To think babies shouldn’t ruin relationships

[lighttheresomewhere]

It’s so interesting and genuinely so heartwrenching to see the amount of posts on here (and hear it in real life too) about the amount of relationships that drastically change for the worst and even break after having a baby/babies.

we have a 11 month old and I feel like it’s brought us even closer. My husband is a fantastic dad and husband and last night I got all dressed up for him coming to bed and when we were going to sleep he said thank you for making sure we didn’t lose us. I said what do you mean? He said ‘we haven’t lost us’. He started saying about the roommate phase and how we never went through that etc. I said it wasn’t a conscious decision it was just natural that I wanted to have sex pretty early on again, I wanted us to still have date nights and be us but it subconscious. I told him I fell in love with him all over again in a whole new way seeing him bond with the baby.

im not trying to be antagonistic or anything I just genuinely don’t understand how relationships go to shit so much after babies.

Hmm. Women are going wrong because they’re not dressing up for their man. Right. 🤔 Thats fucked up thinking.

Our relationship didn’t struggle when we had kids. We loved each other and both wanted our children so it was something we mostly enjoyed and got on with.

I’ve never had to make an effort to ‘look nice’ for him, he just likes what I look like. I would hate to have to make a conscious effort to please my partner and think about things like ‘not losing us’, especially when we’d just had a baby together. That actually makes me feel a bit sick and it would unsettle me to have to think like it. For us, splitting up was never on the table.

Has he been married before or been in another long term relationship that went wrong OP? The only couple I know that talk similar to you and your husband are a couple where he is on his second marriage. The first broke up because he was jealous of his own kids and didn’t feel he was getting enough attention from his wife when they were little. 🙄 Now he and his new wife are all about nurturing their relationship which to him basically means he gets sex when he wants it as he feels neglected. 🤮 She grovels around him at the detriment to their children whilst telling everyone one what a great relationship they have and how they’re keeping the spark alive. She never relaxes.

I’m glad for you OP that a birth injury/PND/general exhaustion haven’t affected your libido or relationship. Can you not see how naive and thoughtless your thread is? It just comes across as smug. I love my husband very very much but having 2 under 2 during a pandemic with no family support around us and me having PND twice has been like throwing a baby shaped grenade into our relationship! We will get that spark back, but I know he’s the one and it’ll sort itself out as we emerge from the intensity of little babies. I just cannot believe your attitude honestly it’s very thoughtless!

Congratulations on your perfect and sexy relationship, maybe work on your lack of social awareness/naivety/the fact you just aren’t very empathetic

please do come back regularly and update us on your relationship as you progress through life though

🤢

I think to write a post like this you must be quite young and immature. Or do you maybe have problems relating to other people/struggle with emotional intelligence? Do you find you often can't picture how other people's lives could be different to your own?

My first child brought us closer together despite lots of complications that meant our sex life suffered a lot. In case you didn't know this, some women have episiotomies and some women have very bad tears after they give birth - this could make excruciating for several months. I'm guessing you're terribly ignorant on this matter as you seem to assume other people may not make an effort, while in reality they are injured and need time to heal.

My second child has definitely damaged our relationship, although I hope the damage will be repaired. Main reasons are: she's been a million times harder than the first, never slept, needed to be breastfed constantly, developed a viral infection that lasted months, all while the first child suddenly started behaving badly and having other issues. This meant we were both completely sleep deprived, under a massive amount of stress, with no time at all to be anything but parents and no outside support.

Oh OP, totally get you. Special gals like us just know how to treat our men and that's why we were blessed with good relationships and breezed through parenthood. Ignore all the haters.

One of my mum friends, well, her DH was off at a hobby for a whole day every weekend from when her baby was born. I asked her, did you wear lingerie on your first night home from hospital? I think, as a special gal like me, you know the answer. No wonder he wasn't at home more often.

You know OP, you know why relationships go down the pan after children. People are more than happy to boost people up when they need it on MN but you don't need a boost. I'm saying all of this as someone that had sex 6w pp both times (I have two DC, the youngest is 6MO). I even wear lingerie. So don't think me bitter, just baffled by a woman foolish enough to not engage her brain on any level before posting on this topic. Have a basic level of empathy.

I mean, I remember reading in the leaflet that came with the pregnancy test that abuse in relationships was most likely to begin in pregnancy, and I understood then that a lot of women's lives were very different to mine. Other reasons a baby might not bring a couple closer together - PND, a bad sleeper, financial pressure? It's not really hard to imagine.

I certainly felt a baby strengthened my marriage and that becoming parents and finding out what a great team we made and how much we loved our children brought us closer in so many ways. But I can understand how the huge change and upheaval can drive some people apart.

And the phrasing of the OP makes it sound like it's all about sex, and that all the responsibility lies with the woman making sure to avoid the 'roommate stage' - I mean, 11 months in and he would have felt that he'd lost 'us' if you hadn't been immediately up for sex and date nights post-birth? Because lots of women have birth injuries, sleep deprivation, PND, low libido etc and maybe their great, supportive husbands understand that and support them and never resent being a 'roommate' because sometimes deep and true intimacy isn't about sex at all but about knowing someone to their bones and instinctively understanding that this waning is a season in a lifetime together. And that sometimes you realise how much you love someone and consider them your truest soulmate when you're both scrubbing vomit out the carpet at 1am and one of you makes the other laugh. There are all kinds of ways to realise you never lost 'us' that don't involve dressing up and date nights, all sorts of moments when you realise how close and connected you are outside of sex and how much more you are to each other than roommates in that first year.

You don’t understand it because you haven’t had the displeasure of experiencing it. With our first baby I had an extremely traumatic birth. Our baby was resuscitated for 7 minutes and we were told she would most likely not survive and if she did she would have severe brain damage. She was under review for 14 months and is (thankfully) 100% fine. I however, was an absolute mess afterwards. I did not bond with the baby I had longed for for well over a decade. I was petrified to love her in case she was taken away from me. I was medicated up to the eyeballs just to survive it and wracked with anxiety and guilt.

2nd baby was in lockdown and despite the most lovely and healing birth my husband and I hit rock bottom. We were married 7 years and I was filled with resentment and another whopping bout of guilt that I loved this baby (2years apart) more than I loved and bonded with my daughter. My DH was able to go out to work and I was in the house for nearly two years (furlough and mat leave) with two children and only my parents to be in a bubble with for the majority of 2 years. I finally got to heal from my first birth but was in lockdown unable to enjoy my second baby.

We hit a rough patch in our marriage HARD. And I mean it was close to us both wanting to walk away. We stayed, talked, prayed, healed and worked hard at our relationship. We fought tooth and nail to work it out and we were one of the fortunate ones. Baby #3 two years after our 2nd and we are the happiest and strongest couple.

Don’t ever make the mistake of looking at a couple and assuming they aren’t struggling. You wouldn’t have known we were in a rough place to look from the outside in but we were. Also don’t take one baby and think this will write the rule book for any future children. It won’t. Any addition to a family will bring a new set of challenges. I’m not saying one child is in any was easy but it is easier than two of three in terms of logistics. The more children added to a family the less time you have for each other, not a judgement just a plain fact. I don’t think you have meant your question to come across as a little superior (which is does read as) but as a question of interest. Don’t be the person who assumes your first child will be the blueprint for further children or you relationship. Nothing is static and no two children are the same.

Enjoy the fact this child has brought you closer and stronger. Just be cautious that marriage ebbs and flows and hard times can come. Also be extremely grateful that it sounds like you husband is emotionally mature and reflective. So many women do not have this luxury and are extremely unsupported and often abused in the midst of post partum

edited spelling

Everyone's situation is different. Some children are really hard some aren't. If you got a fairly easy one good for you. It's good you and your partner work as a team. Some parents find it harder due to work stress , health issues, financial worries etc. Ans yes there are some crap parents out there. And some couples who are less well suited. It's great you make time for yourselves and you are lucky to have the support network that enables you to do so.

I think the issue with your post is you are setting a bar with your selves as the gold standard. But you don't seem to understand it's not a level playing field. The people you compare yourself to aren't in your position. So looking down on people for not achieving what you are is mean. It smacks of 'we all have the same 24 hours'

There's a saying:what you boast of is what you lack.

Yeah, great for you. Enjoy being in the small minority. Does it affirm your life to post this?
Not going to make a difference to anyone struggling, and isn't that why most of us post on here? Tone deaf OP.

It's best to appreciate good times in your life but never be smug about them. You never know what is around the corner or what challenges the next child will bring. You don't know if your marriage would have survived the difficulties other families have had to deal with.

I have had 3 children with DH and every postnatal experience has been different and there have been many ups and downs as the DCs have been through phases.

I hope your next one is non sleeping triplets.
That'll put paid to your smugness, and I imagine the sexy nightwear <vom>, may have to be bought in a rather larger size.
Sure marvellous hubby will be fine with it.

Does your baby sleep OP?

Come back to us after baby number 2, especially if they’re still waking up several times a night after a year.

Yeah I don’t need to dress up, or have sex with my husband when I’m knackered to maintain our relationship as it goes a lot deeper than that.

My husband is a fantastic dad and husband and last night I got all dressed up for him coming to bed and when we were going to sleep he said thank you for making sure we didn’t lose us. I said what do you mean? He said ‘we haven’t lost us’

So it’s your job to grow a whole person, feed and nurture that person that you grew and to make sure you don’t “lose us”, which seems purely to relate to being available for (and being well presented for) sex? Would he still be so thankful if you had had a traumatic birth, had injuries which took sex off the table, had a child with disabilities. Will he be thankful when you need to prioritise your child’s needs over date night or lingerie.

What’s he doing to make sure you don’t “lose us”?

I’m not a mother either and was ready to post very similar to you.

What does the OP actually want from this post?

It’s like people who lose a lot of weight then talk constantly about how easy it is to diet and how nobody should be overweight when we all know to eat properly and exercise to stay slim.

They don’t seem to realise that this doesn’t apply to everyone and it’s just an attempt to put people down to feed their ego.

I hope OP comes back in the toddler years when all she hears is “NO” all day and she’s on her last nerve after a tantrum because her child wanted to get in a strangers car because it was a nicer colour or because their imaginary friend had won a game they were playing, or because people were calling it “my little pony” when it was THEIR little pony.

I’ve witnessed some of these tantrums and I know I could never have the patience and tolerance to manage it. However if for any reason I did have kids and found parenthood plain sailing I’d grit my teeth and nod along with the rest of my friends struggling, then i’d offer to help as much as possible. I would not start a thread about how easy I find things on a forum that’s got a lot of struggling parents looking for support and solidarity.

Can you tell us what you were looking for from this post?

I'm a single mom and my ds has complex special needs. I can tell you my ex and I went through hell and back to be parents, but our relationship still ended.

It didn't end because of our ds, we didn't actually even have the infant stage Ds was 1.5 when we adopted him.

It ended because dh struggled with a child who has ds's issues, and it made his anger issues increasingly worse and worse.

These issues were there prior but I didn't even acknowledge them. I come from a rough background (in care) and didn't have a sense of healthy when we met at 20.

Our marriage failed because he was abusive and I thought trauma bonding meant we were closer than most.

Ds amplified issues because stress always does, but the issues were already there.

I don't actually think you're looking for genuine answers but here you go any ways!

I was a young mum, I got with a much older man (38) at 18 who was desperate for "us" to get pregnant. He had children previously and I presumed in my naive little head that he'd be wonderful. I'd have probably thought in my daft head about how easy we'd make parenthood look.

The night baby was born he'd shown his true colours and I was married, baby and mortgage at 20 and by 21 a single mother to my birth dc and one of his who stayed with me. He didn't support his dc financially as they chose to live with me and I could have said no. Looking back I'm embarrassed for him.

I currently have a incredible relationship with 3 more children and my eldest dc calls my dp dad. Life is very filled with love and joy in my home, but we do have to sometimes rely on a high five as our daily sign of affection as things are so busy.
We always make sure the other is left to poo in peace, has a full water bottle and the other gets sleep, even if we work in shifts to take the baby or our high needs dc.

@lighttheresomewhere So after reading these responses, do you still genuinely not understand (as said in the OP), or has some light been shed on the mystery for you?

It’s so interesting and genuinely so heartwrenching to see the amount of posts on here (and hear it in real life too) about the amount of relationships that drastically change for the worst and even break after having a baby/babies.

I just genuinely don’t understand how relationships go to shit so much after babies.

Is your failure to understand due to you not paying any actual attention when people post/talk about why their relationship is struggling post-children?

Or we you just so desperate to humblebrag about how you keep your man happy (since that’s where everyone else is obviously going wrong) that you lost your ability to empathize with others?

Nope. My DH is an amazing dad, I always knew he would be. Our relationship before having children was as close to perfect as you could get. Two kids in, a baby and a toddler and we are definitely in the room mate phase, we sleep in separate bedrooms at the moment, one with our toddler and one with our almost 3 month old and we often switch so the other can get more sleep if needed.

We haven't had sex since the birth of our youngest, no birth injuries or anything - my recovery was quick, but we just don't have the time and are too tired so sleep is prioritised.

We're confident enough in our relationship that this phase will pass and I don't feel the need to 'dress up' for DH coming up to bed (boak).

This.

My DP is a great dad, shares the household load evenly, is caring and loving

1st pregnancy ended in an emergency c section, DS was admitted to NIQU where he spend a week. He was released and a few weeks later covid hit Europe. My DP was a key worker from the start so never stopped working. Turns out DS had multiple allergies but I couldn't get near a doctor / gp over phone said some babies don't sleep ( was sleeping about an hour max). DP was driving over an hour each way to work so during the week I never asked him to help at night. DSS was with us more where I had to home school him ( stepdad was an abusive prick so I wanted him with us rather then at his mums) I ended up burnt out.

Second pregnancy the cost of living started shooting up just after I got pregnant. By the time the baby arrived nursery was 30% more expensive sive and we had a year of both in nursery. We couldn't afford date night, have no family to babysit and frankly couldn't even afford a take away. We are now seeing the end with funding in spetember for our youngest and eldest starting school and things are getting better but you can't judge other families for something you haven't experienced.

THIS

You say "it's 2024" like you're so modern and with it, but you're doing the sort of shit that was being peddled in 1960s magazines. "Ladies! Keep your man interested! Always have his dinner on the table, and be in full makeup and wearing something alluring for him!"