The Family & Parenting ForumsFamily dynamics can be exactly that - dynamic! Post here about family related issues such as parenting, blended families, step-families, new relationships with children involved, family of origin issues, in-laws or sibling issues.
Both, of course the tiredness caused us to be ratty and snappy with each other. The lack of time you have with each other suffers too. BUT, we have a beautiful 2yr old and watching her sleep, 'threebe' cuddles and kisses, her milestones, new phrases... all make us laugh and smile together and we talk about how lucky we are to have her. Ups and downs but if you are a strong unit the good should outweigh the bad x
..and that shift, is exactly as it should be. Make no mistake about it.
Really? I would think and do so that the most important thing is the spouse THEN the child; perhaps, hee-hee-heee, that's why I don't have any children. But seriously, how can you experience satisfaction as a couple who help one another if the emphasis is on child rearing? The main course is the relationship while children are simply a supplemental course.
When kids are young it's easy.........it's almost all about the parents imo. Until they get to the teen years then you will know what parenting is, so for all of the young parents enjoy it.
Kids rock until 14-15 then slowly it becomes "Ehhhhh" all imo Then again I might be weird....lol.
that we will dismiss all those who are also childfree because they are simply too painful to be around and remind us of the death or our own poor souls.
lol ...I just read your post with Paul Giamatti's voice in my head.
Really? I would think and do so that the most important thing is the spouse THEN the child; perhaps, hee-hee-heee, that's why I don't have any children. But seriously, how can you experience satisfaction as a couple who help one another if the emphasis is on child rearing? The main course is the relationship while children are simply a supplemental course.
You have this exactly right. We do our kids no favors by neglecting the spouse and getting divorced because of it. Blows my mind that some parents get so wrapped up in hauling the kids from soccer to band to whatever else, that they are too tired to have sex or even talk w/ their spouses.
Parents need to keep the most important thing as the most important thing. Make it a priority.
We have one child. Our son is 15. Great kid. Wouldn't trade any of the things I went through, because that would mean not having him. That being said.
Kids will strengthen the strong parts of you marriage. Kids will also pull at the weak seams of you marriage.
Kids will bond you when you both share the same views on certain things. Kids will pull you apart (if you let it) where your differ on certain views.
Having children will many times bring out personality traits and consequences of things that happened to you or your spouse earlier in life.
For example: My wife’s Mother was not a good parental role model. Her Father was pretty much useless. My wife was deadest on being a stay at home Mom, and ended up putting her son FIRST, before our marriage, for a long time. She didn’t see this as wrong.
My wife never had a strong Father presence in her life. Early on, and every now and again still, she will disagree with my parenting methods, and try to tell me “I’m too hard on him.” I understand where she is coming from. We have worked through it, but I have been firm from the beginning that I am his Father. I won’t interfere when she is disciplining or dealing with our son, if I disagree about something, I’ll bring it up to her, without our son present, later. I’ve had to stand her down on this a few times, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Having children WILL NOT save a struggling relationship. What they WILL Do is keep you busy enough, and shift your FOCUS so that your relationship with your spouse doesn’t SEEM to be as bad as it was “before”. That’s a slippery slope.
Know that having different views on Politics is one thing, having different BASIC views on disciplining a child for example, is quite another. I’ve even thought of writing a questionnaire for guys to ask of potential wives when the talk of having children comes up. Sounds silly but it’s not.
Compromise is your friend on CERTAIN issues. But having your spouse confront or disagree with your, regarding your children, in FRONT of the child, is NEVER good. It can make kids feel like they can play one off the other, even at young ages. They aren’t doing it to be mean or nasty, they are doing it because it can work to get their way. This can start when they are young.
I see parents who stick together “For their Children” but most of the time I think it’s bull****. They stay together because they are so entrenched and involved as a family unit, that breaking it off seems harder than staying. Easier sometimes to stay, bury your head in the sand and keep going, than to address the problems and meet them head on.
In our case, my wife suffered depression and anxiety after the birth of our son. She also struggled with IBS Like symptoms and lactose intolerance (Wasn’t before the birth). This luckily didn’t affect her ability to be a great Mother, but it sure put strains on our marriage.
Turns out what of the biggest issues my wife had was being a stay at home Mom, which was her choice. This was a HUGE adjustment to a woman used to being independent and working outside of the home. Keep that in mind as well.
Kids are great. I wouldn’t trade my son for anything in the world. But making sure your priorities are the same as your spouse is HUGE deal when it comes to having kids.
When kids are young it's easy.........it's almost all about the parents imo. Until they get to the teen years then you will know what parenting is, so for all of the young parents enjoy it.
Kids rock until 14-15 then slowly it becomes "Ehhhhh" all imo Then again I might be weird....lol.
14-15? My son was a bright, intelligent, respectful, polite, athletic kid at 12. He turned 13 and became a goofy, mouthy, know-it-all honor-roll / athlete version of Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Still haven't found his stash.
Doesn't help he's over 6ft tall already and 165lb of muscle. Nothing will motivate a Father more to get in shape than to see his son walk around with no shirt, checking himself out in the mirrors. The punk.
I see some posts that quite frankly make me wonder what some marriages will be like when the nest is empty.
I see both men and women saying the child should come first.
If BOTH husband and wife are on the same page on this, I guess that could work. Problems crop up when one spouse feels neglected by the other, because they put the child first in everything. Many times this ends up making the spouse that feels neglected feel guilty.
“Jealous over my own kid? That’s horrible.”
So they don’t say anything, or at least they do until it becomes too much to bear and they lash out or go outside their marriage for that attention they deserve.
We had our son early. I’ll be 41 years old when the graduates high school, my wife 40 years old. My wife asked me the other day.
“What are we going to do when he goes off to college?”
My answer:
“I don’t know. Guess we’ll have to go out every night, then come and get naked until we figure it out.”
Kids are great. But payback can be relished. I want to die and come back as my grandchild as an infant. That way I can wait until my son and his wife (if a woman ever decides to put up with him) are JUST getting time along so I can start wailing. Now THAT would be rewarding. LMAO.
I have several conversations planned out, to have with my son, after he’s out of the house and on his own. One will be in regards to choosing a potential wife and the other will be a punch in the mouth after telling him what a pain in the ass he was to me all those years…LOL.
We have one child. Our son is 15. Great kid. Wouldn't trade any of the things I went through, because that would mean not having him. That being said.
Kids will strengthen the strong parts of you marriage. Kids will also pull at the weak seams of you marriage.
Kids will bond you when you both share the same views on certain things. Kids will pull you apart (if you let it) where your differ on certain views.
Having children will many times bring out personality traits and consequences of things that happened to you or your spouse earlier in life.
For example: My wife’s Mother was not a good parental role model. Her Father was pretty much useless. My wife was deadest on being a stay at home Mom, and ended up putting her son FIRST, before our marriage, for a long time. She didn’t see this as wrong.
My wife never had a strong Father presence in her life. Early on, and every now and again still, she will disagree with my parenting methods, and try to tell me “I’m too hard on him.” I understand where she is coming from. We have worked through it, but I have been firm from the beginning that I am his Father. I won’t interfere when she is disciplining or dealing with our son, if I disagree about something, I’ll bring it up to her, without our son present, later. I’ve had to stand her down on this a few times, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Having children WILL NOT save a struggling relationship. What they WILL Do is keep you busy enough, and shift your FOCUS so that your relationship with your spouse doesn’t SEEM to be as bad as it was “before”. That’s a slippery slope.
Know that having different views on Politics is one thing, having different BASIC views on disciplining a child for example, is quite another. I’ve even thought of writing a questionnaire for guys to ask of potential wives when the talk of having children comes up. Sounds silly but it’s not.
Compromise is your friend on CERTAIN issues. But having your spouse confront or disagree with your, regarding your children, in FRONT of the child, is NEVER good. It can make kids feel like they can play one off the other, even at young ages. They aren’t doing it to be mean or nasty, they are doing it because it can work to get their way. This can start when they are young.
I see parents who stick together “For their Children” but most of the time I think it’s bull****. They stay together because they are so entrenched and involved as a family unit, that breaking it off seems harder than staying. Easier sometimes to stay, bury your head in the sand and keep going, than to address the problems and meet them head on.
In our case, my wife suffered depression and anxiety after the birth of our son. She also struggled with IBS Like symptoms and lactose intolerance (Wasn’t before the birth). This luckily didn’t affect her ability to be a great Mother, but it sure put strains on our marriage.
Turns out what of the biggest issues my wife had was being a stay at home Mom, which was her choice. This was a HUGE adjustment to a woman used to being independent and working outside of the home. Keep that in mind as well.
Kids are great. I wouldn’t trade my son for anything in the world. But making sure your priorities are the same as your spouse is HUGE deal when it comes to having kids.
In my most recent marriage(2nd), I brought 2 teenagers into it, and my STBXW brought 3 of them. The biggest difference is mine were educationally inclined, studied hard, made excellent grades and were motivated. They also ran with a great crowd of kids.
My STBXW's kids conversely were of a mindset that they did not want to be told what to do, were undisciplined by their mother, were given money for everything they wanted, ran with a rough crowd, got tattoos and got arrested/incarcerated for drugs, dropped out of high school and they still don't have work, choosing to live off Mama. Her kids ripped a chasm between us because she refuses to use any kind of discipline on them. She loves my kids to death because they are doing what she wishes her own would have done. In essence, her kids have greatly contributed to our divorce proceedings. I will miss my STBXW, but I sure won't miss her kids!
If it wasn't for our son, Our marriage would've had a hard first year (He was born two months after the wedding). I was brought up to have a strong sence of duty to family. So giving up hang out with friends or staying out late was easy for me considering I have my son at home that wants to play with me and see me before bed. And being there to help my wife with him is important. IF he wasn't in the picture, I would feel like my wife had me in a headlock and trying to keep me from having some "me time".
Interesting. With my first marriage, having a baby was amazing for me but not for him. Despite the fact that we had discussed it for years and he claimed to really want a child, he wanted nothing to do with her. He told me two weeks before my due date that because he was working and I was "just" going to be taking care of a baby, he didn't think it was fair that he should have to do anything. That was not our agreement when we conceived. He hated holding her, never had those moments dad's get when they just stare at their baby with pride. He actually asked me after she was born if I liked her more than him!
I came to realize that I basically had two children to take care of by myself. He wanted his life to continue on as normal, have the same amount of time for friends, hobbies and video games. I was so upset about the fact that he had misled me and that he didn't seem to care about our child that I just started to lose love for him. If I asked to leave for an hour while he spent time with her, he would get huffy, sigh and roll his eyes. By the time I got home he would be irate. We got into a lot if fights about it.
There's a lot more to it, like his mental disorder and failure to address it, his pot smoking and complete lack of empathy or compassion for me. We separated after her third birthday.
When she was five, I met my husband. He has two boys and I think the kids being us closer together. I know it's different because we have every other weekend off from them. But our kids are two months apart. We call them "step twins". It's nice to be parenting kids who are going through the same stages. I love watching how loving he is with him, even watching him set limits and punish them because I know how much he cares. I love it when we do fun things as a family.
He is just such a great parent, and it's very attractive to me. We have similar ideas about child rearing and so that makes it even better.
Although we do have every other weekend off, the stress of dealing with our ex's, child support giving and receiving, parenting plans, driving all over for drop offs, dealing with differences between our home and the ex's home can be very stressful. But I wouldn't change it.
I just wonder why I couldn't have met him earlier. But then we wouldn't have these three remarkable kids. Posted via Mobile Device
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Re: Did kids make your marriage better or worse? 
Then again I might be weird....lol.
Love the bolded part.
