Is it an absolute guarantee that your marriage will suffer after kids or do people just like scaring others?

[Firsttimemama98]

I’m a FTM to be, with our much wanted rainbow baby on board.

I know we probably have no idea what’s in store and how tired/frazzled we’ll be, but is it an absolute given that we will argue to the point of disliking each other?

I’m fully braced to be miserable and fed up as it seems most people are on here - really hoping that it’s actually possible to love having a little baby and adore your new family unit.

What are your tips for staying close to your other half in the postpartum/early parenting period? If it matters, we have lots of support and family living nearby, and this baby will likely be our only child as we want to give our focus to them.

I don’t know if the people who report kids testing their marriage are the ones who don’t have much help from family/have two young children in quick succession… I suppose it also depends a lot on the temperament of your baby and how you are personality-wise anyway.

I’m naive right now having not experienced it yet so would love to hear any experiences or advice (positive is all the better!)

LOL 😆 You are SO right. I never seen so much hate and vitriol towards children - and sometimes mothers - (from SOME posters,) as I see on Mumsnet! It's a fucking parenting forum, and the bile and hatred is dripping from some threads about children!

Our marriage didn't really suffer post children.

I had twins.

The pregnancy was awful. Very ill, in and out of hospital, risk of early delivery - I went into early labour twice and luckily they didn't deliver.

By comparison the newborn period was easy for both of us. Both children had survived the pregnancy (not a given). I was so happy not to be throwing up each day. DH was so happy we were all alive.

We did a nighttime rota for wake ups - I didn't breastfeed ( no milk ever came in).

I'm not going to say it was idyllic and I'd love to go back to that time and we did have arguments and tears (mostly my tears) but honestly it really wasn't that bad.

Nothing is absolute, of course.

But young kids will magnify any flaws in a relationship or even in the individuals, in most cases.

Stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, perceived injustices all do have an impact.

Talking about how you'll handle that in advance will help hugely.

I had 2 under 2 and didn't sleep through the night for four years. It was hell.

17 years and in the middle of a divorce. So perhaps not best placed to give further advice

I’m fully braced to be miserable and fed up as it seems most people are on here - really hoping that it’s actually possible to love having a little baby and adore your new family unit.

It can, and indeed is likely to be both. You'd be surprised at how they aren't mutually exclusive.

If parents disliked each other after having a baby, they wouldn’t go on to have more children and often with small age gaps.

Disagree with this though. My friend was adamant she was not having an only child, so had a second very soon after. And the worst cracks in the relationship only showed after the second baby had arrived and the first was a more challenging toddler.

It definitely changes things! I notice me and my husband went from being partners to parents. In the early years especially everything revolves around the kids and a lot of the time you're sleep deprived and just in survival mode.
Thirteen years down the line were still together and still happy. We're now getting slightly more time together as the children are more independent.
I really recommend "date nights" now and then if you can get a babysitter. It really helps you to feel like a couple again.

We didn't have family help, did have money issues by second pg cause by outside factors, babies were difficult ones not good sleepers reflux bf problems though heard of worse - yet mostly loved it.

It was outside stuff that made it all harder - I thought at time it was our coping capacity reducing but looking back never before or since had to deal with so much career instability house moves -illness - wider family disputes, general back luck as when the kids were really young and harder work.

The first year was very rough after we had DC1. However, we are now closer than ever and I felt very close to him after DC2. Just be kind and forgiving to each other. You are both going to be tired, so be patient and let things go and don't hold a grudge. Communicate and don't let things fester. You will be fine!

I've been married 28 years- I think getting time on your own is important after first couple of months- and I don't mean as a couple, I mean 'on your own' - I think it's easy to get resentful when blokes toddle off to gym or go cycling for hours and the women never gets even an hour to herself. I would also set the expectation of doing chores - a lot of men talk the talk but actually do very little when the reality hits them- I wish I had took my own advice on that- I guess I wanted to look 'capable' in fact I just ended up 'doing it all' - as well as working- I would also say if you can drop to 3 days if you are carrying on working- it makes a huge difference to enjoyment of baby and ticking things over in marriage.

Depends if you have a selfish immature man-child, but sadly you may only find that out after you have had the baby ☹️

We had a difficult baby. Our marriage didn’t suffer at all.

Of course it's not a given. The fact that there are lots of posts about parenting and marital problems is not because it's a foregone conclusion that parenting and relationships are a disaster. Or that 'MN hates children/men'. It's because this is a forum. People post with problems and with things they want to discuss. Oddly enough there's not really much need for discussing the fact that your marriage is fine and you're finding life with a baby pretty ok.

Having children made our marriage stronger and we had two babies very close together and no local family to help out or offer support.

Of course we had disagreements in the early days. It's very hard when you are sleep deprived and can get snappy with each other. But we were always a team, DH has always pitched in and done his fair share and that I think is the key. Plus being able to communicate and say "I'm having a tough time, please can you help" or "I'm upset because XYZ."

But seeing DH with our DDs and what a hands on, active, loving dad he is made me love him even more to be honest. He is a fantastic father to our children and that has made our relationship stronger. Cheesy but true!

Ours hasn’t suffered, but I was already a parent, so even from the start our relationship has involved parenting in some way, so we didn’t go from zero responsibility as a couple to being responsible for a child overnight. No one recovering from a pregnancy or birth also makes a difference. We’re a good team, we both enjoy being parents, we both make time for each other and ourselves too, we haven’t lost our sense of self which is important.

Get off the internet. Like Amazon reviews, most people only list the negative stories

in any event, even if, statistically, most marriages did suffer, that doesn’t have the slightest effect on yours. Just go with the flow and live your life.

For what it’s worth, my marriage has never faltered since our son was born and I’d say it has made us closer as we have a joint purpose in life (DS) and we don’t get out much with other people so we had to entertain each other! We only have one child, maybe that’s the secret?! Also, we had to have IVF, that well known marriage wrecker, but that was fine too, honestly.

Exactly. I think it's so easy to forget that when you're reading yet another thread about how awful something is.

But people in happy marriages who love parenting aren't going to be posting on here asking for advice because, well, they don't need to. You're only going to hear from people who are upset or struggling. It's the same with threads about pet ownership or how hard the school holidays are.

Having children doesn’t make a marriage better or worse IMHO, but I would say the relationship of the couple changes and evolves, as there are not just two to consider anymore, no worse no better just a little different, is how I would describe it. Don’t worry about it, enjoy your pregnancy and welcoming the wonderful baby.

I'm not married, but my relationship strengthened and deepened after children. I know this sounds really, really tacky, but we really enjoyed the new adventure.

We have two young children (who we had in quick succession) and some family support (my parents can look after them for an hour or so or baby sit once they're in bed occasionally but wouldn't be up for having them all day, or on a frequent basis). Our marriage hasn't had issues.

I would say the things that have helped us are:

Being willing to be forgiving. When you're tired and irrational and the baby isn't sleeping one or both of you probably will say something or do something that's really stupid or insensitive. Don't hold it against each other.

Talking, with words. E.g., don't assume he knows you're struggling with getting out of the house in time for baby group because he might think you're doing really well at that and don't need any help.

Remembering that you probably will parent slightly differently and neither of you has the perfect parenting style, so just let it go if you wouldn't do it like that. Obviously, this doesn't apply to abusive parenting. If whatever the other person is doing is either obviously making life more difficult for them, or causing you issues (e.g. you end up with extra mess to clean up) then do raise it, but do it when the children are asleep or elsewhere and do it calmly and tactfully. No one wants to be treated like an idiot because they haven't thought of dealing with a particular situation in a particular way.

Don't keep score (I've done five dirty nappies this week, you've done three, or whatever). If your other half in general isn't pulling their weight then raise it (at a point where you both have the ability to talk about it rather than rowing about it), but very few people actually end up with each parent doing precisely half of everything and trying to achieve it is likely to get you resenting each other.

It can highlight inequalities and any selfishness. But if you are kind and respectful at the core of your relationship, kids won’t wreak your relationship. I don’t think many relationships are kind and respectful on both sides unfortunately so kids do bring out problems in those families. I think.

It's not a guarantee but it's likely your relationship will undergo some testing times. How you handle it as a couple will determine how your relationship goes forward.

My husband and I had literally never had an argument before our son was born. Not even anything more than a minor disagreement over something so trivial that it was resolved in minutes or one of us was happy to compromise on. We agreed on all the big things. The first year of our son's life still involved several arguments, crying over hurt feelings and tired snapping at each other.

The key thing is that we both wanted to do our fair share and maintain a happy relationship. We would take time to calm down and address any issue as soon as possible. Each of us was open to feedback and acting on it. We've never been the type of people who hold grudges, let things fester, treat each other coldly long term or insist on making the other person "pay" for something they did. BOTH being willing to have this attitude means things didn't flare up into deep seated issues.

DS didn’t sleep through till six months old and I was knackered. Overall though our marriage never suffered as DH really wanted children. We shared parenting, we still laugh a lot together after close to 25 years. DS GF parents are the same, always doing stuff as a couple and both really wanted children.

My friend is divorcing and having talked about it at length it has become apparent her DH was very much having children to please her and would have happily not had them. I also have a male friend who only had a child as his wife was desperate, to this day he says he would rather not have had a child. Child is fortunately bright as a button and incredibly well behaved and very sweet. If that child had any sort of significant issues that added stress and made work I could well see that marriage failing. The poor kid is lucky as if the wife that she is such an easy child.

We also never had any money worries of any sort and I had a cleaner and
put DS in a nursery two mornings a week so I could go to the gym and
go swimming when I was on my years maternity leave.

We definitely argued (and still do - eldest has SEN and very challenging behaviour) more than pre kids but we're still solid and happy. The key is not marrying a man child.

It depends on how supported you feel by your partner. It's easy to feel resentment if your partner carries on as normal and doesn't pull their weight. Or if your partner doesn't understand how sleep deprived you can be, how demanding a baby can be and how exhausted you can be.
You need to work as a team and you each need to have time alone and time together.

Being a bit organised can help too especially when it comes to meals.

I feel like when you have a baby, it can either tear you apart or bring you closer together. It bought me and my DH closer than ever.
Biggest thing is communication, be open with how you're feeling and have patience with each other.

Having been on MN for a few years now, it seems the biggest issue when a baby comes on the scene is the father not stepping up - being selfish, keeping up his hobbies and lifestyle like nothing has changed, thinking going out to work is just as stressful and tiring as being at home with young DC (most mums work, so we know that isn't the case), needing time to 'decompress' (ie doom scrolling the iPhone and ignoring their DC) when they get home from work. How many working mums get time to decompress when they get home from work, yet I've seen women on these boards defend fathers who expect this!?

Yes, having children is a test for even the strongest relationship, so I hope you have discussed expectations. My DH was great when ours were small and did loads to take the pressure off me; we still had times when we hated each other however 😄. We're now grandparents and see our DD going through the same struggles. It's hard.