What do you mainly argue about & have you argued more since having kids?

[tigercub50]

Despite all the posts on here about my marriage, I would say we don’t actually argue that much now. What we have is DH saying something that hurts my feelings but sometimes instead of just apologising, he starts a debate as to whether I should have been upset in the first place & then it escalates & he comes up with excuses. I have techniques up my sleeve to handle this differently!
I wouldn’t say having DD makes us argue more but it’s more stressful & we do sometimes disagree on parenting. Again, that’s way better than it was & it makes a huge difference that we are a united front.
Money was a massive thing for us but our financial situation is improving which has taken the pressure off.

Since DD was born mainly money and doing things differently to each other! She's 18m and we are much better now though. We've both learned (the hard way) that either of our ways can work but sometimes we need to listen better to the other person. For example I'm a SAHM, so I spend way more time with DD than DH does. I've been guilty in the past of trying to get him to do everything the way I do it, not maliciously but because I know it works - I do it all day every day.

But he is her Dad, he's a bloody good one and sometimes him trying new or different things to me has great results. So now I try to back off and let him crack on. In turn, if I do see something happening that I just can't let go, he is now much more open to listening to me (and not instantly being defensive or feel like I'm being critical) because he knows I wouldn't be saying anything at all if I didn't think it was really important.

It's a massive change to your dynamic becoming parents. Very hard work, I'm not surprised so many relationships sadly fail.

We definitely argue much more since having four children very close together and trying to juggle two full time careers with no family help.

Quiet today.......

I think in the eight and a half years I had known DH before having our first baby we argued perhaps twice.

After having our first child, it really was as if we hated one another for a while! The main problem was there was just so much resentment on both sides, but the resentment was completely irrational. Of course, you can't say to someone "I hate you for making me fat and uncomfortable and leaking milk everywhere!" so it came out in snipes at one another and then the other would get defensive and before we knew it a huge explosion of exhaustion, rage, grief, anxiety and frustration came booming into the room.

Having a child can reopen wounds from your own childhood you think are long-since healed and that can be hard for both parties.

We're fine now. Initially though, it was very, very tough.

We never really argued before we had our daughter. We've generally gotten along well and we're both pretty sane and mature and reasonable. It also frankly helps that my dh is generally pretty passive, hates making decisions and is happy with whatever anyone else wants, and I'm generally bossy and assertive. So what I say usually goes and he's quite pleased with that (that sounds wrong, but I think it's a pretty realistic assessment of the situation).

We still don't argue much, but it's definitely more. We don't argue about parenting as we're very much on the same wavelength about that and have very similar parenting styles, so that's always worked really smoothly. What we do argue about is the balance of the work of parenting and household tasks. Saying that, our arrangement is pretty egalitarian. We both work and we share things pretty equally. He's always gotten up in the night for wake ups (our dd is 4 now). He's done a significant portion of the nursery/school runs. He does plenty around the house. But he has a tendency to assume he has more free time available to himself than he does and plans stuff without really clearing it through me first. What I mean is he has a tendency to book weekends away with friends (none of his friends have kids so I think he feels like a jerk being like, oh, I don't know if I can make that...) without actually asking if I have anything going on or if we already made plans to do something else. Or he plans to work late without talking with me first (he's self employed, whereas my hours can be a bit less flexible some days, I used to work late 3 days a week which were always scheduled in advance). So it was just sort of about the assumption I could be free without actually checking that first. It drives me mad, especially as I have deadlines that mean I sometimes need to work weekends or an evening, and then it would turn out, oh, he's already said he'd go camping that weekend. We're working on it and it has gotten better over the years, but that's really one of the only things we consistently have argued about.

We have more grounds to argue now because our lives have more tasks and responsibilities with two under 3, and less time and sleep to achieve them. In reality, we argue less. We're both too tired to bother, and have learnt the hard way that learning to let things slide (I mean small things like who finished the milk and put an empty carton back in the fridge, who feigned deafness at 3am) makes for a happier home environment. Also by forcing ourselves to wait til the babies are in bed to start an argument means the heat has almost always gone out of the original bother and its more a reminder hey you know it drives me nuts when you do this, get it together please! Ultimately we both just try to cut eachother some slack as its easy to argue over nothing and it benefits noone

Chores. Always chores. And chores, chores chores. Then tidying up. Plus, chores.

Bump............

His drinking

Distribution of chores

Not pulling his weight with parenting. His selfishness.