There have been periods with most of my kids when affection was in short supply. In contrast to the early years when my toddlers believed with everything in them that I was the bee's knees, my teens and young adult kids had a somewhat muted opinion of me. 

Once John and I were setting up eight chairs in the living room. Our daughter asked what was up.

"We have some couples coming tonight for a parenting class." I grunted over an obstinate chair leg.

"But you are not that great, so why would they listen to you?" She thought this was helpful? Probably not, just an honest review, like books get on Amazon. Except that this was not an anonymous reader, it was my flesh and blood. And she thought my mothering was sub par. She left home as fast as she could at sixteen and preferred the attention of other women. One mother's day she accidentally sent me a card she had written to another mom. It was a dead spot in our relationship.

Marriage has dead spots too, when life is bogged down by duty, and routine rather than passion. 

A woman asked me if she should give up. 

"He is a good man, I know, but there are no sparks. I tell him I want more attention, and he tries for awhile but it never lasts. Why should I stay?"

Most people resist the urge to chuck their phone out the window when it becomes unresponsive. Only a dodo thinks twenty minutes is too long to wait. 

Fortunately most parents keep trying with their kids, even when the relationship is less than enjoyable. Otherwise we would have become extinct with the dodo.

Hopefully husbands and wives can hang on until they find their way home.