School holidays stress almost destroyed my marriage – but we survived it

MUM-of-two Tajleena Islam and husband Ludovic, 41, a operations manager, from Leytonstone, East London, admit school holidays stress has almost caused their marriage to fall apart.

Tajleena, 42, says: Ludovic and I married in 2014 and are proud parents to girls aged eight and 11.

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I’m a trained doctor, but I’m studying for a second degree in pharmacology – so I’m now a stay-at-home mum as university has also broken up for summer.

Ludovic works for a train company, sometimes doing seven-day weeks on 12-hour shifts.

So it’s my job to manage the limited funds we have to entertain the children, which is hard with the cost of living.

Spreading the money out is a stressful challenge in itself, and when you have kids running around you, sometimes there’s a mental block.

Although he tries to help out when he can, Ludovic is at work and misses all of this.

It’s led to tons of arguing and bickering.

The stress on our relationship only comes during the school holidays.

There are times when I wish I was the one working and he was the stay-at-home parent. I would say that to him too.

Summer holidays were destroying our relationship.

Things needed to change.

It was either that or accepting our marriage wasn’t working.

We both don’t have family near us to help, so it’s all on us.

Now we’re trying to stop bickering when it starts and try to make a plan before things go wrong.

And to save me from exhaustion and unleashing on Ludovic, we’ve learnt that we need to give each other a day off and identify the cracks – meaning we both get alone time.

I know the core responsibility is on me because I’m on holiday from university, it’s important that I get a break too.

I used to think it was taboo to talk about the school holiday marriage crisis.

Now I want to show other couples it can survive.