How did having DC change your relationship?

[DontPutMeDownForCardio]

I was talking to my mum the other day about planning to TTC in the next couple of years and she said to enjoy this time with my DP before we have children together as having DC will change our relationship. My DP already has a little boy so I'm not totally clueless about how having a child around can affect having time together but DSS's only here on weekends so it's not the same, and we got together when his son was just 3 so I've no experience of the baby stage.

I was looking for other people's experiences of how having DC has changed their relationship - for better or worse?

DH didn't/doesn't like not being my top priority. I never anticipated that being a problem, but it is. He's not nearly as interested or engaged a father as I thought he would be. As a result, I don't love him as much as I did pre-DC. It makes me sad that he hasn't embraced parenthood (our eldest is 9 so I doubt it's ever going to happen. We may stagger through and find a peaceful coexistence when the DC are grown up, but I wish things could have been different.

Thanks for your responses theres a lot for me to think about here.

Well, with DD1, I'm pretty sure he was having an emotional affair & then with DD2, he had a full blown affair & now we are divorcing.

I think it just highlighted his selfishness - he was a great father in terms of time for the kids but he couldn't handle all the other responsibilities like pulling his weight in the house - mind you, he was like that prior to kids so it was already there.

His affair was because his needs weren't being met, yet plenty of mine weren't either, but I didn't have an affair.

It was quite hard to see his selfishness as he quite cleverly disguised it by always throwing money at a problem, rather than his time or energy which was what I needed more.

We've both moved on now, but it's made me a bit cynical that there are very few men that actually pull their weight equally in a relationship when kids come along - that makes me sad.

Sadly, having children was the start of the decline of our marriage. We managed to stick it out for 11 more years but divorced last year. Prior to that we'd had 12 years together without any arguments, and had loved every minute of being together.

Exh didn't like 'sharing' me and felt left out. Regardless of what I did or said to make him feel loved and wanted, he didn't feel part of the family and turned to other women for the attention he needed. He couldn't handle the daily grind and became more and more distant.

I'll never regret having children with him but it was the end of us. Ultimately I would have had to choose between a family or him. I wanted both but it wasn't to be.

Dd is 20 months and have a DS on the way.

Ours has suffered terribly. We have been intimate once since her arrival (see ds on way comment - you couldn't make it up)

We have zero time as a couple
I had this fantasy of how dp would be and although he adores dd he is quite selfish with me particularly around sleep which has upset me.

On one hand I love him more seeing him with dd but I have a lot of resentment after dropping my career to look after her and his sudden increase in social activity.

I do think men struggle to adapt to their descent in the hierarchy. They go from being the focus of our attention to suddenly being an after though. Couples can have the best intentions in the world to make time for each other and keep that closeness but the reality is that the baby takes over everything, they consume everything. At the moment my baby is my life and my DH is a man who floats about the house who changes nappies, winds the baby and still gets to go to work and have a social life. He still gets to go to the gym, play cricket, play football, go to the pub etc whilst I'm with the baby 24/7, I certainly don't get any 'me time'. I don't resent him for it, it's just the way things naturally are - in the first few months the baby needs its mom and wants to be with its mom, I can see why the dad's would feel pushed out. I think things will improve when the baby gets older, I think my DH will be brilliant when DS starts developing a character and is someone my DH can interact with but until that time I'm anticipating DS being my responsibility and my relationship with my DH being something that comes 2nd in my list of my priorities.

Dh has surprised me as prior to dd he was always a very self centred selfish person. Now he puts me and dd first, always.

I have no experience outside of my own, but I wonder if this is in part down to the fact he really wanted dcs for about a decade before I did. I think his selfishness was in part out of resentment. Just a theory. I certainly prefer DH the father, to the previous version.

I also suspect how people cope is in part down to the nature of their dc. If you have a non-sleeper, or unwell child it is harder as you will be sleep deprived and anxious.

writer I know exactly how you feel. I spent months resenting Dh for still being able to go to work, cook a meal, even go to the loo when he wanted. He didn't seem to understand the massive commitment and effort I had to make every day, with absolutely no option to take it easy or slack off. I felt deeply disappointed that he didn't get it, and that he didn't help more. Looking back, I realise that it was also taking him a while to adjust emotionally to being a father. And the physical exhaustion I was suffering made everything seem much worse.

Since ds got to about 6 months things have got slowly better, to the point where I feel much more like this is a partnership, and that our relationship might return to something like the equal basis it had before ds. One piece of advice someone gave me was - try not to think about it when you're tired, and definitely don't argue when you are tired. Good luck. The other thing that has helped us is that I have just tried to show Dh some compassion. Ok, I don't have the energy to look after both him and ds, but I somehow forgot to be kind for a few months. It started to come back when I started to get some sleep!

Op, I would never have imagined things could be this strained between me and Dh, who have been together since we were 20. In retrospect, I wish we had talked it through more while I was pregnant - our expectations of each other, and of the baby, and how we would deal with the inevitable sleep deprivation, lack of time together and drop in income. I think I expected him to be a 'natural' dad, and he's not at all.

I've cried reading this. DD is 9 weeks old and so much of what had been said rings true, especially writer. Our relationship before was fantastic, very equal and caring. Since he had been back at work it's been much harder and I can definitely relate to the baby and me being a unit thing and him being on the outside. We try and talk thru it but it's very hard. I feel quite alone emotionally at times. I hope it gets better.

Oh peace - I think first time motherhood hits women hard because we are forced to find a strength in us that means we can take on the responsibility of this new life and in some ways I don't recognise myself anymore. I used to be a kind and loving wife, affectionate towards DH, happy with our life etc but now I'm "DS's mom" and spend a lot of my time nagging my DH about what he's doing wrong (in my eyes) when it comes to caring for the baby. Me and DH have gone from being an equal partnership to me now holding the cards, having the power, whilst DH just follows behind. It's a really strange feeling and I'm sure in some ways my DH also feels like he doesn't recognise who I am anymore either. Me and DH haven't really talked about the way our relationship has been affected but I have told him that all we seem to do is argue these days. It doesn't help that we don't socialise together anymore, it's like we co-exist in the same house but live separate lives. It feels like the only thing we have in common these days is DS and even then DH just 'doesn't get it' - I don't think they see new parenthood in the same way the mothers do. To the mothers, their entire life and focus has changed forever and their life is no longer their own, but to the dads, the baby is something they obviously love but it doesn't consume their life like it does ours.

I think it is probably due to the age we had kids - mid 30's, but it takes much longer to get your energy back than you might imagine. I think 4 years is realistic.

My DDs are now 8 & 9, and very independent and capable, but I still find I miss adult company if I spend enforced periods of time with just them. Small kids are not great intellectual stimulation and I definitely could not have been a SAHM, however much I adore them. Our relationship was damaged from the get-go, hideous EA, affair, alcoholic, gambler etc, and the kids blew it out of the water as the EA stepped up to hideous levels very quick.

Absolutely.

We still manage to do stuff together like go for nice lunches, and we're lucky that most of our shared friends have small children so we are happy to hang out together and go to the park which is great.

It's the distribution of work in the home that's the issue for us. I think he thinks I sit on my arse all day watchingtv whilst he is at work, when in reality I'm feeding the baby (ebf), tidying, doing the washing, going out for a walk or a coffee with s friend, feeding the baby some more etc. It's great but it's knackering and that means that the house is sometimes a mess when he gets home. So what. Who cares. There's more important things in life and actually is pretty damn clean because I keep on top of it. I can't do everything.

I don't mind the loss of identity so much yet but I think that's because we've not engaged with any kids stuff yet so I haven't become "so and so's mummy" iykwim. That would drive me batshit.

I know exactly what you mean about parenthood not being the all encompassing thing that it is for mum's. That's the crux of it really. I look forward to when men can take equal share of parental leave so that they can spend a good chunk of their life specifically focused onlooking after a baby. This would make all the difference I think.

Nice to chat to you writer, I needed it, especially at this hour!

I think having children has strengthened our relationship. We both love being a family rather than just a couple. Yes, things have changed but I see it more as evolving. We are very much a team and vary who takes the lead on stuff. It helps that dh adores babies and has a pretty feminist outlook on how things should be done. I also accept that he might sometimes do things differently to me but that doesn't matter in the scheme of things. We both take thd view that the only part of childcare that he can't do is breastfeed. In every other aspect we are equal and this is reflected in our relationships with our 3 children. It's harder to have couple time at the moment as we have a young baby but although the romance is lacking we can still chat to each other and stay connected in that way. Also we know that it won't always be like this as we've been through it before.

peace - no problem, sometimes it's nice to just know that the feelings and emotions you have are normal and shared by most people. It is definitely harder when you're breast feeding because there really is no let-up, I suppose like fruit said! it's just a case of thinking it won't be forever. I just hope that when this phase does pass there hasn't been any permanent damage to mine and DH's relationship! I started a thread on the "Am I being unreasonable" forum a few days ago called "Am I being unreasonable to be jealous of my husband" which discusses more issues like the ones we have talked about here - it might make interesting reading for you x

Just thinking about men getting more parental leave and looking after the baby more. 2 things that have helped us are dh having school holidays and regular (if quite long) hours so he has had lots of time with the kids since birth. Also in my first pregnancy I broke my leg so dh was well practiced in doing looking after me and the house before dc even arrived. And crucially I was forced to sit back and let him do it his way. I was still on crutches when ds was born so dh did all the pacing, rocking, walking the pram, baby wearing as I wasn't able to. Turns out blokes are good at this stuff when they get the chance to do it.

Mind you I have just raised the above theory with dh who rolled his eyes and said he would have done it anyway. Then he told me to move so he could strip the bed and asked if I had any more stuff to go in the wash. I am being the lazy arse one today :-)

Having children has definitely enhanced us as a couple. Of course things will change, you have less sex in the early years of raising kids and you might not have the same amount of energy to devote to each other as a couple but as long as you still put a little bit of time aside then things will be alright. My DH is the best person to live with, relaxed, easy going, undemanding and does more than his fair share of housework and parenting.

For us the children are the most important thing in our lives even above each other. While we do love each other the children's needs while young will always be first and the good thing is we both agree with that. Problems might arise if DH expected me to put his needs above the kids, or similarly if I wanted him to put my needs above theirs. I feel that our love has been extended and taken to a new level through being a family unit.

I see a relationship as having different phases, hopefully once the kids have flown the nest we will re-capture some of that feeling of our early relationship when it was just the two of us enjoying long leisurely boozy lunches and staying in bed till late

It would be interesting to know the ages of different posters' kids. I wonder if those of us saying our relationships are under strain (not those who have broken up) have very young children - ie babies, and those of us who say kids are a positive force have at least one slightly older child? Perhaps I am clutching at straws, but I am hoping my relationship with Dh will recover. The first few months of our son's life have been a huge adjustment.

I'm hoping the same moving - and it would be interesting to know if those who have older children and say their relationship is really strong now, that they still had relationship problems in the early days. It might give us newbies some hope that as the child gets older the problems disappear...

it has nearly caused us to split several times.

Mine are 6 and 2. My DS was a nightmare as a baby, he would literally wake up every 1.30 - 2hrs for feeding. Up to the age of 3 he slept in the bed with me and still woke 3 - 4 times for milk but we managed to get through it by cutting each other some slack and we managed to have enough sex to make DD.

ours are 6, 2 and Im pregnant again. I dont think its ever really affected us too much we just get on abd nothing has really changed since before kids. We were both 23 when dc1 was born and I can hardly remember life without kids.

movingslowly - When mine were babies I didnt miss any social events with my friends dh just did everything. I was breastfeeding but still did all hen parties, boozy nights away etc. Ive got kids Im not dead

Our youngest dc has been the nail in the coffin for our relationship.

I don't think it will ever recover. We're older in our 40 ' s. The fact my dp parents so badly has always been an issue. But this time I took all the responsibility & asked him to look after the house & practical stuff. He couldn't even manage that.

He's indifferent to the dc. For him it's all about me. For me it's all about the dc. Shame, as we absolutely adored each other in the early years...

Jasminemai how did you manage breastfeeding, boozy nights, hen parties & nights away? I'm intrigued!!

Maybe her DH who did everything was able to lactate? Here was a thread on here a few months ago about men breast feeding in some cultures, it was very odd My DH unfortunately doesn't have this ability so I've already had to turn down two Hen Party invites in the last month..