I’ve heard several stories about couples that suddenly stop having sex, start snapping at each other for stupid bs, your girlfriend who was so sweet and supporting becomes her mother, a raging, yelling psychopath, looking for excuses to be passive aggressive, inviting her friends back home when all you want to do is rest after your workday, your boyfriend, so passionate about you is suddenly cold towards you and wants to be left alone. Before having a child you were inseparable, now it’s like you hate each other and rant about your loved one with your friends…
I couldn’t survive such a radical personality change.
Does this phase eventually runs its course?
How do you find the mental fortitude to ignore the stupid bs your partner does or says?
How would you describe love to your partner a year after having a baby?
Is there any way to know if you and your partner are going to make it and remain a couple after having a child?
It’s been tough on us, most of all - as others have said - from the sleep deprivation. For a while we’ve often felt like roommates who happen to be parents of the same child. That’s starting to change now. But, funnily, even in that time of feeling more apart it’s like we work together better too - we’re a better team. I think looking after the baby puts some things in perspective.
Perhaps the biggest thing I’d advise - and that I think we’ve done well mostly - is having a mindset of family instead of romantic relationship. The romance is something wonderful within the family, rather than the family is an extra thing that comes from the romance.
So if romance takes a back seat for a while, it’s not like, “oh no, now I have all this hard work and responsibility… one day I’ll be back to the thing I like.” Instead, where ‘couple’ used to be the most important focus of relational life, now ‘family’ is. So all that effort going into baby, baby, baby, is every step investing goodness in your family - so that builds up your relationship too.
Sorry, maby that’s a bit confusing at the end, I don’t know how to write it well.
To answer some questions directly,
The phase of tiredness and struggle, yes… kind of. There’s always new things to cope with with children! But the change in what your relationship looks like? No. You still have a good relationship, but what ‘good’ looks like becomes different, just like what ‘attractive’ looks like becomes different when you go from 20 to 50. Some people don’t handle it well.
By recognising that you do just as much stupid bs, and by being much quicker to forgive and apologize than to judge. Also by realising your partner’s way of doing something is legitimate even when it’s not the way you’d do it, and knowing when to step back and let them - even support them - rather than butting in with how you should do it different.
Stronger. Stronger on a deep level. We’ve fought so hard to keep our love from being bashed around by stupid bs from outside and inside, both before our child and after. But we have some re-learning to do for how to help our closeness flourish now the baby is less ever-present and all-consuming!
Probably not for certain, but there’s many things you can do / look for.
be a Family not a Couple. Is life just about sex and the pleasure you get from your partner? Make life about pouring your love and creative expression into your family.
Are you married? What holds you together in the hard times? Be truly committed to each other, “for better or for worse,” having absolutely no place for thinking about cheating or breaking up. That clear mindset of faithfulness and together-to-the-end will help you through the hard times.
be humble, quick to apologize, quick to forgive, quick to think your partner’s perspective is important even when it seems dumb to you at first glance.
how well do you make up when you argue? Can you go to bed after, even during, an argument, and know you love them? Or do you fight and break up until they admit they were wrong? Do you feel together again afterwards, or after each argument do you feel more like it’s time to leave?
do you have people around you? Community? Family? Does your partner have friends they can go to and bitch to, to let off steam when things in your little family of you/them/baby feel too intense? Do you have such friends? That’s often more important for women.
are your finances ready? And can you talk together about them? Stress from finances often causes big stress in the relationship. But even if you’re poor and financially struggling it doesn’t have to, if you know how to feel together about budgeting, and respect each others’ decisions.
…well, I’ve rambled on long enough! Hope some of that is helpful.
I am self-aware enough to know I would not cope with this well. I can’t imagine having to share my partner’s attention with something else in the relationship. Likewise, I enjoy focusing all my energies on her and her well-being.
There’s just no room for a baby. We had to have all these discussions before we got married obviously. Door left slightly ajar for adoption when we are in our 40s if we happen to have a change of heart in the next 10 years.