(When Something Good Becomes Too Much)
“My husband and I have been married for five years without children. We are both Christians and very active in our local church. After several attempts, prayers, and medical interventions, we finally had twins. They will be a year old in two months.
Strangely, though, having the children has taken a toll on our marriage. My husband says I have changed. He complains that I no longer give him enough time and that I spend the best part of my day with the children. And honestly, he may be right. I barely go to church these days. It is usually just the children and me, while my husband is hardly around. He prefers spending time away from home because he says, he’s losing me to the kids.
I understand that things have changed. They are our children, and after waiting and praying for them for so long, I cannot imagine treating them as anything less than a blessing. But sometimes I wonder if I have become so absorbed in being a mother that I have forgotten how to be a wife. Is this an obsession?” – Anonymous
Reflection
I found this story interesting because the easiest response would be to choose a side. We could tell the woman, “You are simply being a good mother,” or tell her husband, “You should understand that the children need her.” But is it that simple?
Sometimes the most difficult things to confront are not the things we hate or the things that are obviously wrong. They are the things we genuinely love. We often assume that excess must begin with something unhealthy. But sometimes it begins with something beautiful.
Discipline can become an obsession when achievement becomes more important than wellbeing. Ambition can become unhealthy when resting feels like failure. Love can become suffocating when caring for someone slowly becomes controlling them.
The deeper issue, then, is not simply how much we do. It is what the thing has begun to mean to us. Sometimes when something becomes responsible for giving us security, identity or worth, we can begin sacrificing almost everything else to keep it.
That is why obsession is often difficult to recognise from the inside. The person may still have a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything they are doing, there are commitments to be held. But the problem is not necessarily the commitment itself. It is when the commitment begins taking more than we consciously agreed to give.
This is something worth considering in the story of the young mother. Her children may not be the problem at all. After years of waiting, praying and receiving several medical interventions, their arrival definitely carries enormous emotional meaning.
They represent answered prayers, relief, gratitude and a precious responsibility she never wants to take for granted. But precisely because they mean so much, it may be difficult for her to notice that her marriage also needs attention, that her own identity needs space beyond motherhood, and that her husband may be expressing a legitimate loneliness in an imperfect way.
Her husband, too, may need to understand that becoming parents has permanently changed their rhythms. The answer is not to decide who is right. It is to notice what is being neglected while both people are trying to protect something they love.
We need to learn that loving one thing deeply does not require loving everything else less. A healthy life has competing responsibilities, relationships and needs. It means we need to hold good things with open hands.
The real goal here is to raise the children without losing the marriage that helped bring them into the world. I believe the healthiest form of commitment does not make the rest of your life disappear; it helps you live the rest of your life more wisely.
So remember, good things also need boundaries. Know when to care without losing yourself and without making everything else pay the price.
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