Young children ? Will you stay married, after your children leave home9 say in 10-15 yrs) ?

[Oblomov]

Many people stay for the sake of children don't they ?
I can't wait till ds (3.5) leaves home . Then I will ahve my lovely dh all to myself again. I mean this tongue-in-cheek. But seriously, will I be married, in a loving relationship, in 15 years time ? I like to think so .
Can you say the same ?
Do you neglect you dh, and focus on the children. Will you have a relationship left, with dh, when the children are gone ?

I do worry about this actually.

Me and dh had only been together 8 weeks when I got pregnant! So we haven't really had time just us. DD is now 6 and things are ok, BUT we don't spend much time together.

DH does his own thing while I do stuff with dd. He never wants to come out with us at weekends.

My mum keeps saying that she can't see us staying togther when dd has left home.

I hope so, Ive got some kitchen sex planned

I sometimes imagine DH and I having breakfast, and being able to talk to each other, instead of bing interupted by DS's kickig each other under the table, stopping DD putting a bowl of porrige on her head, or wiping up spilled orange juice. I get quite enthusiastic about DH and I being alone together, after the DC's have left home.

Then I think how quiet it will be, and feel a bit sad.

MIL left FIL a week after DH left home. Guess who she moved in with? That's right, DH!

Presume she's not still there MrsS?

LOL! No, MIL had remarried by the time I'd met DH.

Shame, I sort of imagined her lurking in a cupboard somewhere ready to leap out at any given MIL opportunity.

I've been thinking about this over the weekend - yet another curates egg TBH. Kids were lovely, DH and I bickered at times , but got on more or less OK. I have to admit that I'm not ecstatically happy in my marriage atm. Most of the time it's OK, some of the time it's great but some of the time it's crap . And my difficulty comes, not because DH and I don't get on or that we hate each other, but because the way that our marriage had to change when the children came along. And more than the usual complaints about not having time together, not enough sex etc. We had the sort of marriage that relied on giving each other plenty of space. We had different interests and different social lives to a large extent. The time we spent together was what we chose to spend together and as such was important and special. Children have forced us to spend a huge amount of time together (often stressed and tired) and our lives as individuals have suffered (mine more than DH's ). And it has made it very hard for us to feel the way we used to about each other. But I hope that when we do have more time things will go back to what they were - I have to hope that but until we get a chance to find out I can't be sure. So for me it's a difficult question to answer.

but petunia, what is happy? I've been married 24 years, and a lot of that time I've been downright miserable. My single friend asked me recently how come he'd had so many relationships and they'd all failed, yet we are the same age and I've been married all this time. We came to the conclusion that the only difference is I put up with the shit, while he bales out when he's had enough!

The only thing that has kept me here a lot of the time is the fear of being alone with the kids (we used to joke that if we split we'd be arguing over not having custody), plus the financial aspect- we struggle on two wages so we couldn't run two households on this money.

The other side is, if we did split, what then? Look for someone else and start all over again? What's the point?

We have put our relationship first over the years by having a week away without the children since they were very little. Keeps us sane and on track.

OrmIrian - do you think, in the light of your own experience, that it might be wise counsel to couples thinking of embarking on parenthood, that if they can't manage to enjoy spending a great deal of time in one another's company before children, they might not be ideal co-parents?

I agree, children do force one together somewhat

I think you might be right anna But I wouldn't be without the children regardless.