Do you set aside time for just you and DH?

[morningpaper]

Do you set aside time for just you and DH? Do you ever just have a meal together without the television being on?!

Now we've got 2, babysitters seem impossible and we never get time to ourselves, but making a conscious effort to set time aside seems a bit superficial and embarassing. When do you actually TALK to your DH?

By the time 7pm comes round, all I want to do is sit down and BE QUIET and not talk to anyone, having spent the previous 12 hours constantly responding to numerous questions and feeling that my head will explode.

Dh however sulks and pouts like a boy if ignored, so I sigh and put T2 down and go 'WHAT?' so his bottom lip protrudes even more.

We DEFINITELY need to get out more.

But I feel cheeky asking MIL to babysit seeing as though she has the girls 3 days a week as it is when I work.

we hide in the kitchen to talk, it's v. small so I sit on a stool and he sits on the worktop!

it's the only place we get any peace!

we are in the process of identifying one day a month to spend time together. we work together in our own business, so we have the flexibility to do this while dd is at the cm. i so miss the quality time we used to have and find that by the time the evening comes around, i'm usually too knackered to do anything apart from the essentials and zonking out in front of the tv.

My situation is a bit different in that I'm a single mum with a boyf (who I've been with since pregnant with someone else's child). We've been together 3 years, dd is 2.6. I always feel very sad when I read this stuff about couples/married people not finding time for each other. I realise I am very, very lucky because I have 1 dd who is relatively easy - she is in bed by 7:30 every evening and sleeps through, and so it is easy for any babysitters. So boyf and I get out (though not often just the 2 of us) every month, but most of our time is spent indoors, he is over about twice a week. Because he is a boyf, that time is spent expressly just the two of us. I have always made sure there is absolutely nothing else I need to do on those evenings, so we have dinner (usually not even that, I eat with dd and have some left over for him to heat up when he comes in so he quickly eats it himself on arrival, this gives us even more time just for each other). Then we usually chat for a while, then watch a dvd. I sacrifice my need for more sleep because my priority is keeping quality time for the relationship. I find it so sad that couples who live together and are parents together seem to lose the ability to do that, or perhaps begin to take the relationship for granted? I am so, so determined that if boyf and I ever "settle down" together and poss have kids of our own, that that doesn't happen with us. Having seen how to keep a very difficult relationship (such as it was in first year of dd's life when she was constantly with us) together I think the same applies for "married" couples. Just because a couple is living together and have had kids together doesn't mean that the couple shouldn't make time for each other any more. It somehow doesn't make sense to me. In fact it puts me off "settling down" if that's what ends up happening! Remains to be seen what happens to us as dd gets older and needs less sleep, but boyf and i take things one step at a time!

Have read through this again I realise I am not taking into account families where children are up after bedtime, or where the parents simply don't have that time that boyf & I do, so just wanted to say please don't think I'm making judgments about anyone in that situation - I did say I am very lucky that way! As I said, it was much harder before dd began sleeping through and had a reliable bedtime routine. If that hadn't happened boyf and I wouldn't still be together today. Can I also add I have the most wonderful boyf to have come through all this with me

I agree it's v. important indeed to make time to talk.

We have dinner together every night but with the children so chat is frivolous.

when H and I first got married we used to have "date night" where we made sure we did something together....just as we did b4 we lived together

after our 2nd child, with him working away or getting home so late, and me so tired, this just stopped happening....and consequently he started "dating" someone else and has now left

its so easy to forget to look after your relationship although the first yr of a child's life is so time-consuming

Message withdrawn

We have plenty of opportunity to talk every evening as kids are asleep by 7pm - we don't always bother though!
We don't tend to arrange a sitter (ie my parents) just so we can go out on our own for the sake of it - tend to wait until there is something specific on the cards with friends etc.

This is the thing, it seems to me that when you live together you start taking it all for granted "we have every night" sort of thing. I can see all the reasons why a relationship would suffer (ours did too but in a different way). I also find it weird that a couple who are settled together and have chosen to have a kid together might struggle loads in the first year of their child's life (Sorry that sounds ridiculous, of course it's a struggle, but I mean, that's what you've chosen to do as a couple ...presumably...) I would've thought it'd be even more difficult for me, whose boyf wasn't doing it all with me iykwim. And yet somehow we got through it. Surely a settled couple parenting together would be even more determined or stronger to get through it together? Or perhaps the fact that we had so much set against us made me and boyf more determined or something...or perhaps the fact that he wasn't doing it with me actually helped, there was only one of us struggling with no sleep/too much to do etc!

I'd better also add that boyf also has a relationship with my dd! One of the times he comes over is at the weekend, so we spend the daytime together with dd. He also babysits now & then for me (not often because he has a pretty busy life and it's more important we spend his spare time together iyswim). It is also getting more important that we see eye to eye when it comes to parenting issues, and so far we do He backs me up discipline wise (he used to take a back seat and just be fun friend to dd but she began using him against me!). It was very, very important that he and dd bonded and they have - they adore each other

btw fwiw I also think couples with no kids suffer a bit from the same thing, taking their time together for granted and not always making a real effort to continue "dating". I lived with my previous boyf for 4 years (no kids) but he worked away half the week, and was busy with other stuff some of the rest of the time, so we never fell into that trap either. Relationship didn't last though but that's another story !

for me, the reason it was a struggle was because I had to do everything (housework & childcare & work part time)

when I just had one child, it was OK
after DD was born I started asking H for help - he resented having to help, I resented him not helping

I think one of us wasnt as committed to having children or rather the sacrifices / changes to lifestyle etc

you sound as though you're doing really well and I will certainly learn from this marriage IF I ever meet someone else

Spooky. My DP and I were just saying this week that we hadn't made much time for us recently and would have to arrange something soon to get some "us" time. Are you psychic or what morningpaper?! Bit harder for us to get sitter as my mum and dad in Dublin, DP's mum works full-time and his dad lives 32 miles away. As a result we do tend to feel a bit cheeky asking either of them. DS is such a good baby though (sleeps through and is very placid and smiley when awake) so he is easy to look after - it's just a case of who to ask!

Yes we do! although no2's imminent arrival is probably going to throw this all out the window...we try to go out every other week for one evening, this is made possible by one of my antenatal friends bbsitting for us and vice versa, also refuse to do any housework, past 8pm, as dh is usually home by then and eating dinner, so we can grab and hour or two to natter before we crawl into bed!

We go thru' phases.

When both children were small, we went out just for a meal or to the cinema once each week, and the children stayed over at their nanny's house.

We recently started going out again each week, but it's become a bit clouded with one of us being really tired after a hard day, or perhaps wanting to see a film and the kids announcing that they would like to see it to.

I think our current grade would be C+ - intention is there, but must try harder!