Marriage After Baby

We fall in love, we get married, and we are SO in love with each other, that we want to make babies.

Our healthy and loving relationship is the reason our babies exist. So why do our relationships fall to pieces when we bring these beauties in to the world?

Easy. We are no longer the priority. When your baby is born, 100% of your focus has to go to keeping that baby alive, breathing, fed, happy, and safe, and our partners and our relationships naturally fade in to the background. And that’s how it should be…for a little while.

When Ellie was born, Michael and I were both heavily focused on doing everything right for her. In the beginning, Michael was amazing, and recognized that doing everything right for Ellie meant taking care of me. For the first few weeks after Ellie was born, I didn’t change a single diaper, I always had water and a snack, and my sleep was the priority in our relationship. When he had to go back to work, that shifted a little bit.

I’ll never forget the day that he came home from work, ran in the door and said “hi!” in a cooing voice. I was holding Ellie, and he walked over and said “you get the first kiss Ellie because you are the most important.” I’ll also probably never forget how much that hurt my feelings at the time. I was really upset that he verbalized that Ellie was more important than I was. Upon reflection, I recognize that while I had said that out loud, I was definitely showing that to Michael with my actions. He was just mirroring what I was giving him.

And that’s about the time I realized we had a big problem. We were lost to each other. We had created this gorgeous, perfect baby together, and it felt like that was the end of our relationship.

Imagine this: you are in a mall, walking up a down escalator—you put in a little bit of effort and you might maintain your spot. Put in a lot of effort and you might make some headway. But the second you STOP actively climbing that escalator, it’s going to naturally bring you all the way back down.

The same is true for relationships—put in a little bit of effort and you’ll feel connected, put in more effort and you’ll feel more connected, but the second you stop putting mindful effort in to that relationship, your relationship goes to the bottom.

After Ellie was born, we both stopped climbing the escalator. Having a baby is like suddenly turning the escalator on full speed, and it suddenly takes twice as much effort to make any recognizable progress in your relationship.

You can go on trips, but it’s not that feasible when you have a baby to leave for a few days at a time on a regular basis. Everyone’s talking about date night, and I don’t know about you, but by the night time, I’m exhausted, and the absolute last thing I want to do is my hair and put on a cute outfit.

So here are some things Michael and I have started doing that have made it easier for us to connect, and easier for us to WANT to prioritize each other.

Create time together daily: when we first moved to Florida, Michael would take the dog out in the morning and I would watch the baby. We’ve flipped that, and started going on walks as a family in the morning, all together. Ellie and Scout are entertained, and Michael and I get to connect first thing in the day. We usually talk logistics, what’s on our mind, or what the rest of the week looks like, but it brightens our relationship for the day, and that way no more than 24 hours go by when we’re not spending time actively listening to each other.

Create day dates: see my comments about date night above….Instead of date night, we’ve been trying to re-frame our “dates” in to a time during the day when we can have fun together. In the BEE (Before Ellie Era) we loved going out to dinner together and having wine. Wine makes me sleepy these days, and we’d have to get a babysitter. Instead, we’ve been doing a lot of mini-golf, and going to the driving range…they’re fun and playful and they’re activities we used to do before we were married. It makes us feel like we’re dating again. Ellie can hang with my mom or a friend for a few hours while we go do these things, and we don’t have to get dressed up.

Dinner at home: BEE, we used to eat dinner in front of the TV almost every night. We have our silly shows that we enjoy watching together and giggling about later (Below Deck Mediterranean, anyone?). Recently, we’ve been making an effort to bring our dinner to a real dinner table, and put our phones away. This creates one more pocket of time to chat, check-in with and connect to each other.

I think there’s a misconception that if they’re working, relationships are easy. Relationships don’t have to be easy when they’re working; instead, I think it’s the opposite. They should challenge and push you to grow and evolve, and that takes work. Ideally you are both constantly evolving, and it’s really important to actively connect with each other so that you evolve together. We get caught in this trap of thinking that if life isn’t happy go lucky, there’s something wrong—that’s not it—it’s normal to have ups and downs. It isn’t that the postpartum period isn’t stressful or won’t be stressful…it will be, and it is. But the important thing is to maintain an attitude of US against the stress (whatever that stressor is) instead of me vs you vs the stress.

After you have a baby, you sort of lose your partner. It takes a while, and it takes effort to find your way back to each other.

What are your tips for maintaining a healthy relationship with your significant other?