How to stop bickering!!?

[mrsalwaysbickering]

Name change for this!

Married 7 years, together for 10, two young children under 3, the youngest is 7 months old.

I'm just exhausted with our constant bickering. We do love each other, I'm sure of that, and this is not a LTB situation.

We just seem to niggle and bicker constantly. We are both exhausted with two very bad sleepers, very little family support, my DH has a stressful job and works lots of hours. He's not around much during the week during the kids waking hours.

I'm just tired. I don't feel like we are a team. We aren't even affectionate because I have a baby glued to my boob and I feel touched out. He does pull his weight but the bulk falls to me. I don't feel that we laugh and have fun much, we don't have the time even for a conversation some days.

I just don't know how to get 'us' back. Does it just come back in time? I am confident we will weather the storm but if anyone has any tips on how to stop niggling and get on better, I'm all ears ;(

He does pull his weight but the bulk falls to me.
That's a bit of a contradictory sentence. 🙂

Does he have the option to change or drop hours or work more flexibly, at all?

I would say this is fairly normal with such young kids and most couple go through this.

have you heard of the relationship place ? It’s an online couples counselling course website with lots of different plans- you pick which one suits you and you do it in your own time. It’s created by Anna Williamson if you know who she is

I have no advice but I hear you. I hope things improve in time but it's how to stop the relationship being damaged by this period.

@category12 he does what he can with the time he has, which isn't much! He has a full time job but a very successful sideline business. He also just got a promotion at work so has been up against it. No he can't change hours or work flexibly unfortunately.

I did an Imago course with my now exH. It was really helpful. We didn’t come from families that had successful, harmonious marriages so we didn’t really have a blueprint. We divorced but the core of what was taught has been really useful to me in other relationships. https://gettingtheloveyouwant.co.uk/

We once had neighbours with 4 small children. Once a week they would shut themselves in the kitchen (it had transparent door panes so they could see if the kids were setting fire to the house), have a coffee, and talk, just them.

Sometimes it's just the shared resolution to not bicker that's enough! To stop and say, "sorry, I didn't mean to bicker about it, sure it needs sorting but nobody's going to die" or "we need to talk about this sometime when we're SLIGHTLY less busy".