How has your relationship with DP changed after having a child?

[Marghe87]

Slightly terrified that our relationship will change for good (in a bad way) and I so desperately want things to stay as they are as we love each other to bits and are very happy together. But we reached the stage of our marriage where we want to try for a baby and I think it'd be silly not to do it because too scared of things changing between us.

Anyone whose relationship got even better after having DC?

Our relationship has certainly changed. Our dc are 3 and 5 (19 month gap)and we have less spare money, less time for one another, less energy for one another, less sex, very few nights out, less time for hobbies and so on. We still love each other very much, still get on still laugh at each others jokes, still love going out together given half a chance, but the children are our priority and we don't have huge amounts of support from grandparents etc. I suppose we've had to work on 'us' in a way we've never had to before, it was utterly effortless before. The dc totally and utterly worth it though! I love the things we do together as a family, love seeing him with them, love that he's such a good dad. I don't think it's unusual for relationships to feel the strain in the early years- certainly among our friends anyway.

I think it can go two ways, really bad or really good. Whether your marriage is affected for the worse or better pretty much boils down to how useful the dad is. Not just when the children are babies but when the real 'graft' sets in. Parenting is a 18 year commitment, kids still need a lot of work from their parents when they're 7, 10, 15. It's a marathon, so it needs marathon stamina.
The marriages I have seen falter are ones where the husband is away a lot or very focused on work, the wife is a stay at home mum (and frustrated) and the husband is not motivated to be involved with housework and the day-to-day boring parenting tasks like doing the laundry for the billionth time. Often the husband is a bit lazy or ineffectual OR the wife is super-uptight, with high expectations of how things should be. The first signs of utter contempt usually start to show when the first child is 2 or when the second child comes along. This is when the wife looks at her husband and thinks, what the hell does he actually ADD to my life?
The marriages that thrive are often ones where both parents work, both parents chip in with the routine tasks of parenting AND a lot of the housework/wifework is delegated to someone else like a nanny and/or a cleaner.

Overall I have to say the impact of being parents on my relationship has been very positive. I adore my husband. Partly because he is a 'doer' and he actually helps our family get things done. Partly because we made a decision to outsource a lot of shitwork so we could actually carve out a life for ourselves away from the tasks of parenting.

My husband does more housework than I do even now that we don't have children and has always been 50% involved (if not more) in all house tasks and cannot imagine him not caring about the house and the DC when the time comes, it's just his nature to be caring and wanting to sort other people's problems.
With full time nursery we won't be able to also afford nannies during the weekend/evenings and cleaners but that's not really what I am worried about. What worries me more is the lack of quality time we will have together and the fact that DC take away a lot of your energy and attention for years and years and I don't want our wonderful relationship to suffer from this.

There was another thread about this last week. I had to laugh when I read someone answer the question with "having kids with your partner is like running a nursery with someone you used to date."