To wonder if all relationships are a bit shit when you have young children?

[jinglebellmel]

We have a 3 year old and a 4 month old and I'm just feeling totally fed up - nothing huge, but a hundred little things that make me feel unappreciated and angry. We seem to be growing apart, he's at work I'm at home on mat leave our worlds couldn't be more different at the moment. I don't feel as though we even like each other at the moment let alone love each other. Have others experienced the same in their relationships and it's recovered as children got older and life less strained or am kidding myself?

It is very hard, try to make time for each other as a couple-you're not just parents & it's important to remember that.

I think it either makes or breaks you, it’s a tough time.. I sometimes feel like we’re going to split up but then we always come together and be a team again, it tests even the closest of relationships. If either person doesn’t feel supported or loved then resentment grows..

I find my husband selfish in a way which I'd never realise he was before. He thinks he's doing the best he can, works a lot, two jobs etc. But then punishes me (of a sort) in that every time I ask him to help me (in ask way that I want him to) he will either do it for 2 minutes, do it badly, say "I cant" and then give up, or tell me how tired he is and how much he works.

He works five days and the four nights on top. But this is a fairly recent thing. He used to work 12 hour days (four on /four off) but has never done a night with the baby or gotten up with him. He wouldn't have a clue if I left him for the day. Not for the want of me trying. He doesn't listen to me because he's too busy feeling sorry for himself. Childcare would financially cripple us and I want to be a SAHM. But, I also want to do a night course so I can hone my skills and become self employed. I couldn't do what I did for work prior to having ds anyway. But he refuses to learn to look after his son, so I can't leave them together. (He doesn't think it's a refusal, but he's never in/when he is he isn't here mentally )

The result is I'm shattered 99% of the time, have absolutely zero enthusiasm or energy for sex, and when (on the rare occasions that we do spend time together) we have one subject (how wonderful DS is) because anything else may set either one of us off. It's hard. It will either make or break us. Doesn't help that I'm fairly certain he's got depression/terrible anxiety, but every that I mention it he thinks I'm trying to gaslight him.

Yes

Tbh No, not all relationship are shit with young children and mine defiantly isn’t.
Ive been with my partner 7 years and we have a 3 and 4 year old together and if anything’s it’s better than it’s ever been.
But I think the main reason why is because I already had children from before I met him and was a single mum, I was used to having children and not getting outside appreciation for what I did for them that also meant when we started dating in the early days I had young children and we had to cope with that dynamic so he had experience of being a step dad before he became a Dad.
If we were both first time parents it would of been so much harder.
It also helps that my partner takes business trips a few times a year so I get a break from him!
Keeping communication open is also key, tell him how you feel, tell him want you need and want from him.
The fact that my children are fairly well behaved and can sleep in seconds also makes life so much easier.
You are in this together your worries are his worries and vice versa, keeping feelings in will only ever worsen not solve the problem.
Hope it gets better

Thanks for all for the replies. It's reassuring to know it's not hugely uncommon and for lots of people it does pass - really sorry for those of you for whom it didn't get better.

I think a lot of what people are saying rings true for me, there's a lot of resentment (I think mainly on my part as I feel I've sacrificed so much more than he has for us to have our children) and I am not a good communicator, very pa and find it hard to say what I need from people - I'm under no illusions here, I'm far from perfect!

I've no issue in principle with leaving the 4 month old for a few hours, but she won't take a bottle and has reflux, I can barely leave her with dh for 10 mins to wash my hair - I'm sure the lack of time to myself isn't helping things. Hopefully in a couple of months she'll be a littler easier.

Absolutely, yes.

DH and I had a great relationship before we had kids. Now it is a bit shit. It feels like a massive effort, I hate having to make conversation, put in the time and effort and I very much doubt we would get together if we met now.

I don’t know if he feels the same. There is no point in asking. We do not have the time or money to divorce and I don’t have the emotional energy to open Pandora’s box by bringing it up. It’s easier to plod along.

Ah Rainbow, that is sad :( how old are your children? Do you think you've just both changed?

6 and 4. Yes I think so. I need time on my own which I do get now they are older. Sex currently a bit rubbish too and don’t know why. I think the mess and chaos of children gets us both down and it is an effort to stag on the same page disclipline wise although this has improved. Don’t want to depress you though. He gets annoyed at the mess. I get annoyed at him being annoyed. We are too different I think.

I’d be perfectly happy to sit on my own and not talk to anyone with the telly of an evening but of course this is not really compatible with a happy marriage!

Ours are 4 and 2 and the last few years have been very tough going tbh. However it does get slightly easier because these days it is easier to leave kids and do grown up stuff occasionally if not very often

Yes, very much so. It does get better, honestly.

I started a thread the other night asking more or less the same. We had a nice day today at PILs and I almost found myself fancying him again, but as soon as we got home he got lazy and tetchy again and I can't be seeing him far enough away. Yes to the poster who can't un-know how lazy her partner was when the chips were down. But I know that this is a hard stage in life, and just need to plod along and see where we are in a few years.

Maybe it's just us but we've become much closer since DD1 (13m) and DD2 is now on the way. We love our weekends as a family and split all household tasks etc equally. I love DH more now than ever and we make time for ourselves when DD is in bed.

I remember saying to me sister, "I don't know what he's whining about, he had four hours sleep last night - all in a row".

We've had three kids and I think each time we've hit peak exhaustion and then got a bit shitty with each other.

We're good now. We love each other a lot more on seven hours sleep- especially when they're all in a row.

No advice as currently pg in third trimester with DC2 and only have one toddler. But I sympathise, we both work, but I do the childcare on evenings and weekends, the cooking, the clothes, the bedding, the driving around, the shopping etc etc. Apart from maybe a few hours he takes toddler on the weekend and does one bathtime a week, and cleans the living room. He earns more so feels it's a compromise but it actually isn't. I do resent him, he thinks his job is draining, but he gets a lot of time to himself to "relax" (think going out with friends after work, having a big football match get together on the weekend with friends, etc) whereas I don't because he can't look after toddler AND run a washing machine. Or peel potatoes for dinner.

It's exhausting, and if I wasn't as big as a whale I could do more, especially house DIY stuff as the house is in need of a LOT of TLC which I would have done myself but again I am physically stopped by the watermelon in me.

Have some

I have just got the children to sleep and ought to go downstairs but frankly my husband has irritated me so much again that I really can't be arsed.

I do think part of it for us is that we don't know how to argue, we never argued before having ds. But then, I got time to myself then. Like a pp said, I am perfectly happy to sit in silence of an evening. DS is nearly one, not a good sleeper and very attached to me. Which is fine, but he is also on the go from the minute he opens his eyes to when he closes them, and then the battle to actually get him in the cot starts. By 7:30pm I'm utterly drained. And then if he's not at work, then dh has gone to the gym. He'll get back at 10pm and want a conversation and by that point I've got absolutely nothing else to give. (He doesn't see him going to the gym as selfish).

I just don't like him a lot of the time because he never stops complaining, ever. And I haven't got the emotional energy to deal with him because he's been on a downward spiral for two years. I want him to get some help because he's exhausting. And if he doesn't, we will split up. I hope it gets better.

I hope it can get better because I do love him, and I know he adores me, it's just buried deep down in a of knackered.

We never argued before DC either. Ha!

Mine seems to be going down the pan. It’s so depressing, I try to be hopeful but he has told me his feelings towards me have changed.

This happened before and the spark did come back, just hoping it comes back this time

I just want him not to be ridiculous also! He was in for a couple of hours this afternoon, instead of playing with ds, wanted to hoover. Ok fine. So I put ds in the sling on dh's front.

He came back about twenty minutes later looking panic stricken. DS had fallen asleep, perfectly happy, warm, snug. What did dh think had happened, he was all flapping and worried..."I thought I'd poisened him Billy! Or hurt him, or something!" HOW?! How in the name of holy fuck did you, whilst hoovering the hall, think you'd poisened the baby?!" Thats not rational! But he's like that all the time!

Yes, we've found this too. Very hard. DS is 22months and it's getting a little better, but no babysitter doesn't help. It's one of many reasons I don't want a second. We almost didn't make it.

Yup I agree with so much of this - particularly the part about not being unable to see your DP's laziness. I felt such resentment towards him after DD was born (still do at times but it's getting better). He did NOTHING when she was a newborn, he was less than useless and it really changed how I viewed him. It made everything I fell in love with seem to be a lie and man was I bitter and upset. He made DD's early months way more difficult than they needed to be - she was already a difficult baby and had reflux but had I felt we were in it together it would have been so much more bearable. I seriously considered leaving but read somewhere that you should never make huge life decisions in the first year following the birth of a baby so I said to myself I'd give it a year and really try and make things work and get back on track. I was devastated when I found out I was pregnant again when DD was only 6 months old (unplanned obviously!) but I had it out with him and he has improved and there are times when I even feel stabs of affection towards him - however fleeting! I'm due #2 in 2 weeks and have forewarned him that if history repeats itself I'm not willing to go through those feelings again and would rather be a single mum than in a lonely, resentful partnership. I have some hope we can survive this, time will tell...

*not being able to unsee your DP's laziness rather

My marriage hasn’t gone down the pan, thankfully, we’re just both knackered once our DDs are asleep and don’t get much couple time. It feels like we’re just mates sometimes as well rather than in a relationship, though, which can be a bit depressing sometimes.

Our DDs are 8 and 5 now, and adopted, and DD1 in particular needs a lot of input from the two of us.

Thank god for this thread! I could have written so many of these posts. Love the kids to bits but boy do they put a strain on a relationship. It's a relief to know it's normal.