AIBU to think that having a child inevitably spoils your marriage/relationship?

[ShangriLaLaLaLa]

I'm in my 30s and have always been chronically on the fence about having children. Been with DH 12 years and we are very happy, lucky enough to have a lovely life, great careers, lots of holidays, meals out, etc etc.

I have come to realise that a major reason for my fence sitting has been my parents. They had a life of fun, parties etc (or so it seemed) before having me when my mum was 37. My mum threw herself into motherhood, it was her life's ambition, she was a fantastic mother. But her relationship with my dad suffered as a result and especially in my teens in hindsight it was a bit me & her vs him.

I've realised that, subconsciously, I've always felt that to have children you have to sacrifice a degree of happiness in your relationship with your partner. And - given I don't know my potential child(ren) - it's felt like an impossible decision to give up how good things are with DH in exchange for that?

I see a mix with some friends marriages suffering a fair bit after kids but some less so.

Can anyone relate or has my upbringing really coloured this for me? AIBU to think you can't have a fully happy marriage/relationship with children?

My parents still have a great marriage 45 years on and me and my brother (now adults) haven't wrecked it 🤷‍♀️ They love each other's company and love spending time together. They've always been best friends and on the same wave length. But my dad is the nicest man you can possibly meet and really great company and he totally adores my mum.

YANBU. Our marriage is a tiny percent of what it was previously. Some marriages just don't survive children sadly.

I really value being able to make each other a priority, having plenty of time and money to spend together, being able to take care of each other and plan our lives without having to consider anyone else

So do I.

Having DCs didn’t ruin my marriage.
My exH’s refusal to parent the DCs ruined my marriage 🙃🙃👍🏻

@Simonjt this!

I know couples who have 6 and 8 year olds. Rarely go out on their own and very rarely go
out together. Proudly announcing they haven’t been out in a year. Not prioritising a relationship isn’t anything to be proud of. They have options e.g. grandparents, paid babysitters etc but don’t seem to want to use them

If having children ruins your marriage, it's because there were already significant cracks, even if you didn't realise it. Many things/behaviours are very, very easy to overlook/push aside until children are in the mix.

It depends what you mean. Will you have less sex and fewer dates, especially in the early years? Almost certainly. But in other ways it has brought us closer together. We are filled with wonder at our love for DC. We find him hilarious. We are building a life together as a family. He’s the father of my child and always will be. I would say we have grown much deeper in our relationship, because we share the same hopes and fears for DC, even though in many ways life is more rushed, stressful and financially strained.

I also think that people who haven’t prioritised their relationship enough are much more likely to suffer from empty nest syndrome.

it totally depends. I wasn't fussed about having kids, my DH REALLY wanted them and has been / is an absolutely brilliant dad.

he is present, emotionally available and understanding, active, fun, kind, thoughtful. Gives me as much time as I need (introvert!) with absolutely no pressure. Just as likely to book swimming lessons or buy school shoes as I am. Our teenagers come to us both equally (depending on what they need!).

There's no sex/gender divide in our house (once birth / breastfeeding was done, and even then he picked up absolutely everything possible to allow me to concentrate on the baby). Everyone can and does do everything.

If you have a strong relationship and are team mates it doesn't effect your marriage negatively, if anything it's made us even stronger. I can see how it could cause rifts though if you only concentrate on the kids and neglect your relationship or if you had a partner who didn't pull their weight and resentment sets in.

forgot to answer after all that! net result is we have an even stronger relationship. Different of course! but not worse.

Since having kids sleep deprivation has caused more snapping and arguments. (We are still in the toddler/ baby phase). We have no support, are both rather overworked and have very little time to ourselves. Not much cash either! There is not infrequently resentment or competition over one of us being more tired or having to do more etc.

However there is this bond, a shared unselfish purpose over the children. Seeing my husband being a great dad is just wonderful. No matter what he will always be the father of my children. And there is still a bit of romance haha.

And children have probably changed us both to be a little more patient and resilient.

I think if one thing drives apart couples with children, it's having very different parenting styles. Because then there is no sense of being a team, much more cause for disagreement and also resentment or worse contempt about the other's parenting.

Having kids deepened our relationship. Yes sometimes it is difficult, challenging, but we’re in it together and together we make it work.

We are friends with couples who deliberately don’t have kids… and i saw their relationship change overtime too… people change.. if you don’t have kids and you have a midlife-crises or any other crisis you can grow apart as well.

It definitely IMPACTS your relationship, we still joke/reminisce about a nappy change at 4 months old with my eldest that's the closest we've come to divorce!

You have this massive shared constant responsibility and everyone is stretched at their most exhausted and how you both react to this and communicate with each other is very important. Also even with the best relationship it's definitely new challenges that highlight any weak areas as individuals and in the rlrelationship itself.

It's much more of a positive experience together than a negative one if you can navigate it together though. We had 11 yrs without kids and are 5 yes on with kids

If everything is so great as it is why are you contemplating kids at all?

As PPs have said, it's different for everyone. For us, yes, it's been really hard. DC are now 5 and 7 and it feels more difficult than ever, despite us being past the baby years. DS is lovely but high needs and causes a lot of stress and tension with his behaviour and tantrums. Both DH and I now work full time and it just feels like life is so relentless, the chores, the bickering between DC, the classes and parties to take them to, illnesses meaning no sleep...it all takes its toll on our relationship I'm afraid. We bicker and full on argue way more than we should. We've definitely stopped appreciating each other. I love him but I don't always like him. But I don't like the person I've become either.

However, worth noting contributing factors. One, we don't have any family support nearby, both our families live several hours away and his are pretty useless anyway. The second point relates to that...DH had a difficult childhood and spent a lot of it in care. He's worked hard to deal with it but I think having his own kids has bought up a lot of issues and his mental health has definitely taken a battering. So this doesn't help.

I don't want to put you off! I'd not change a thing and my children are so loved and very much wanted. But I would say, be honest with each other first, talk about worries and fears and if there's anything you think might impact on your parenting.

For us, we try to put it into perspective and hope that it will get easier. But I do now look at relationship breakdowns and understand how they happened, whereas before I'd always be shocked to see 'happy' families break apart. I get how easy that is for it to happen.

Yep.

My grandparents on both sides were married for over 65 years and having kids didn't ruin their relationships at all. But they never stopped being couples and doing things together and communicating. They also all had careers (as do my parents) so they were very much equals when it came to their careers

Children are also hilarious so there's a lot of shared laughs and shared anecdotes. If humour is how you respond to stress / minor disasters, there's a lot of opportunity to bond over those.

This is an interesting thread.
For me having kids is enriching in so many ways and worth the small effects it probably has had on my relationship with DH.
I do wonder though that those whose relationships break down, would they still be together without the kids?
Kids bring strain but if a relationship can't get through that, could it get through other things that bring strain - someone getting seriously ill, one partner needing to look after elderly parents, etc? I know no one voluntarily brings those other difficult things into a relationship, but having kids is not the only stressful thing that can happen through a long married life.
Not having kids is a great personal choice and the right thing for many people and for many reasons.
I am just questioning whether marriages break down/deteriorate because of kids or if they might have gone that way anyway.

I think it depends on lots of things - how much of a team you were before, how much your priorities change, whether you've grown together over the years. Any weakness in personalities or compatibility are laid bare once you have children

FWIW I'm divorcing specifically because my husband - after 3 children - said he didn't want family life anymore 🙄 so nothing to do with me or our marriage, no affair. Specifically his reasons for leaving relate to how our lives changed once we had children - and especially more than one child (well nr 2 & 3 were twins!) together nearly 20 years and married for half that by the way so no flash in a pan relationship. I thought I knew him inside out

But I'm being honest with myself the signs were perhaps always there - he was always a bit of a selfish man especially when it came to him wanting to do things he wanted to do like hobbies (but not excessively so), he was a bit lazy when it came to household things like picking up and tidying up and DIY but still did things so again not excessively so. Little things which when it was just the 2 of us or 3 when eldest came along we're just minor irritations really. No big red flags. Once we had the twins though - there was no where to hide, parenting became relentless and no one got a break as we were outnumbered adult vs children

It was clear I relished parenting and especially loved having twins. And he hated it. Especially the twins part.

Marriage was over within a year

I wouldn't change things for the world though.

YANBU.

People change once they have children. They become absorbed into the parenting roles and neglect their partners. It's a given that relationship issues arise once you have children. I'm willing to bet most divorces are post-children.

personally if i knew what it was going to be like then i wouldnt have had them.

It definitely changes the relationship, but not necessarily ruins it. I think it helps if you go into it older, eyes wide open and have similar values on mundane bullshit that blows up like cleaning up. I think a lot (especially blokes) don't anticipate the change or the scale of the change or realise they were never that keen on kids in the first place after the fact.

If having children ruins your marriage, it's because there were already significant cracks, even if you didn't realise it. Many things/behaviours are very, very easy to overlook/push aside until children are in the mix.

I disagree and think this is far too simplistic. You can have a great marriage for many years and it’s not until parenting that you discover differences in each other, largely due to the way your in-laws parented your other half and vice versa.

BUT!!!! saying that i would never decide not to have children because of how it might impact a relationship because you and him might not be together in the future and regret that