What Snow Days Reveal About Your Marriage

By day two of the snowstorm, it doesn’t feel cozy anymore.
It feels like the walls are closing in.

Snow days are Sunday on steroids.  Louder, messier, and longer. The boys are home too. Shabbos, Sunday, and now Monday.

The sledding was magical for about ten minutes. The snowman is dressed for Purim and adorable.  The igloo kept them occupied for a good hour. 

Then came the soaked boots, dripping mittens, crusted coats, and floors caked with salt.

Demands for hot cocoa. An upside playroom (v’nahafoch already?). The Purim Story blaring on an unending loop. 

The kitchen is flying. Faigy is baking hamantaschen while refereeing fights and trying to keep everyone relatively safe. 

No cleaning ladies in sight for who knows how long. 

Faigy feels exhausted, overstimulated, and running on fumes. Cabin fever is real.

And her husband bundles up and treads out to shul again.  Later, he locks himself in his study to work remotely.

Faigy is also supposed to be working remotely.
HA! That’s almost funny.

She watches him disappear behind a closed door and feels the familiar ache rise up.

Why aren’t my needs important too?  Why does he get space and not me?

By mid-afternoon, she reaches her edge. She is losing it.

Not because she doesn’t love her kids.
But because no human being can be inside and “on” for three straight days without cracking.

She wants to talk to someone who isn’t asking for snacks.

In the past, this is the part where she would get cranky. Short. Snappy.

The kids would feel it first.
Then her husband.

She would ooze resentment.
Clank the pots a little louder.
Answer in one-word sentences.

Secretly thinking: Why doesn’t he see I’m drowning? Why doesn’t he just come rescue me?

And when he didn’t magically read her mind?

Explosion. Or icy silence.

But this time, she caught it earlier. Before the martyrdom.  Before the silent scorekeeping. 

Our coaching sessions are sinking in, and this time, instead of swallowing it down, she lets herself be vulnerably honest.

Instead of waiting to combust, she walked to his study and knocked.

He looked up from his laptop.

“Hey,” he said.

She took a breath.

She said calmly, “I love the kids. And I can’t do this.”

He blinked, surprised, but listening.

“I would love thirty minutes to myself.  And I’d really love help with dinner, bath, and bedtime tonight.”

No “you never help.”
No case building.

Just desire.

There was a pause.

“Okay,” he said. “Go. I’ll take them.”

She thanked him and went right upstairs into a hot bath. 

In the past, she would have waited until she was furious and then said:

“Must be nice to hide in your office while I’m stuck in a three-ring circus!”

But that version of her wasn’t vulnerable.
This time, she didn’t wait until resentment poisoned the house.  She stopped pretending she’s fine.
She honored the truth of her limits.

And that alone brings relief.

Snow days have a way of exposing what’s been simmering under the surface.
They don’t create the need; they reveal it.

You’re not selfish for needing space.
And you’re not failing because this feels hard.

When you start treating your needs as valid and expressing them calmly and vulnerably, you create space for real support, connection, and change.

If this sounds painfully familiar, you don’t have to keep white-knuckling your way through winter.

I’d love to support you.
Schedule a free call with me, and let’s talk about how to help you feel calmer, more supported, and more like yourself again, even on snow days.