do you have one?

[hatter]

relationship, that is. I love my dh but I?ve forgotten who he is and what we are. Four and a half years of having kids has reduced us to ?co-parents? and not a lot else. As co-parents I think we do quite well, including allowing each other space and time to do our own thing. But there?s no space and time to do our thing. Whatever that is. Funnily enough it?s now that the kids are easier and we feel we are emerging from the end of the tunnel that the strain is starting to show. Up til now we?ve been too busy for strain I guess. I feel really sad and very scared. I?ve felt so low and lonely about it that there?ve times that I?ve wondered if it?s over. Which is ludicrous because in terms of respecting each other, being kind and considerate, listening to each other, talking about problems we score pretty well. We?re a good team. But, (bizarre analogy warning) it?s a bit like there?s this huge elephant in the sitting room and although we discuss very calmly and rationally what to do with the droppings on the carpet we daren?t even go down the route of talking about the elephant itself. Anyone?

Can you try to have some time just for the two of you? Do you have family who can look after your children for a few days or every so often just so you can go out together for a meal or something? My holiday with dp did us the world of good as it was great just being the two of us rather than there being three of us at home with dd.

Maybe now the kids are easier, its time to find a reliable and trusted babysitter and go and rediscover what you had?

Have a first date! Go for a meal, have a drink and talk about any other than the children/the house/money etc Maybe the conversation will get round to elephant spotting.....!

hatter it sounds to me like your relationship has lost it's spark and you need to work to re-ignite it.

I think time on your own is very important - what do you do once the kids are in bed? You do need your time to talk about yourselves and how you feel.

Time away is the BEST - I always feel like I have miraculously reverted to the person I was BC and so does dh - we just have so much fun!

Things I feel you can never have too much of (but often need to work at to keep them)

Fun
Laughter
Silliness
Sex
Drunken evenings reminiscing about good shared times (ok you can obv have too many of those but YKWIM)
Candlelit dinners

You seem to have the right basics ie respect, kindness, consideration, without which any relationship is doomed to failure IMO. Now work on some of the other bits, the nice-to-haves if you like.

Oh honey.

I got pregnant very soon after taking up with my DP, and that means that most of our relationship has been defined by having kids - in lots of ways there just isn't a 'before' for us, which means that when we are tired and fed up I start wondering if the only thing holding us together is the kids. And given how tired and fed up most parents are, that has meant a lot of wondering.

Cliched as it sounds, a bit of time together over the past few weeks (DP's been off work) has helped. It has actually exposed us, not just us-as-parents to each other. In our case, we found we were enjoying it. In your case, of course, you might not. But it is worth trying...we're still very different people in many ways, but it was nice to realise that we did like each other after all.