Children: Ruining more than just your carpeting

[acheuleanhandax]

There's an article in today's issue of The Wall Street Journal that says, in a nutshell, that babies ruin marriages. The Relationship Research Institute in Seattle reports that 2/3 of couples say the quality of their relationship dropped after having a child. The article lists four main reasons: intensifying conflict, changing roles, dulled

Comments

[jadeejf]

LOL- it's like you read my entry!

And yes, the article's reasoning is accurate. What would really help is a live-in maid, nanny, and cook. ;)

[renishas]

What would really help is a live-in maid, nanny, and cook.

I keep asking for these things for Mother's day and all my husband will do is laugh.

[cindyanne1]

/signed :(

[blosmbee]

I think choosing the right person to have children with and having realistic expectations of what post-baby life will be like is probably the most important thing.
A giant chore chart isn't going to help you any if your partner is a giant douche that doesn't do their assigned tasks or only does them half assed.

[acheuleanhandax]

I think the rub is that you can't really imagine what taking care of a new baby is like until you're doing it. I could make as many lists as I want, but I don't have any kids and have no idea what I'm signing up for when I say, "I'll give all the baths."

I also think it's kind of shitty that someone is supposed to do ALL of something, all the time. How could you possibly change ALL the diapers or make ALL the bottles? (I mean, it's possible, but that's not going to help the resentment factor.) If the baby poops and the official diaper-changer is out running errands...? I guess I just don't like the idea of keeping score, either.

[blosmbee]

That's true, but you can look to other parts of your life and get a pretty good idea of how generally helpful your partner is.
If you're expected to do most of the chores, cooking, whatever, and s/he doesn't follow through on the chores s/he agreed to take on, that's probably a pretty good indicator of how helpful s/he'll be with the baby care too.

[acheuleanhandax]

I agree with that, but I wouldn't call it a baby ruining a marriage. I'd call that adding a baby to a marriage that isn't that great to start with. Maybe I'm just being naive, but I couldn't imagine making a chore chart for taking care of a baby. A chore chart wouldn't even work in my house without a baby. If the trash needs to be taken out, just do it! I wouldn't want to be married to someone who would keep track of how many times he's taken out the trash vs. how often I vacuum, etc.

[nafrate]

A giant chore list won't do anything if your partner (or you) don't have the energy to actually do the chores.

Really, the tiredness is what was the most striking difference for us. Instead of trying to do everything like we used to, it was better for us to acknowledge that yeah, things are going to be different for a while, but that exhaustion doesn't last forever and we are going to get through this phase. When my son went from waking every 2-3 hours to suddenly sleeping through the night every night, the difference in our moods was huge.

Plus, I'm not sure how chore lists would help considering that there are things that can happen that are unexpected. The stress of dealing with a new baby is hard enough, but for us when our new baby arrived 13 weeks early with no real warning, it pushed our marriage nearly to the breaking point.

[guaparella]

"'Dulled conversation? More like appreciated comforting silence." YES!
I like your comment. I want to put on "monkey pants" as soon as my husband gets home and settle in and watch Jeopardy and hold hands and just be. It's so nice.

[guaparella]

Me too, but of course, we're already well past the baby stage. Grownups still live here, but that a whole 'nother booj post.

[apis_cerana]

This is one of the things that scares me the most about possibly maybe one day having a kid. x_x I think it helps to be as realistic as possible (even if that's hard and nearly impossible without a frame of reference...) about it and try hard to work as a team. :\