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My CW & a clicky
With Valentine's Day coming up, I can't help but reflect on my relationship w/ DH. Things are not BAD, but I feel like we don't have much of a relationship besides being parents to the same kids right now. I am hoping this is temporary. I am sure it is common. But it is still hard. For awhile (maybe the 1.5 years of our marriage) I still felt like I loved him more and more each day. And- actually-even right after having Caden- he was/ is such a good father and partner and that made me love him more. But even though he is still a good father and "partner"- I feel like we are missing "us" and some of the love.
I am wondering how common this is. I think it could be partially related to having kids, but then part of it could just be a time factor. The zing is wearing off to an extent??? Anyway- maybe an anonymous clicky poll will help me see a pattern???
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Re: My CW & a clicky
I love him more every day, but we are also experiencing much of what you describe - less "us" in the old way of thinking about it, with the romance and zing! I think relationships evolve over time and when kids are little, especially if they are high-needs kids (which I believe both of us have).... it's only natural that the majority of our energy focuses on them. It's hard to have much left over for DH when the kids take so much of us. But we know it won't be this way forever.
We went into having a baby with that consciousness, and while neither of us could have imagined how much of us DS would require, we also had no idea how much joy he would bring us. So, we experience that joy in a different way, rather than focused on the intimacy between us. And we do know that intimacy will be regained in time - it will be different than when we first met, maybe less exciting, but deeper.
We've been married for 4.5 years and I still love him more every day.
I certainly can't dish out advice to other people because I only know know what works for us... But for us, we tend to often make a conscious effort to "maintain" our relationship and tune in. I mean, I SCHEDULE "hang out with my husband, cuddle, and watch a movie or chat" time. Seriously. But it works for us. We also do date/solo time relatively often. All of that helps us a lot. It's so easy to start to disconnect and we're always trying to keep that from happening.
(And obviously we have our bad weeks/etc where we feel distant, but I'm talking overall.)
this is sooooo us. except i dont get to wipe butts. at least not my childrens!
I think this is super common. DH and I went through a phase about a year ago where I felt like we were co-parenting more than we were practicing being in love. I took some really simple steps to fixing this and I felt like they really helped:
1) I sat next to him on the couch and held his hand. Simple, but we had relegated ourselves to separate sides of the couch and the physical distance, even at a couple of feet, made the feelings of distance much more substantial. Plus, any time embraced in physical touch that is not leading to sex is a real intimacy builder.
2) Speaking of intimacy, I upped the sex. I like to refer to it as maintenance sex. At first it seemed like a chore but as it increased I saw his desire for me increase---and in turn I WANTED to have sex more often. I can safely say we are not the couple who's sex life fell apart after baby. It's better than before.
3) I started working out. I wasn't feeling great about myself and internalized that into other aspects of my life, including my happiness with my marriage. When I started feeling better about myself I had more confidence. I also had more happiness that spilled into other parts of my life, again, like my marriage.
4) We try to go out on more dates. We don't have a ton of cash and getting baby sitting is tough, but when we see an opportunity (i.e. the grandparents in town) we take advantage of it. I also do simple little things like make special dinners or desserts, light candles with dinner, etc, to make it feel more special. It's the little things that count.
5) I leave love notes in the morning when I leave for work, or sometimes in his car. I've even driven by his work just to leave them on his windshield. Not all the time, once to twice a week. But it lets him know I'm thinking of him. I also started sending love note emails throughout the day too. Those things tend to disappear in a relationship after a while.
6) I told him that I wanted more too. I told him all of my fears and desires. I told him he needed to up the ante too (notes, cards, flowers, dates). I didn't pester him about it. I just let him know what I wanted and then I followed through with the stuff I'd set up to do.
*These are just some ideas of ways we worked through it. It's a tough job, being married, but like I always say, it's a choice. You can choose to love and nurture your relationship or you can choose to let it slip away. The spark doesn't just show up, it needs to be lit:) GL!
those were awesome suggestions!
I know when my relationship feels like less of a relationship and more of a partnership, I tend to look at what I can do to appreciate my DH. Little things like making coffee and pouring his cup for him, sitting next to him on the couch at night or sending a quick lovey email. In turn, he often will return the favor by unloading the dishwasher (which might as well be foreplay in my book!)
In terms of sex, when I was BFing, that really threw things off.. however, like serendipity, I don't let us go for longer than XXX without sex... often that ends up turning up his fire for me and my fire for him and it's less 'work'. But taking that first step is hard.
We've been together for awhile now (umm... 12 years?) and with kids it's harder than ever, but at the same time, I appreciate him more than ever!
Together for 8 years, married for 6, an 18 month old and serious financial issues and my love for him and our marriage have changed. I don't love him (nor him me) the same way I did when we married. No way no how, can't be done, not with everything else in our lives.
But I'm working hard at not seeing that as a bad thing. We spent 3 years trying to have a child and at least half of that was really really wrenching. The 18 months since he was born weren't the beautiful walk in the park we hoped for but that was largely due to outside circumstances we would have had to endure anyway.
I'm choosing to look at this as one of the valleys in a long marriage.
more than 4 years and I love him as much as I did on my wedding day...
but the spark, fizzle, passion has definately taken a back seat. I long for those hot & heavy getting-to-know-you-first-glimmer-of-loving-you days. It's hard to keep it new when it feels so comfortable. You aren't the only one & I would welcome any and all suggestions for reigniting that spark.
I agree with what April said. My DH and I have been together for 12 years...living together for about the same amount of time... and married for 6 years almost 7. It is A LOT of time to spend with one person, and I am thrilled that we still have conversation and such. I would say more than having a kid, grief sort of threw our relationship in a tailspin. We both lost our parents about 8 months apart, and we both dealt with it totally differently. Me more sad, and him just downright angry. I think we wished the other person would be in the same place, but that was not going to happen. We worked our way back from it, and I think it added more love to our relationship but also sort of dulled some of the fire.
I will not lie, there are days where I am like "wow we haven't had any US time in FOREVER" meaning dates and such..and that makes me sad. I do think we need to work harder at it, but often feel like I am the only one with the problem.
I couldn't have said it better.
I'm in the 4.5 year range too. And I'd have to agree it changes everyday. I've noticed with 2 kids it's a lot harder to get alone time with DH, it's always man to man at that point till they're in bed. That said, I do try to do things with DH, and like I said with two it's hard especially with an infant. I'll do things like meet DH for lunch with just Ethan (when Emmy is in preschool). As you can see I can't really be away from him too long since I'm bfing. We had the grandparents take Emmy for the night so we kinda can hang out ie just one child. And for our 5 year anniversary this year we're going to take a 4 day trip just the two of us. I'm so excited!
And like I said, some of this stuff is really hard to do when you still have an infant and you're bfing. And add a toddler to that and you barely have time to yourself.
Ditto!
This is a great post Kelli. I know I need to do more for our marriage and I love reading all the posts!
107 Read/listened to in 2011: 91 Books/16 Audiobooks
Read 2012: 33/50
We've been married for 2.5 yrs but have been together for 10 yrs. I think ours is different because we have known eachother since we were young, we've seen eachother grow and make mistakes that I think most get that out before they get married.
I love him now in a way I couldn't have 10 yrs ago. Its a much deeper emotional love. But its not always great or easy, and sometimes its shaky at best. And then sometimes its the best love I've ever known.
Its a roller coaster. We have our on days and off days. Sometimes each period lasting too long. I feel like when *I* am starting to notice the off lasting longer than I like, I try to make an effort to do something to reconnect. Even if it then becomes work. That usually sparks enough to get something going.
We've been together for 13 and our love has evolved from high school obsession/lust to what it is now, a more adult version of love I guess?? For us everything is a conscious effort for example we go on date nights all the time (thank god for Grammie the babysitter!) Or we lounge together with a rule that we dont check email, do gaming or whatever.
No it's not perfect, my god sometimes his stubbornness really gets me and sometimes I'm way too volatile and emo for him but we've made it work. Also we did financially counseling right after we got married to get our separate but equal money stuff in order and it sort of turned into relationship counseling where we worked on communicating. That helped us out a lot and I will never ever knock getting couples counseling!
hahaha wow I'm really in a sharing mood today aren't I?
The hubs and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary this year. And I can honestly say that I still love him very much. There are days when the love is just plain overwhelming. And then there are days when I'd love nothing more than to throat punch him...with love of course
I do think that with Jackpot getting older and more independant that the hubs and I have more tidbits of time alone together at home to have conversations about things other than the kids.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!
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