I have to admit that there was a time when I hated the weekends. Maybe it was a slump in life or a fog that I needed to get out of, but I hated the weekends for a good 4-5 months.
Right now, I’m a stay-at-home mom to little kids, and I felt like Saturday and Sunday were no different than Monday through Friday. I would honestly say that they were often harder. And harder not from lack of support from my husband. It usually boiled down to the lack of my expectations and expressing those clearly.
I kept getting frustrated at myself (and my husband) on these weekends. I love my kids, I love my husband, and I love the life we’ve created. But I hated the weekends, the two days of the week when we all get to be together. Then I’d hate that I hated the weekends. It became a spiral.
I knew I had to get myself out of this cycle. I knew I wanted to enjoy the weekends again. I knew I had to figure out why they annoyed me so much. After some reflection, I realized I hated the weekends because the weekends didn’t change–I was still doing all of the same things I did throughout the week. My expectation of weekends had to shift with this period of life. My husband is an amazing husband and dad, but his weekends were different than his Mondays through Fridays, so that added to my frustration.
I knew I had to be honest and make a change. For myself and for our family. I had to be honest with myself first and make a plan.
I realized I needed these things: At least one meal out or ordered in, a family activity to look forward to, time alone and a date night out and about, or a date night at home. My husband was more than happy to make weekends more enjoyable. And in our conversation, we realized our best weekends since being parents had been when we worked together to get projects done or to give each other time alone to reenergize from the week or have a fun, relaxing time with our kids. The weekends were enjoyable but also helped move our family forward. We both agreed to work on making our weekends enjoyable again.
My weekend needs may change over time as our kids grow and what is needed and best for our family changes, but for right now, I feel like we’ve been in a good groove, and I’ve hated our weekends a lot less.
