To ask if you were with your partner for 10+ years before having kids, how did things change after becoming parents?

[lentilandpotatosoup]

Been with my partner for over a decade. Very happy, comfortable existence. Have been ambivalent about having kids but now seem to be leaning towards it. So just wondering for others in a similar situation who'd waited a similar length of time, how did adding children affect things?

My DH were together for ten years before we had kids. Our lives were changed completely but I don't regret it.
I think being together so long means you know each other really well and have plenty of child free memories to fall back on when you're sleep deprived and need to remember that you like each other!

It was nice. We've always done better with a joint project! Plus we received a deluge of pre loved baby stuff as everyone else had reproduced already, and some of our slightly older friends were keen to practice for being grandparents.

On the down side we are now 52 and 58 with a mega stroppy nearly teen.

We had a child after 9 years of living together and I left him 2 years later.
All was seemingly fine before having the child, as I did not resent taking care of everything because for me taking care of stuff for him was showing him love.
After 2 years of taking care of everything + taking care of our child, I realized he would never take care of me.
Split and we have been amicably coparenting, so far.

Hey OP ..
I was only with my partner 3 years & decided we wanted kids , young & in love, & incredibly naive 🙈 , didn’t t work out too well for me , that’s the way it goes 🤷🏻‍♀️..

Together for 10 year’s, & you’ve mentioned how happy ye are, so then I’d be thinking this is the next chapter in your life & it will be amazing ☺️
Best of luck x

I think it depends on your relationship tbh.
We'd been together about that long, very happy together, but crucially, very independent. We did our own thing but happily did stuff together. Once a baby was in the mix, some of the things that weren't problems became problems. Such as him sleeping all the time, going to the gym four times a week (what's the point of me being awake/in the house, you're just breastfeeding). I really could have done with a lot more support but that was his life not changing and that stuff hadn't bothered me before.

We muddled on through but once he started lobbying for baby 2 I had an honest conversation and laid out that he could not sleep in my hospital bed after a traumatic c section, or lie in until 11am. We're still here, 20 or so years later but I definitely don't feel the way I did before kids.

We were together for 16 years before DS came along. I think it helped get us through the tough bits as we knew we had a solid base. The things that DH was crap at before he is still crap at! But I think that knowing each other so well, and as PP said being older parents, meant we had no illusions. It was still hard when sleep deprived but we knew it would get better eventually. We don't regret having DS at all although it has changed our lives.

Same for me. I knew DH would be an incredible dad and would step up, so I was completely confident that although it would be difficult at times, we would absolutely get through it. I was never sure about having kids but DH always wanted them. Took me a long time to get off the fence and I'm so glad I did!

All of the things I already knew were amplified:
How there is a huge unequal split of labour I'd say about 80/20 but that 80% is much more when you have kids.
How great he is with children.
How much he supports me even at my ugliest most broken of times.
Our sex life is in the bin currently with a 4 month old, compared to prior when it was, well very very good 😂
It's hard but imo worth it. I'm 3 kids deep and would like to keep him and them around forever.

It's been okay, and we're a good team. However he has really struggled with the withdrawal of my undivided attention and loosing the sense of being the most important thing. I am much less patient with times when it feels more like I have a second child rather than a partner than perhaps I was before. He still takes care of me.

Top tip: Do shared parental leave and get dad to do 3 months solo. It's balances all the relationships back out, and makes sure you don't end up sole carer.

We split after another 5 years. He was my best friend for a long time but did not choose to adapt to parenthood and is ultimately too selfish. It was a horrible end.

A long time ago, but. 10 years together, split when son was 18 months old. That was 16 years ago. Dynamic completely changed.

12 years before DC. Become boring, depressed and poor. Both are under 3 though so maybe things will change but for now we're holding on by a thread. I frequently fantasise about breaking up so that we can take turns having a break.

It was the toughest period of our relationship, I won't lie. We had been very equal and very independent beforehand and of course all that went out the window. We were both scared, but I had to get on with it whereas he had the escape route of palming stuff off on me available, and there were times in the first six months especially when I deeply resented how much my life had changed vs how little his had. It took negotiation and yelling and crying and trial and error to get us back on a balanced, equal footing.

I second shared parental leave - he spent two months at home with the baby after I went back to work, which was most instructive for him. I also screamed explained to him from time to time just exactly how it felt to be me, and the fact that I had the uterus hadn't in fact given me magical insight into the baby, I was learning on the job just like him. Let him step up and fuck it up. Everyone has to learn by doing with a baby.

It's ten-plus years on now and we're very happy and truly equal parents and a team. But pre-baby me would definitely have been shocked by how often, and how much, I hated him during that first year.

Changed our relationship for the better, we had 4 in a short period of time with no help so we’re too tired to argue 😀 no seriously we both loved being parents, being the best parents we could, we loved our growing family. Division of labour definitely 50/50 although I was a SAHM for years now I work FT outside the home, he WFH so does more of the house/kids work. We drive each other crazy from time to time but overall we’re happy.

He changed completely. He was the one who wanted children and he had been a very good partner up to then, did at least half the chores, took good care of our pets, good care of me. I was confident he would be a great father. We had been together since university.

After the baby was born he struggled to bond with her, started working away where he never had before, neglected me emotionally and told me he didn't find me attractive any more. Our marriage culminated in him having an affair a few years later and leaving me following a period of horrendous mental cruelty. I still can't believe what happened. We are no longer on speaking terms, although he does see our child and appears to be as good a father as he can be every other weekend. He didn't want regular 50/50 due to his work commitments.

Met my DH at 16 years of age … had our baby at aged 33. Was the best thing we ever did. Helps that we know each other inside and out. We were always unsure whether we wanted children, we had our baby and it is life changing. In a good way! Life is very different of course, our focus is now on our child predominantly but we always try and make time for each other.

Quite a mixed bag! I'd hoped being with a partner longer term would have been beneficial for raising a child, but from the responses it appears that's not always the case.

Seems like women always have to have a ducks-in-a-row mindset ☹️

Sorry just to be clear, my partner is brilliant, it's our life that's changed so drastically.

I think children amplify what's already there. If you do most of the cooking and cleaning and thinking then you will continue to when you have DC. If he takes care of you when you're ill, then he probably will when you're postpartum too.

I'm afraid I didn't find this to be the case. He changed so completely I really don't know how I could have foreseen it. He went from being a person who absolutely had looked after me when I was ill to a man who seemingly couldn't wait to leave the house under any pretext possible, including taking jobs that involved weeks of travel where previously he had worked 9-5. Tbh I think he just went off me once I was a mother.

In summary having kids underlined that he would always put his career above everything. He’s always been great when home, but was never home enough - didn’t even see the kids in the week when they were small due to long long hours at work. My career burned out as a result.

We are still together but my resentment is huge.

He’s always been hardworking and fair minded so I didn’t expect this but it turns out he will share things equally around his career but the career is non negotiable.

15 years here. It helped that we knew each other well. Our previous division of tasks was not typical and that continued with children so I think our shared experience helped.
I had been raised without any significant male role models. No father or grandfather, two uncles, each with 4 children and rarely saw them. When our DC were 10 and 11 I bought them DS games and they had a game where you were given a three letter word and had to pick three words each starting with a letter in the original word. For example CAT might be cautious, agile, tail.
You had to be quick.
I had dad and wrote dark and dangerous.
i was shocked and horrified, it dawned on me that I was probable hell to co parent with.
i think our 15 earlier years were helpful.
Still together, 45 years this summer.

Just shy of 21 years! While obviously it helped that we were a very strong, established couple who’d weathered a lot together, I’ll be honest and say we both mourned for a while no longer being each other’s number one, and our relationship now being triangulated via a small new person. We did adjust, and we’re still happily married, and that small new person is now a wondrous teenager, but it took time.

10 years here. Partner has always split chores and ever since I met him when he was 19 he’s had a strong sense of personal responsibility. So he’s made a great dad and continues to be a great husband.

But that first year was hard. He was very used to me being pragmatic and logical but PND and a baby who would not sleep knocked that out of me and I became an emotional wreck. He struggled with that, and we argued a lot more. But got through it and are now stronger than ever.

We were together for 12 years when we had DS. Things did change a lot and it was me that struggled with the loss of my old life, PND and a very traumatic birth. The first year was awful and I just didn't want to be here but he was incredible and did so much to support me and help me through it. The second year was better as I went back to work and found some routine and was able to go to the gym consistently to give myself something for me. DS is 4 in October and while things aren't perfect and we need to work on us as a couple (we often don't get time together on our own), we are happy and we have a good life and our son is just magical. My husband is an incredible dad and our son has a disability from birth but the way he looks at my son just fills me with pride for the both of them. I actually said to my sister last week I'm glad we didn't do it earlier in our relationship because we were able to travel a lot which none of our friend have done.

It was hard because we were basically quite lazy. Our evening of choice was lounging around on the sofa, video games. We also liked going to the theater.

Since we've had dc that all had to stop..we haven't been out in ten years for a meal/theater etc. Because we don't have any family support. Our dc are high maintenance 'spirited' children and have been bad sleepers. So no more lounging!

It has taken us a long time to get used to life now and we often mourne the ability to just relax and sit back..but overall we are far more active now. I guess we grew up!