Hi everyone,
im not really sure what I’m posting for- I guess I want to hear about other people’s experiences of this.
I have been with my husband for 8 years, married for 3. We have a 1.5 yr old. We have a nice life, we’re actually on holiday at the moment and had a really nice time. I believe that we do really love each other, but that things are just a bit meh for the last 6 months. I just keep thinking over and over that things just aren’t how they used to be and that we’re just coasting.
Me and my husband don’t argue a lot but we do bicker, mostly about small things to do with our baby. Often this will be one of us making a comment to the other about something they’ve chosen to do. In response I/he will usually just sigh and we won’t speak any further about it. But it’s building over time.
Having a baby is really hard work, and my husband works a lot. He has always been very committed to his work and will spend hours working (he mostly WFH). An example of this is if I wake up early in the morning he is often up already at 5:30 am answering emails. We used to speak a lot about this together and he’d have times of really trying to reduce this, had therapy to think about the drivers behind it but ultimately he really believes (and so do I to an extent) that he does need to work additional hours to be ‘successful’. This was fine before we had a baby- we made up for it the rest of the time. Now though he is off grid 7-7:30pm or later most days so I need to pick up everything else. Again, fine but I also work for 3 days a week so I’m now focussing all my energy on my work and childcare. On the weekends we are both exhausted and we want to spend time together with our son.
We rarely have any alone time together. We still cuddle and have sex, but sex is pretty much with a hope of falling pregnant again, only around my fertile window. I am rethinking whether we should be thinking about another baby as part of all this..
the thing is he is a lovely man. He can be very supportive, he does a lot around the house - he really does pull his weight (more than I do) in terms of cooking and chores. I just feel like we’re so distant from each other and almost like when we’re hugging now it’s a bit fake or something.
We did speak about how the adaptation to having a baby was hard at the start- and that parts of our connection and relationship were a bit on hold for a while but that we both still wanted them. I’m not sure now where we are at. I know we need to talk about it but I can’t bring myself to bring it up. I also wonder about shared therapy (this is an area I work in myself- and the irony of all this is not lost on me) but I really just don’t think we have the energy right now.
Has anyone else felt like this? Particularly in the early children years? I know the solution to all of this is communication and making more effort.. but I really was just wondering how normal it is to have phases of feeling like this.