To wonder if some situations can be improved by having a baby?

[thepavementoutside]

I know everyone always says a baby will make a bad marriage worse and so on, but are there some situations where someone’s life is a mess and having a baby actually helps them improve things? Or is this romantic sort of thinking and not based in reality?

This is the worst idea ever. No relationship can be improved by having a baby. It tests the best. It’s the hardest thing you will ever do and will most likely widen any cracks with lack of sleep, freedom, financial stress and increased responsibility and home workload.

I love my 2 as obvs does my husband, their dad, but it’s bloody hard work!

I adore my children and am pregnant with number 3 but I’m not sure I can see any circumstances where potential sickness and health issues, severe sleep deprivation, extra strain on finances and an entirely dependent human being can help improve a bad situation. Other people may think differently though!

I think that's romantic thinking, I'm afraid - if you;re going to bring a baby into the world you need your life to be in as much order as possible, I would have thought. I'm sure there'll be the odd person for whom it did but my feeling is they'd be hugely outnumbered by those who dragged their DC down into their chaos.

No. Pregnancy and children can put enormous pressure on even the most solid of relationships.

If the problem is the stress caused by not being able to have a baby, then yes, having one can help. This was the situation for us, and the birth of our first child hugely improved out relationship. Subfertility is hard and it can knock the stuffing out of the strongest marriage.

Unless no baby is the problem, then I'd very much doubt that having a baby is the answer.

If you want a baby and then you have one... you've probably improved your situation!

Noooooooooo there is literally no situation that could be improved by a baby!

Of course it’s hard work but then there must be enjoyment to parenting otherwise presumably people wouldn’t do it.

I wanted an excuse to leave work and having a baby gave me one. Can't think of any other situations

Can you give a bit more info on "the mess"?

You didn't really ask if there was enjoyment though (yes, of course there is - lots!!), you asked if it would improve a relationship.

Which is a stretch, especially if you are asking bare cause there are problems already.

the enjoyment would not happen if everything else is a disaster.

Of course it’s hard work but then there must be enjoyment to parenting otherwise presumably people wouldn’t do it

But that wasn’t what your OP asked. Of course they provide enjoyment. That’s why I’m doing it a third time. They haven’t made anything easier though, and I really can’t see how they’d improve a troubled/difficult/unstable relationship.

I gave that as an example to be honest mia - that’s not my personal situation. Sorry, didn’t mean to mislead

I think you’d need to elaborate a bit more to be honest. It would entirely depend what the ‘mess’ is.

Id rather not as it’s probably easier to keep things generic.

Ok well I’ll stick with what I said above then.

OP - is this person pregnant already or is it something they are thinking about?

Well, my work is stressful, well paid, but uninspiring.

Fiance and I are dithering not on 'will we' but on 'when will we'. We can't start until late next year as we're going on honeymoon in a Zika area, but if I had a baby, at least the childish behaviour I had to live with would be coming from an actual child.

Just thinking about. I suppose in general people sometimes grow up when they become parents, gives them an incentive to sort stuff out? I don’t know really

at least the childish behaviour I had to live with would be coming from an actual child

What do you mean by this? If your fiancé is behaving childishly he’s not likely to chance when a baby comes along. So you’d just have double the childish behaviour.

I have known some young women who say that getting accidentally pregnant and then becoming a teenage mum was the making in them. And others where they were one in a long chain of teenage pregnancies, generation on generation, where it constrainwd their lives and ambitions just got dropped.

*change

In all honesty I think initially after I gave birth it made me love DP a little bit more, seeing the way he loved DD and how helpful he was for us both. But a few months down the line it totally tested us. Lack of sleep/financial changes/ general stress made a big impact on our relationship. So no I can't say I think it would make a relationship better overall. It is totally the best thing we both ever done, but it hasn't been without it's stress. I think if our relationship had been under any pressure before I had DD then the stress of it all would have made things a lot worse.

I have never heard of a baby improving a troubled relationship, ever. However I know a lot of couples who broke up a year or two after having a baby, no matter if they were troubled at the time of conceiving or not.