Those with older DC and a happy marriage - give me hope!

[Teachingteacher]

I’m in the thick of it with two under 5, both me and DH working full time, no family support. Life seems to be Groundhog Day, with 5am wakeups, nappy changes, tantrums, bathtime/bedtime routine, Disney taking over our lives… Once the kids are down we go to separate rooms and ignore each other. We love each other, but we’re just so spent that we have nothing left to give. I worry that we’ll look up in 15 years and not recognise each other.

Those of you with older (teen) DC and a happy marriage, how did you do it!? Please give me some hope and advice.

We're just coming to near the end with our youngest being 8 eldest 16. It's rough, and it's taking a lot of effort, more effort than I feel I get back but I think there's hope.

We've basically had to start dating again and rediscovering who we now are as we've both really changed. Patience, communication and a truck load of compromise. Whether we'll make it I'm not sure but things are looking better.

For example I've just booked theatre tickets for us and I can leave my eldest to look after my younger children for a few hours which is bliss. Means I can get food shopping in child free and just nip out etc.

You may have a few years of bliss between about 8 and 12. But teenagers , well ime it’s like a nuclear bomb going off in your marriage 😂
Other people may fair better. Start the extra curricular activities early with a view to nurturing the ones that develop into opportunities for residential trips for teens, guides /scouts and the like.

That's such a hard time, though I miss my toddler girls!! Spent most of that period not even particularly liking my husband! But we have fallen back in love and grown together again. Now very happy. I had to forgive him for not really pulling his weight, I don't think he'll ever really understand how hard it was. He's much more supportive now and it feels like we are a team. Not sure what we did that bought us back together, just making sure you find time for each other as things ease up.

You have no idea how much this resonates with me. Thankyou for sharing.

Does he put in a shift with you and the kids?

I'm gonna say it's a big mistake so sit in separate rooms once the kids go to bed. Surely you can chill together quietly and watch something, just to have a shared experience?

If you don't you'll hit the teen years and then all time 'once the kids go to bed' disappears. And you'll already have had years of no communication and little connection.

I was just about to ask the same thing. Why are you going to separate rooms?

Yes, he’s very involved, hands-on dad and pulls his weight at home. I have nothing to complain about there. It’s more that it’s unrelenting from 5am-7pm everyday, weekday and weekend, and we don’t have anything left to give to each other. Once the kids are down he plays video games and I listen to podcasts in the bath. We still have sex and enjoy each others’ company, I’m just worried that we’re becoming coparent-roommates. I often fantasise about life in 15 years and doing whatever I want, and I hate to admit it, but DH doesn’t feature very strongly in it…
I really relate to the posts about ‘rediscovering’ each other, or ‘starting again’. I feel that this is what I may have to do.

Ours are still young, not as young as yours, and I can’t say I’ve managed to let go of the resentment from those years fully. I appreciate the pps comment about having to forgive him. I see as time goes on that there are just aspects of the mother’s experience/way of thinking, that he will just never get, and I need to stop expecting him to, it’s led to so much frustration.

That aside, I wanted to recommend a book ‘how not to hate your husband after kids’. He bought me it as a joke and actually we both read it and got a lot from it. Solidarity. I’m gutted really to realise how true it is that you have to work hard on long term relationships. Still want to maintain that simplistic childish view that if he loves me he’ll do xyz…I realise more that I’ve struggled to communicate well as well and need to consider his world view too. Not sure if that all makes sense but I’m reflecting on this stuff a lot just now.

I had to forgive him for not really pulling his weight, I don't think he'll ever really understand how hard it was. He's much more supportive now and it feels like we are a team.

Hard agree. Forgiveness for the tough years is really hard but really necessary.

I don't think this is useful but we survived three kids, one is disabled and is now a non-sleeping teenager.

We mostly got through by trying to be as kind as our energy levels would allow.

We both pitch in equally though - I couldn't stay married if I'd been left with all the heavy lifting.

We share a bleak, dry sense of humour and he can always make me laugh. This more than anything has got us through.

Sorry, don't know if that helps. I married a great man and am thankful everyday that I did.

Honestly, in my experience it gets better sooner than teen years.

My two are 10 and 6, and really once they were 8 and 4 things started getting MUCH better. They were sleeping through and went to bed at a reasonable time, they didn't need as much supervision, I had more time to concentrate on myself (and my career) so I wasn't so fucking resentful that he got to LEAVE every day and have time to himself on the bus to work. Also, people are much happier to babysit when they're out of nappies and easy to put to bed in my experience 😂

Get through it, keep talking. It still feels like we're only exchanging information about the household sometimes, but we've generally got the brain space to think about us and our relationship now.

Oh, and I've become MUCH BETTER at asking for help. I know that the default is that you shouldn't have to ask for it, it should be a shared load, blah blah, but the fact is that if you're struggling then you need to make it clear you need support. For example I sat down with DH last week and said outright to him that the kids had lots of activities, altered starts, extra curricular things, etc this month and we needed to sit down and divide the load as I couldn't do it all myself as is the general assumption will happen as I work from home.

(And he 100% does do half the household tasks. I can't remember the last time I vacuumed and I do none of the household laundry, I make sure the stuff he doesn't see gets laundered instead).

Mine are 16 and 18 now. It was only really the first 8 years that were hard and I say 8 as that was when our youngest was finally diagnosed with ASD. Before that DH and I had some big arguments as his wasn't understanding why DS was playing up so much. We had kids fairly young and I took on a lot of the load when they were little. That changed as we got older.

We have always been a team though and bar a few big arguments back then have got on well and spent lots of time together. I think you are heading down a risky path spending all your evenings apart. You need to put the work in with your marriage or you'll come out the other side of the difficult kid years and will have grown apart.

I remember this so clearly and thinking I have no life it's just a constant minding of kids, laundry and then so tired going straight to bed to start the same thing the next day. When my oldest child started school things became much better and when they were about 6 and 4 they really started playing with each other and not needing us - also we started having better fun as a family together - they developed sense of humour, we're able to sit in a restaurant etc.

So it gets WAY better and becomes way more fun - just make sure you and your partner don't get stuck in a rut of not communicating - being in separate rooms etc - that kind of went on for us longer than it should have so it's important to get back to spending time together and going out once a month.