Is it just me or does anybody else think having to “do” something to want to talk to each other is weird? I feel like the trust between these two was very broken at this point. Usually when both parties have a healthy emotional well being and they like each other (and have kids also, so they have a lot in common I guess?) it would only be normal to want to talk with each other.
Looks more like a symptom of fatigue or emotional discomfort to me if you don’t want to talk to your spouse. I would start looking Into that before I would fire off random text book romantic gestures to “save my marriage”.
Relationships exist for a lot of reasons simultaneously, and long ones will become more and less about different reasons at different times.
For people raising kids together, the relationship can often become dominated by the practical partnership of family-rearing because it’s so consuming. You do that parenting thing all the time and you love your partner for what they add to it and that feels like plenty. That project becomes so fundamental and sufficient that a lot of other parts of the relationship can quietly fade even while the relationship as a whole is very strong.
Consciously investing in sharing (or romance, or sex, or travel, or career encouragement, or business partnership, or whatever) can help revive and sustain the multidimensionality of the relationship, and keep it strong and richly satisfying as various other parts wax and wane.
Of course, you can also just have a great relationship that rides a “no (conscious) effort” vibe and it can be a long and exciting and rich relationship too. It’s not like there are rules.
There’s just no reason to question the OP’s relationship just on the grounds of them choosing to put in some extra effort.
OP didn't say they don't want to talk to their spouse and I definitely didn't read anything here that suggested broken trust, emotional discomfort, etc. Maybe you are reading your own experiences into this? They were clearly saying that their life was happy, but extremely busy, so writing is a way to connect when they aren't able to do so in person as often as they would like.
i think part of the problem is, that when everyone is busy it is easy for habits to take over and communication to reduce, especially when things are otherwise going well. but then when things get worse the lack of communication makes it more difficult to notice.
in that case, doing something to break out of that and increase communication again sounds like the right step.
Looks more like a symptom of fatigue or emotional discomfort to me if you don’t want to talk to your spouse. I would start looking Into that before I would fire off random text book romantic gestures to “save my marriage”.