This morning I walked into the kitchen to fix my cup of coffee and I noticed that the sugar container that sits next to the coffee maker had been refilled. Yesterday morning I didn’t put any sugar in my coffee because it was empty. Not because I was too lazy to fill the container, but because I couldn’t do it while holding a screaming baby while simultaneously making sure the toddler’s pancakes had just enough syrup. And that spoonful of sugar I put in my coffee is exactly what marriage after kids looks like.
Let me explain, every girl starts dreaming about their wedding at age 10 or 11. You think about all the flowers, the cake, your princess dress – but you never really think about the marriage. You just dream about the pomp and circumstance that surrounds it all. I personally didn’t start thinking about marriage until I met my husband. I will spare you the sappy love story but he truly was and always will be my knight in shining F-250. He swept me off my feet 10 years ago and we truly have been blessed with a fantastic marriage. My favorite part about being married, besides the obvious is that it is ever changing, and always evolving. No year is the same, no week is the same, and no day is the same. We are growing together, living together, and learning together one day at a time. This year we celebrated our 7th year of marriage, while also watching my parents end their 43 year marriage and our close friends deal with martial issue including infidelity. It really made me sit back and think about our marriage, and how the chaos of owning a business, having two small children, and dealing with the pressures of the outside world affect us. In analyzing our marriage, I couldn’t help but sit back and laugh at how much our marriage had changed since having kids! It is hard to even remember what life was like in 2015 before our first was born.
What did we used to do with our time? I mean we obviously had a large amount of spare time! I know what I did. I devoted most everyday to my husband. I worked for him at the business that he owned, well, I like to think we worked together! I did the grocery shopping, house keeping, and I cooked all the meals. I was a housewife with a part-time job. When kids came along – no ma’am. It was no longer like that. Everything changed – he was no longer my primary focus. And if you ask someone if their marriage changed after having kids and they say no, they are either in denial or lying to you. It does change, but remember – change is not always a bad thing. Watching my husband become a father, is and will always be my greatest joy. My love for him has grown leaps and bounds, watching him father our children.
So why does your marriage change after kids? Well that is an easy question to answer. You role in this world changes. You have little people who depend on you and need you 24/7 until they get bigger. One of the first changes in your marriage is that the baby becomes first, not your spouse. You will miss each other, miss your time together, and sometimes feel like strangers passing in the night. But it is important to remember that this is just a season. As the baby gets less and less demanding, the two of you will be able to get back to being husband and wife and not just mom and dad. The second major change, is that you are always tired (I mean exhausted for like the first 6 months!) and tired means grouchy. So arguments are more plentiful. And we all know that when you are tired, things are amplified and magnified. The best thing you can do is step back and take a breath! The third major change is no more quality time with each other. Where as before kids, you could sit down and watch television in the peace and quiet or ask each other about your day, now you are entertaining a baby or a toddler or multiple children. Even though you are spending plenty of time together as a family you don’t really feel that it is quality time with your spouse. This is the reason we plan our week ahead on Sunday night, even if it is coordinating chiropractor appointments, it is at least 15-20 minutes we will have together!
I am sure, depending on your marriage and your situation, that there may be many more major changes in your marriage when you welcome kids, but for us these three topped the list and were even more amplified when we welcomed baby #2. But we figured out in all of this that we still love each other and even though we don’t get our normally weekly date nights or our weekend trips away quite as often as we used to we have learned that we can show our love to one another in many other ways. And my husband making sure I had a spoonful of sugar for my coffee this morning was him showing me that he loves me!
