue to go to the sessions? Thank You.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Some of the key parts to your story are:

1. The way the two of you got together,
2. Things were pretty good up until about three months ago,
3. He’s a good father,
4. He’s attending marriage counseling sessions, and
5. He has a long history of anger problems.

There are issues here that are in the long-term category such as his drinking, his temper issues, and the combination of relationship, marriage, and child all within the past 18 months. There are also issues that are fairly recent, surfacing in the past three months, such as increased drinking, increased temper, and increased problems in communication.

I suspect that both of you are experiencing a lot of stress at this time. You didn’t have a lot of time to form your relationship before the stress level increased dramatically with the arrival of your son. Stress can be viewed as bad pressures but it’s also the level of responsibility we have — the number of obligations — the pressure of time, etc. Both of you went from easy-living singles to a new marriage and new parenthood in a period of 12 months. There is a lot of stress here. Stress amplifies our normal personality so if he was always a drinker and hot-head, that will increase. His immaturity as a new father will also be showing at this time. On the positive side, he exhibits a good interest in his son and is willing to participate in marriage counseling.

My sense tells me that you need to give the situation more time. Wait to see if the marital counseling will be helpful. Both of you need to do some self-checks for depression as this is a common side effect of stress. You both may also be inexperienced regarding marital communication — especially if this is a first marriage for both of you.

The issue here is not keeping your mouth shut, but rather trying to solve problems rather than only pointing them out. Your new husband may truly not know what to do to improve the situation. Getting married and having a child does not make us instant competent, knowledgeable, and highly-skilled partners and parents. Giving a teenager an autobmobile doesn’t make them a skilled driver — classes and experience are needed. You both may need some classes (marital counseling) and some marital problem-solving experience. Being a very good father, as you describe, suggests some positive possibilities in the future if you can get over this speed bump in your marriage.