Every parent is aware that children are time-consuming, and that they need a lot of attention.
There is only so much time in a day to dress kids, bathe them, attend practices and after-school events, feed the family, and prepare like one hundred snacks.
This means that the time you use to have to spend with your husband is being allocated to other areas of life, leaving a marriage struggling to stay on top.
One Australian mom knows the reality of this all too well, as she makes a post to Facebook where she gets real about a marriage after four children.
Mel Watts’ post has gone viral as some hard marital truths are exposed for thousands of moms around the world.
Being in a marriage for a decade, Watts admits her relationship has transformed over the years, as her post begins:
“Husband. Wife. Roommates? If someone told me years ago that my relationship would one day change, I would have laughed and said no way.”
The blissful honeymoon phase of marriage brings a lot of expectations about what life is going to be like post-nuptials.
Having a family isn’t all Brady Bunch and Full House, sometimes it’s closer to a cross between The Simpsons and The Exorcist.
The post continues to say how lying in bed Watts was crying, upset with herself and her husband for changing, and for the absence of “long date nights” and “sleep-ins.”
The Modern Mumma blogger wrote in a reminiscent tone:
“The long hot showers, are now lukewarm and we’re tag teaming kids in between. The late nights are now laying there silently with our backs to each other hoping the other one will get up for the crying baby.”
Admitting that children have “put a damper on things”, she says it is a struggle to find balance, and that “at some point we need to learn to put our relationship towards the top of that priority list.”
It is so easy to put the children first in life, after all, they are completely helpless without you.
After a bit more monologue, Watts makes the insightful realization that these “different” times aren’t bad or the end of the marriage, but that they are a chapter of life that requires all hands on deck.
“I think in time it will become that way again. You have to make it past these difficult times to get there. It’s not that it’s even difficult, its just different. And sometimes different is really hard. Things have changed. Have they changed for the worse?
No. I don’t think so. I think this moment in our lives is where we need to be right now. I am still very very much in love with my husband. It’s just a different kind of relationship now. It’s commitment. It’s contentment. It’s frustrating. It’s repetitive.
It’s another chapter in our life. I know not all people go through this. But I have. I think it’s normal and I also think that I cant be alone in this. Surely there are other people out there who feel the same?”
Of course, there is!
Having kids does mean that you can’t do the things you may have done with your husband before “we” became “all of us”, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.
Now, instead of long walks and quiet dinners over a glass of wine, it is water balloon fights and sippy cups; and that’s okay.
There are steps you can take to maintain a happy marriage throughout busy days and sleepless nights, as Mommy Underground has previously reported, and it involves patience and communication.
Kids bring an element of joy in the home that wasn’t there without them.
Yeah, they’re noisy, but they also know how to laugh at the little things, give hugs right when you need them, and show you that you are capable of more love than you ever thought possible.
The post doesn’t end in gloomy despair for the reader, and the marriage. Watts goes on to say how she feels her husband deserves “the world”, even if all she can give him at the moment is a “hairy, cranky wife.”
There is a solution to the conundrum, an easier route to take. The post reads:
“Once you stop comparing yourselves to your old selves it becomes easier. Once you talk to each other about it you understand you’re both feeling the same way. Of course it’s worrying and of course its scary. No one likes change, and no one expects change. But just like everything else in life – relationships change.”
The post concludes with her declaration that despite all the twist and turns her life took, she “wouldn’t want to be old and saggy with anyone else” but her husband.
Change is inevitable, all people are going to adapt to their growing experiences, it’s just how you change that matters.
So here’s to the couples who learn to roll with the punches, and take each little messy, loud blessing as a chance to create a new path with new expectations.
Please let us know in the comments section if you can relate to Watts and her refreshingly raw post.