Marriage after kids is completely different. Having kids gives you more logistics to handle and less time to spend together with just the two of you. As a result, your physical intimacy often suffers and it’s easy to become complacent about the emotional distance. Trust me, we get it. We have had three kids over the past five years. But, it doesn’t have to stay that way.
This post is all about why having a baby changes your marriage, how to fix the disconnect, and how to stay connected with your spouse after baby (or babies).
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Marriage After Kids
Why Is Marriage After Kids So Different?
My husband and I had kids very quickly into our marriage and we rapidly jumped from carefree dating to a marriage where we were responsible for another small human being. Needless to say, it was quite the shift.
No one told me just how hard it would be to adjust to marriage after a baby. You see the sweet Instagram posts of couples in awe of their spouse as a parent and you dream about that moment yourself.
And while I can attest that seeing your partner become a parent is utterly precious, it is also one of those phases in life that Instagram horribly misrepresents. Nobody posts about the long nights and the mental exhaustion and the toll that all takes on a marriage.
But, I can promise you that every marriage will go through a period of change and adjustment after adding a baby to the family. That is reality. You’re not crazy and your marriage isn’t broken. This won’t last forever if you don’t want it to.
The Early Days
The newborn days are days when both you and your spouse are in pure survival mode. Intimacy has been replaced by logistics and postpartum marriage struggles are natural. It’s hard to feel connected when you aren’t physically connecting in the same way and there is very little time to connect emotionally in other ways.
As a result, it’s easy to find yourself emotionally distanced from your spouse, even if you could practically read each other’s minds prior to having kids.
The Break Down
As the two of you both get more and more sleep deprived, patience wears thin and communication skills are lacking. The mental load of parenthood clashes with your assumptions that the other person doesn’t care about how you’re feeling. Or maybe you’re the default parent and the exhaustion has you feeling a bit bitter and resentful.
The communication goes and everything else seems to go right along with it. And very quickly you may find yourselves feeling like roommates instead of each others’ true love. As you grow more and more emotionally distant, you might find that the postpartum countdown to intimacy continues to get extended.
So…What Helped Us Reconnect?
At this point we’ve established that the emotional and physical disconnect you are feeling from your spouse is a very normal feeling. But just because it’s a normal and common feeling in a marriage after a baby doesn’t mean that you should let things stay that way. Don’t become complacent and simply accept a marriage that is less than healthy.
But in order to address it, you have to BOTH acknowledge the fact that it is happening and that it’s an unhealthy way to live out your marriage. And then you have to be willing to make changes that might make you uncomfortable. Here’s my top three pieces of advice. They are simple but make all the difference in the world.
Schedule Your Time Together.
My number one piece of advice for you is to schedule time together. And I can essentially guarantee that it will feel crazy unnatural and uncomfortable at first. I really didn’t want to do it at all because it felt unnatural and it forced us to admit that it just wasn’t going to happen naturally.
But as soon as we started scheduling one night of the week to spend with each other, we began rebuilding the bond that had been lost through the long sleepless nights and long talks of logistics.
Ban TV During That Weekly Time
The next thing that I recommend is that you ban TV from those weekly home date nights. While it feels relaxing and fun in the moment, it won’t grow your relationship. Instead, opt for a fun board game, cooking/baking together, or maybe even a paint by number. Because laughing and learning new things together is part of rebuilding the bond that’s been dampened in a new chaotic season of life.
Create Boundaries for Cell Phones
Did you know that the average person spends around 12 years of their life looking at their phone?! That’s exactly why cell phones can be one of the biggest hindrances to your relationship. It’s easy to get sucked into the lives of people you hardly know or people who live super far away rather than your spouse who is sitting right next to you. Then in the end, you’ll lose out on years of life with your spouse.
I remember when my husband requested a no phones in the bedroom policy and set up chargers in the living room. And I can’t lie, I was super annoyed. It felt silly to me honestly. But, I quickly understood why.
Instead of scrolling while we layed next to each other, we talked to each other, learned more about each other, laughed a ton, and had more intimacy in our relationship. We removed the distraction completely and it was insane how much our bond benefited.
And I can hear you saying now how your phone is your alarm for the morning because I made that excuse at one point too. But, your marriage is worth the 20 or 30 dollars it costs to get an alarm clock.
We swear by our Sunrise Alarm Clock because it doesn’t wake up our kids in a tiny apartment!
How to Maintain Your Connection
Once you’ve reconnected with your spouse, you have to find a way to nurture the relationship so that the awful feeling of disconnect with your partner doesn’t get between the two of you again. Because while marriage after kids will never be the same as marriage before kids, it can be insanely special in a different kind of way. It’s just about finding the marriage and parenthood balance. Here are a few ways we have found to do that in our marriage.
Pseudo Date Nights
While many people online will talk about scheduling date nights out X amount of times per month, it just was not realistic for us. Outside of finding a baby sitter, we were saving for a house and just simply couldn’t afford paying for dates out. So, we developed what my husband lovingly named, “pseudo date nights.”
All it means is that we set a night aside that we know is just for us. No house projects, no calls, no working on side hustles, nothing. We set the time aside and then we decide what we will do with the night.
Get creative and do your best to only watch TV every once in a while on these date nights. Talk to each other, play a game, create something together, find a paint along on YouTube, etc. It’s a fun way to prioritize time together, have it feel special, and not spend a ton of money in the process.
Once a Year Get Away
Depending on your financial situation, this yearly “get away” could look entirely different from ours or someone else’s. But, don’t write it off just because of your finances.
In all reality, most years our getaway consists of a weekend in a hotel while grandma or grandpa stays with the kids. We rarely go more than a few hours away and you could even stay local if you have super little ones or this is your first time leaving your kids. The point is not where you go, but the amount of time that you are gone.
In order for your marriage to grow and thrive, you need time together to talk, to dream, and to explore. Dates together are good but they don’t necessarily give you time to dig into some of those deeper topics. A weekend trip without kids will quickly bring you back into dating mode, will allow you to let loose for a bit, have deep conversations, and give you time to dream about your future together. And of course they give you intimate time together that definitely is a bit challenging with kids around.
Write a Note Just Because
There is something about a handwritten note that just feels romantic. It doesn’t have to be long and it doesn’t have to be for a birthday, anniversary, or any special occasion at all. One of the things my husband enjoys the most is when I write him a 1-2 sentence note on the napkin in his lunch box. It’s simple and takes almost no time at all but it brings us closer. So grab a sticky note (or a napkin) and see what it can do for your marriage. I think you’ll be surprised.
Consider Working Out Together
Even if you aren’t a big workout person, try going on walks with your spouse. This is something you can easily do with a stroller and it gives you the much needed uninterrupted time that parents need.
We still talk about the many miles we walked together after we had our first baby and they are some of the fondest memories we have of that time. It created space for meaningful conversation and I truly cannot recommend it enough. Plus, as your kids get older, you are setting an example for them that is extremely powerful.
Get An Adventure Challenge Book
It’s very easy to get in a rut when it comes to spending time together. While you may feel like you hang out a lot, it might be that you are just together and not actually connecting.
This Adventure Challenge Book has insanely creative ideas to connect with one another and will definitely leave you laughing together. Plus, it’s got plenty of ideas you can do right from home once the kids are asleep.
Find Friends That Aren’t Your Spouse
I know that telling you to spend time away from your spouse probably feels a bit contradictory to connecting with them, but it’s true.
My husband and I have moved a lot, six times in four years of marriage to be exact. That left us both struggling to find close friends and we ended up both relying on each other. And about a year or two into our marriage we began to quickly realize how unhealthy it was to expect the other to be everything for us. It’s just not possible.
Men need other men and women need women in their lives. You can’t be each other’s everything. It’s impossible and also unhealthy for both of you.
A fun way that we have found to help with this is to give each other one night a week to go out and do something. We eat dinner together and then the person staying home takes over for bedtime while the other heads out to wherever they decide. It might be a workout class, it might be a coffee shop, it might be out shopping, it might be getting drinks with friends.
It’s become a very natural, simple part of our routine but it definitely wasn’t at first. So, if the concept of once a week feels overwhelming to you, don’t write off the idea all together. Instead try to do it once a month instead.
Tell Them You Appreciate Them
I remember thinking it was so silly and formal when my husband started telling me, “hey, I really appreciate you (making the bed, doing the dishes, cleaning up the bedroom, etc.)” I felt like it was my job as the one who stays home and therefore it didn’t require a thank you. But, I quickly found that his appreciation of those things is what gave me the energy to do them and sometimes even enjoy doing it as I looked forward to his smile later on.
So, I started to do the same for him. Simply telling him how much I appreciated him going to work so that I had the privilege to stay home with the kids or how much I appreciate him learning new skills to fix up things around the house. And turned out, he needed that appreciation just as much as I needed him. We just didn’t know it.
A little appreciation can go a long way to not make people feel like their hard work is taken for granted. Gratitude can solve a lot of problems.
So, all in all, what I want you to know is that you aren’t crazy and you aren’t alone in this feeling of disconnect. Kids are a HUGE change to marriage and I feel as though we tend to either be way too hard on ourselves with it or we tend to get complacent with the change and expect it to somehow magically fix itself.
But the reality is, it’s normal for a bit of emotional disconnect to happen as you navigate all the logistics and changes of having kids. It’s okay and you shouldn’t be hard on yourself if you find yourself in the same position. However, it’s not okay or healthy to let your relationship stay that way. It’s not fair to you, your spouse, or most of all your kids.
As my dad always says (and I still hear in my head on a regular basis), “Don’t let the urgent get in the way of what’s important.” Your priorities will have to shift a bit after having kids, but don’t forget that your marriage needs to be at the top of the priorities list.
It’s going to take a lot of intentionality, but your marriage can be full of giddy excitement again.
-Beautifully Busy Mom
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Meet the Author
This post was written by Monica, a former teacher turned stay at home mom. After feeling very lonely at the beginning of her motherhood journey, she started this blog in hopes that other moms wouldn’t feel the way she felt. So, this blog is filled with free resources and fun activities so that you can enjoy the beautiful chaos that is motherhood. Let’s be friends 🙂
