Reply to tell me about your marriage in the baby + toddler years

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "tell me about your marriage in the baby + toddler years"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]My marriage was miserable for the first three years after baby.  I had an incredibly stressful job, DH just hated his.  He didn't think I did enough for the baby (although nursing and pumping and tending to her overnight seemed like plenty).  I didn't think he did enough, since I was the primary bread winner and trying to hold my ssss together enough to function at work.  I looked at apartments like the PP.  I consulted two divorce lawyers over that time.  Also, DH and I ended up in counseling.   Which was useless as long as I was still trying to meet his expectations.   I quit, because our sessions became an endless barrage of how he thought I had failed to do something he thought I should the previous week and me getting defensive.

Then, it got better.  It got better for several reasons, but big for me was, with the help of a therapist, I realized that what I was doing was good enough and not to judge myself by anyone's standards or to compare myself.  Also critical to my success was getting enough sleep and exercising, key to my sanity.  This got me thinking better.

Here is what all my expensive therapy taught me:

1.  Having little kids is hard, especially if they are not sleeping.
2.  It is very easy to think that your partner is not doing enough, because there is so much to do.  It is important to recognize that you each bring some contribution to the table.   It is just as important to thank your partner for doing those things.  
3.  Sleep is important for everyone.
4.  Exercise is important for everyone.
5.  Physical contact, even an occasional hug or hand hold is important to maintaining your marriage.
6.  It gets easier at about 4 y.o.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics