Spin off to Kristin's baby itch post

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Posted by jtgarsik

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Posted by lizzie217

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Posted by jtgarsik

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i personally would miss sleeping in the most!!! lol. i'm so serious..i love staying in bed on the weekends together...there's something intimate & special about that

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I think this ever saturday and sunday morning

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i know!! i guess u just get used to the routine of being up super early (atleast that's what most say)...but seriously u never have ONE day untill they're grown! and to me, it's not the same if one of u (aka: dh ) says 'stay in bed hunny, i'll take care of getting her up today'...because staying in bed TOGETHER is what i like lol.i'm glad this thread came up....completely got rid of any itches i was feeling from the other one!

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not just sleeping in, but sleeping through the night! I would be miserable waking up; I think that's what I'd miss the most.

and the obvious things like going out to dinner whenever we want, being lazy all day, etc.

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Posted by bluekat16

I don't think the article really said anything we didn't know already. Having children is hard just like making a marraige work is hard, put those two together and guess what....it's even harder. There are also socio-economic factors. Obviously the people who reported being happy had a better income and were married longer.

The top two reasons people get divorced are because of finances and children. Both of those require very open communication within a couple. Also, as women, sometimes we get lost in the thought of having children and in our children and forget about our husbands. We forget that our children are borrowed because at some point they grow up and move on and you are left with your husband, your partner in life.

I hope that as DH and I have children we remember to keep the focus on our relationship, that's how it worked for his parents and my parents.

Nothing is a bed of roses, children nor marriage so I think if you and your DH are aware of that going in then you're ahead of the game.

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very well said, and it's important going into a marriage to be on the same page on both of these things, which I think we are (especially about money) although DH is an only child and thinks that is perfectly fine, while I am one of four and would want my kid to have a sibling... even though I don't logistically want more than one, I don't want my kid to grow up alone... not sure how I'm going to make that work.

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Posted by jtgarsik

Taken from the article:
'There are different types of happiness in life and that while some luster may be off marital happiness for at least a time during this period of life, there is a whole dimension of family happiness and contentment based on the family that couples are building, ' he said. 'This type of happiness can be powerful and positive but it has not been the focus of research.'

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While i DO think children can put new strains/stresses into a marraige, it is much more a blessing than a curse...do i think everyone is meant to have children??? absolutely not. and that's fine..and those people shouldn't. But i think if your marraige is grounded in God, and grounded in communication, that a family is a kind of happiness like no other..will it be perfect 100% of the time? of course not.. but nothing is. My sil has said that her daughter has brough a WHOOOLE new level to their marraige lol, but that more than anything - it has brought them SO much closer...closer to each other, closer to God, etc...and that she would never choose to be just the two of them if she had the choice all over again..
There are also studies done on divorces every year....we are now OVER 50%...that means MORE than 1 in every 2 couples will end up divorced..does that means you'll get divorced or should be afraid of marraige? not to me..

anyways, i do think it was interesting to post...because i DO think there are a lot of naive people in the world who think having babies is all peaches and cream - and it is definetly not.lol..but i think the majority of people will agree that the good outweigh the bad.

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I think that is exactly the problem, and not just with kids but with marriage. People go into it thinking OMG it will be so much fun and like a dream and everything will be so perfect. So when little things go wrong people don't know how to handle it. I think when you go into something expecting to yes hit hard times bc as human beings whether we are single or married, everyone hits hard times in their lives. Expect things to not always be perfect. I think couples see that yes their relationships do change after a kid and just take it as a bad sign and things go downhill from there. But if they realize that this change doesn't have to be a bad change and instead finding a way to work around it, then they wouldn't be as depressed.

I can't say that it ruined the marriage or anything like....but it definitely changes things 100%. There's very little 'us' time because we don't have family in our area...so we can't just leave the baby with someone and go out (I guess we could hire someone, but that's $$$).

Plus, we rearranged our work schedules so that one of us can be home with him during the day for most of the week....there are some days when I see DH for an hour before we have to switch baby duty shifts.

It's much better now that the baby's older, but in the beginning it was tough. I was so tired and stressed out that I didn't want to talk to anyone! Plus, all the hormonal changes made every little thing seem so annoying.

Luckily, the two of us have laid back personalities to begin with and we don't fight...we discuss things. So it never got too bad. But I can certainly see that if a couple who fought a lot before or had communication problems that they could face issues in their relationship.

But then on a rare day together, we'll sit back and watch our crazy baby in action and we'll just look at each other and smile. It makes it all worth it. I think every couple faces this with a baby in the beginning...no one has it easy breezy.

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Posted by jenlen

I can't say that it ruined the marriage or anything like....but it definitely changes things 100%. There's very little 'us' time because we don't have family in our area...so we can't just leave the baby with someone and go out (I guess we could hire someone, but that's $$$).

Plus, we rearranged our work schedules so that one of us can be home with him during the day for most of the week....there are some days when I see DH for an hour before we have to switch baby duty shifts.

It's much better now that the baby's older, but in the beginning it was tough. I was so tired and stressed out that I didn't want to talk to anyone! Plus, all the hormonal changes made every little thing seem so annoying.

Luckily, the two of us have laid back personalities to begin with and we don't fight...we discuss things. So it never got too bad. But I can certainly see that if a couple who fought a lot before or had communication problems that they could face issues in their relationship.

But then on a rare day together, we'll sit back and watch our crazy baby in action and we'll just look at each other and smile. It makes it all worth it. I think every couple faces this with a baby in the beginning...no one has it easy breezy.

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Hey jen, how are you, nice to see you on here.

Thanks for posting, very honest and real. You make great points and I think really gives us insight to what it can be like.