Post marital depression – new label to an age old phenomena

Move aside Post partum depression (which is prevalent only in new mothers), post martial depression is for real too. As the honeymoon period (first few years post wedding) draws to an end, the cuteness of ‘opposites attract’ gets replaced by ‘petty squabbles’. Merging individual lifestyles, cultures and langages is bound to create frictions of low intensity.

Plus a big alteration is to your life balance which was neatly organized around work on weekdays and chores over weekend (& sometimes never cos your mom/sister/grandma did it for you). Now each day is hybrid & requires attention to many more things about managing a household.

The fun of getting to know a complete new set of parents, cousins, aunts, uncles is vanishing. Now it’s more of sustaining these adopted relationships. Moreover becoming a parent adds to the chaos; demanding  superlative physical and mental strength.

So to mitigate this seven year itch, start strengthening your communication and practice active listening with the spouse. Trying to spend time together minus the variables (read kids and parents) helps reconnect. Add humour to your ‘us time’ so that you both can laugh off some of the dust that has dimmed the bonds of love. After all, you ‘2’ come before we ‘3/4/5’, whatever the number be!