Does having children always damage the parents' relationship?

[whyhere]

It seems to me that women thrive (generally) as mothers, while men struggle (or just ignore their fatherhood) - it also seems that the parents' relationship always suffers. Is this inevitable?

Cards on the table: once I became a mother (one daughter, over thirty years ago) my husband became pretty much impossible to live with, as he wanted his (our?) life to carry on exactly as it had before parenthood. When he had an affair and left it was nothing but a relief. (He had become abusive and coercive, to give some context - which I suspect might not have happened had we remained childless.)

I think I'm pondering all of this because almost all the posts I read on here (admittedly mainly in this section, and AIBU) relate to difficulties between men and women who have children. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Really interesting and encouraging. Thank you.

I think short term it puts a massive strain, but the (relatively few) ones that make it through the first 10 years are probably stronger for the shared experience.

We have a 2 year old and a newborn, our relationship is definitely different and its been something we’ve both struggled with in a way. We are still fairly young and the first of our friends to have children, so its been a huge change especially when our friends are able to go on holiday/partying etc. But we’re really happy and although our relationship is different I’d say it’s much stronger and happier. But my DH is an incredibly hands on dad and it’s been wonderful seeing him become a father.

We are in the thick of it with a baby and a 5 year old and no parental help nearby. I’m quite proud of us that we seem to be getting through it. We have had a few arguments and but always sorted them out, and I have to admit I’ve felt resentful at times due to him getting more perceived free time. He’s felt lonely as well and that I could be controlling with the baby. However, I agree with posters that say if you can get through it you’ll be stronger than ever…it’s a real test. I would say what worked for us is pick you battles, both chip in with household chores, never let the sun go down on your anger. I think I’m lucky in that we can afford decent childcare…I think if we had financial issues (like real issues), or if DH was one of those men you hear about on mumsnet who don’t lift a finger around the house we would have had major problems. It also helps that DH is quite unsociable so isn’t always disappearing off to play golf or on night out. But this causes it’s own issues ie he’s probably a bit lonely

Our relationship continues to go from strength to strength.

Children gave, and continue to give us both, so much love, motivation, joy.

In regards to just our relationship though we have so more respect for each other. We work together, we have to trust and depend on each other because sometimes either on of us is ill, away and we have to be both mumdad.

But we thrashed out our expectations of each other before we got pregnant. What would be acceptable in terms of leisure and what we wouldn't put up with if we embarked on parenthood together.

We had a strong relationship before and both felt equal contributors to the household. We went on some fantastic holidays, did all we wanted to do, established our careers and then had children. He’s taken to fatherhood probably a lot more in his stride than me. We have been blessed with good sleepers so have evenings to ourselves and I honestly feel not a lot has changed. We are both equal partners (he probably does more of the morning wake ups than me), and we have the occasional disagreement, but mostly I feel children have strengthened our relationship and deepens our love.

This! We’ve been together since we were teens; now early 30s with 4 children and have only gotten happier as time has gone on.

Does having children always damage the parents' relationship?. No, not always.

If the relationship has any cracks, having a baby will widen those cracks. For us, having DCs was a challenging labour of love. It did not damage or strengthen our relationship. Our lives completely changed, but not how we felt about each other or how we were together.

No, it didn't. But I worked very hard to make sure that it didn't!

OP, I'm in a similar position to you. I have a one year old and not to sound smug but I adapted and thrived after the baby arrived, and DH was like a rabbit in the headlights. He didn't make any effort to prepare himself, sulked through the NCT course and shut down a lot of my attempts in pregnancy to thrash out issues like how we would approach division of labour. When the baby arrived he had no idea what he was doing and looked to me for direction in everything, and yet still got very defensive when given instructions, for example he was furious when i found out he had been falling asleep on the sofa with our new born and I told him about SIDS risk and begged him to never do that again.
For all the posters who say that they communicated with their husbands, I think that's really positive and admirable, but unfortunately there are limits to how much you can communicate with someone who resolutely does not want to hear you.
He wasn't like this before I got pregnant, the baby was wanted by us both and there were no classic red flags. You always think you'd be smart enough to spot these things, right? Unfortunately I got blindsided. He is actually pretty good with our toddler now but still finds family life hard going. I also find it hard to forget his behaviour in the early days. I'm not going to go into what else happened and as I could write an essay, but let's just say it was pretty bleak.
I do think it is genuinely lovely that so many people have great relationships post-baby. More power to you. You are setting a brilliant example for your children and it is wonderful to see both parents taking joy in family life. No doubt a LOT of this is down to good communication skills and your astuteness in choosing a partner. But there is a little bit of luck involved. Sometimes the person you thought you knew the best in the world can go rogue and it shakes the foundations of your world.

Our relationship was strengthened by having a child. It was also fundamentally changed.

you can’t be the same type of couple you were before children. Your priorities change. You have to
find new ways of connecting. The bond that forms at 3am when dad is helping wake a reluctant newborn up to breastfeed or when you are laughing together because you are both covered in baby vomit is immeasurable. For a time, that is what you have. Then you slowly emerge and find your way back to the romance in little snippets of stolen time. Now you have both the shared bond of your child and the love that brought you together. It’s really amazing.

the damage happens when one of the partners, typically the father, expects life to stay the same.

I dont see how it cant change a relationship. It's one of the biggest upheavals you can make.

Sadly in my case having children was the sole reason my marriage imploded

Wasn't so obvious after our first child but we then had twins. STBEXH left little more than a year after they were born saying he didn't want family life any more - bit of a shock as all our children planned and we aren't youngsters - him in his 40s me late 30s

I think he was ok when we just had the one as naturally as a mother i tended to do the lions share of child raising but when we had twins there was no where for him to hide and he had no choice but to pitch in and he realised pretty quickly that he couldn't / wouldn't / just didn't want to and he hated the relentlessness of it.

I think he could also tell that having 3 children "completed" me and I think he struggled to see where he fit in to this new family life as a family of 5 (I've always been the main earner by a significantly long way) since i no longer needed him to provide children then what did I need him for perhaps? I was the happiest and most contented I'd been in years having had a lot of losses and tragedy on the way to having the twins. But it turns out he was incredibly unhappy.

I agree with @Olinguita there was no red flags what so ever - we'd been together over 15 years. This wasn't about lack of communication in our case or not being "ready"

I also agree with OP - I feel an immense amount of relief now he's gone. I could tell he had changed after the twins but I don't think I could really bring myself to consider it was because he regretted having them

This is lovely, and exactly my experience. For many many months the only quality time we spent together was when I grabbed him in passing and said "I know we haven't had any quality time together, but I love you and I miss you and I'm so proud of you as a parent and a husband and one day soon I'm gonna get 10 minutes and a bit of extra energy and then I'm gonna jump your bones." The gradually it was longer than 10 minutes. Eventually we had a night away! Then we had a second baby.

I think this happens because a lot of men don't actually want children as much as women do, or want children because they theoretically like the idea of themselves as a father figure but have no actual desire to look after children. But the ones who aren't arseholes get over themselves and step up.

I think my dh probably found the lifestyle adjustment of having children harder than I did, but fortunately he's not an arsehole, so we have continued to be happy and have a lovely family (our dc are now teenagers). In a lot of ways I think our relationship has improved since having dc.

Eventually we had a night away!

Our first night away from the kids was when our eldest was 10 and our second night away from the kids was when she was 13. So jealous of people who have family support.

This is such an important point to understand. Saying 'all men' are this and that isn't going to do anybody any favours. Getting a false impression of the actual situation regarding most couples is going to make some women jaded, cynical and pessimistic in a way they don't need to be.

The point about only talking online when things aren't good is an excellent one.

Having kids did not break my relationship. My DH and I love each other and he's an excellent father and husband. We share the parenting, the house work, the life load, and work together well. Even when stuff has been hard, we've sorted it together.

But that does no one any favours if I say that on a thread where someone is struggling. What people need then is support and, if I have something pertinent to chip in, advice.

I'm new to this. My baby is almost 1 now. Funnily enough last night we hired a babysitter and had a meal out locally and we just laughed and talked for 2 hours and it was just lovely. My husband is great though with chores being equal and we can still do our hobbies separately without concern that the baby isn't being looked after properly.

We did have a heavy hobby week between us this week (Tuesday evening, weds evening, Thurs evening and sat morning) so had a date night just the two of us and it was wonderful!

DDs father already had children and a failed marriage, but his ex ran off with a 16yo so I didn't see the red flags. He was jealous of the baby, feckless, unappreciative, and unfailingly unfaithful. Was that because we had a baby? Well, in the sense that he was no longer the centre of the universe, maybe.

My marriage with DH is totally different. Two toddlers, one with some issues, a step situation, being much older, all of those things could have made a difference, but they don't because there are no problems otherwise. If anything the children have made us stronger. We laugh more, work together better, try harder and are always, always considerate of the other. But as PP, who posts that when so many threads are about useless dads and difficult early years? You just don't hear it.

This was pretty much us. It took FAR longer to get back to any kind of normal in our relationship (I reckon when our youngest went to primary school) but I am glad we made it through. It took a lot of effort on everyone’s behalf, and I’m not sure that both of us being too knackered to do anything about relationship woes didn’t help us make it through!

We had a rocky patch when DS was about 6 months, mainly driven by em feeling like my life had completely changed and him not appreciating that something as small as going to the gym on his lunch break at work was something I couldn't do!
However things got better, he is a great father and I cannot ever say he doesn't do enough with our child. He works crazy hours which does drive me slightly insane, that may have damaged our relationship but our children certainly didn't.

I can understand why people think this. Most couples I know with children are no longer together - but that goes the same for child-less couples too. My fiancé and my grandparents are the only couples in our family that (so far) have stayed together after having children. That may change, since it does seem to be the norm from what I've seen, but so far we have a very strong relationship. Yes, we've argued - I feel that's normal - but we communicate, talk it out, change things if needs be and job done.

Maybe I'm just insanely lucky and I found a man who's just as keen to be a good father as I am to be a good mother. We did plan both our children and so far there's been no signs that either of us are terribly unhappy.

This may just be the 'honeymoon' phase despite it being years since we got together, and maybe in another decade I'll be eating my hat because I'll be alone with two children. But so far I'd like to be hopeful that it doesn't destroy ALL relationships as long as both parties are open to communicate, are loyal/respectful and supportive of each other to avoid burn-out. I feel burn-out is the thing that tends to cripple most relationships.

Yea it does. As a man i know of very very few men who genuinely wanted the family thing and are fully happy with life.

Some may do but for many it's a facade IMO.

So why do you think men do it, MaxTalk?