To feel like being a mum is easier than being a wife?

[BrownBrownHi]

And to think marriage requires more commitment than having kids?

If you have a child your identity remains the same as always, your goals, your dreams, aspirations don’t have to be any different than before you had them, you are always the same person you always were before having children, and you don’t have to change your name or have your identity become Mrs Someone, only thing that changes really is that you have an additional person or more people to take care of other than yourself.

Meanwhile when you marry, your goals are no longer your own, you job/career plans have to be carefully adjusted so they can match his because in a marriage you always have to compromise on everything, where you live, where you work, what type of house to buy and where and women end up compromising the most. You lose a lot but gain very little. Which is why I think marriage rates keep declining throughout the years because women have realised there’s not much to gain from being married and it’s not guaranteed to be a lifelong commitment anyway. It’s a lot of hard work for no real reason. AIBU?

Oosh. You've either married the wrong person or I've birthed the wrong kids.

Me and my husband have similar aims and interests. Neither which involve 400 episodes of paw patrol or a Lego marathon over a country walk.

I disagree, my goals and aspirations haven't changed since marrying in fact they got sidelined by having ds, and only now he's 2 have I been able to get them back on track, without dh support I wouldn't have been able to.

Bar that point, everything else you've pointed out comes with a longterm relationship (if you cohabit) not necessarily marriage.

As an aside, just because you're married doesn't mean you change your name or lose your identity.

I love the company of my daughter. She is so much easier to handle and be around her grump of a father. I am actually really sad but I have realised i can't cope with him.

So YANBU.

I think almost the opposite.
A couple who don't have children are able to pursue jobs and hobbies of their own interests with very little consideration of anything else.

If the woman wanted a new job and the husband didn't want to move she could leave him and move anyway.

A couple with children have the usual considerations PLUS one or more dependent beings of varying stages of need/intensity.

If I as a mother want to start a new hobby but it happens at bedtime and I BF and am unable to start my hobby, I can't just divorce my child and do what I want anyway...

Children are massively more dependent than a spouse, need more time, energy and emotional commitment, and aren't always flexible and compromising as a fellow adult would be!

My career plans don’t have to ‘match’ his, I don’t really know what you mean by that - surely they’d usually only have to adjust to joint children, which kind of flies in the face of your theory? Also, no one in my life only knows me as ‘DH’s wife’, but lots of people I see regularly only know me as ‘DD’s mum’.

Are you married? How many kids do you have?

I disagree completely btw.

And I sure as shit am more of a ‘different person’ from having children than from getting married, not least appearance-wise!

I'd say it was the opposite way round

I suppose it depends on your marriage and your dynamic.

It’s the opposite way for me.

My relationship with DH didn’t change anything about my personality or aspirations or career.

Then my children came along. And everything changed, turned out I loved being a mum and that in itself changed my plans etc.

I would hazard a guess that you don’t have children and are married to someone not very nice to be honest OP

I’d say it was 100% the opposite. My husband has always been supportive of my career, dreams and aspirations. We are a team. Having children has been amazing but has completely changed my perception of myself, my life, my role in society just everything.

Being a wife to DH is the easiest thing I've ever done. He'd never put his needs before mine and vice versa.

Yeah I don’t agree that your identity doesn’t change once you have kids..... you suddenly have an identity as carer, protector and supplier..... can be a massive change.

I was a great wife until we had kids. Being both a mum and a wife feels like a lot some days. I'm not sure the wife bit is actually harder, but for me the kids come first, so being a wife is the bit I sometimes feel like I resent?

Yeah absolutely the opposite way around, very strange interpretation OP.

Marriage is easy. Toddlers have ruined my sense of self, appearance, patience and stamina; I yearn for the energy and vivacity of the pre-children me.

But surely... when you have a child you also have a partner? Therefore you still have the same issues whether you’re married or not?

Other way round.

DH is a fully grown person who can do or not do what he wants. Fifteen years married pre children and no change in identity at all.

Children however, that turns my world upside down. Perhaps that's due to being told I wouldn't have them, and the mental health impact of that when I did. But now, did I, have I, lost my identity, absolutely.

Definitely not for me, if anything the exact opposite.

Feel like a new version of me has been written while on maternity leave and I'm not sure how that new me will fit back into working life when I start it again next week.

When I got married not much changed at all, had been together years and years before that anything since teenage. So just paperwork changed is all.

I enjoy being married in the sense of more rights if anything goes tits up, and all of us having same joint name (double barrel). But our relationship itself hasn't changed.

A baby on the other hand, tips your life upside down. Nothing is yours anymore, not even your time or the space to think, and I say that whilst not having a majorly difficult baby who has always been an ok sleeper! Having a child is the ultimate commitment!

It's the complete opposite and what a strange post. Do you have kids?

Being a mother is harder on so many levels aka I completely disagree and think the complete opposite.

@badgerswitharms

Oosh. You've either married the wrong person or I've birthed the wrong kids.

Me and my husband have similar aims and interests. Neither which involve 400 episodes of paw patrol or a Lego marathon over a country walk.

@badgerswitharms. I can so relate to this!

I have had to adjust some of my career plans due to major geographic moves for the sake of DH's career- this has sometimes irked me, but I agreed to them so I have to live with my decision.

We certainly enjoy each other's company and I would say that we've expanded each other's interests. We also have some hobbies that we do separately, because the other one isn't that into them - and that's fine.

no one in my life only knows me as ‘DH’s wife’, but lots of people I see regularly only know me as ‘DD’s mum’.

This! I agree with others that it’s the other way round….

I always thought the opposite, which was a major reason I didn't have children.

Huh? My DH can actually manage to keep himself alive! Children can't, at least not for quite a number of years.

*Are you married? How many kids do you have?

I disagree completely btw*

^ this