Before having kids (or one kid rather) I had no idea of the impact that one tiny baby could have on your relationship.  I like to think that my husband and I have a pretty unbreakable bond.  We have been together for close to 20 years and married for 6 and in that time have worked hard on our relationship. But I can tell you now, having our beautiful baby Flynn certainly tested us.

It was almost as if every skill we had learnt, everything that we knew about each other and how we worked as a couple had been zapped from our memory (a bit like Men in Black).  We began to bicker more, we were passive aggressive with each other, took pot shots at each other and started to be in competition with who had had the least amount of sleep between us (me obviously).

Our focus dramatically switched from being a couple to me solely focusing on myself and the baby and him doing the same thing and all our conversation became about Flynn.  When did Flynn go to sleep, did he do a poo today, look at this new skill Flynn learnt.  We were completely not connecting with each other anymore and you can forget sex, that had also vanished from our skill set.

 Now, it wasn’t as if each of us were not doing our best, we were. We were tired & we were focusing on not only keeping this new human alive but ensuring that he was thriving.  But it was more than that.  The dynamic in our relationship had completely changed.  There were now 3 of us, we went from being a couple to a family.  This meant that our attention for each other was now being split with another being and the other thing that changed in the dynamic was that I was home all day caring for Flynn and my husband was out working all day to care for us.  

It wasn’t until we sat down and really had a chat that we got to understand each other’s points of view.  I was cranky cause I was ‘stuck’ at home all day (and I really was in the beginning after not being able to drive due to having an emergency caesarean) and he was out all day and didn’t get to spend time with our little man.  So, we switched our complaining to each other about the individual circumstances to having empathy for the other and their situation.

In sitting down and having the conversation, it was like we hit the reset button, we remembered the love we had for each other and we remembered that we’re both doing the best we can at any given time.

Has it fixed everything?  No.  There is always stuff to work on, but that’s the beauty of relationships and the value of your partner being a mirror for you to learn and grow.  It has however bought us closer together and we have reconnected in more ways than one (if you know what I mean).

Beck x