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Hi! So, I had the same worries you are expressing, I actually cried a lot about how much our lives were about to change. My DH was so reassuring that we were going to be fine, and LO was going to make our relationship and bond stronger. My LO is only 10 days old, but, seeing DH be her daddy and take care of her and me has taken our relationship to a whole new level. I didn't know that my love for DH could grow that much in such a short time. It sounds so corny, but it's been great so far.

It's taken more work than it used to, but I think it's a better/stronger relationship now. It's hard not to just be "mom"...it took a conscious effort to remember to be a wife as well. We don't get out much with our schedules, but we try to spend time together after E goes to bed (even just watching a movie or show together), and try to get out of the house alone. It's easier as he's gotten older, but I'm nervous about how it's going to be after #2 gets here.

ETA: Even in the middle of the night when you want to stab him in the eye if he sleeps through the baby crying again that you're on the same team, and try not to be a mommy martyr afraid or unwilling to ask for help. It's his baby too, he's not an occasional babysitter, he's dad.

We felt like ships on the night for a little bit, but it got better after about 6 months, when E started STTN. I also started feeling more like myself. We kept doing things we enjoyed-bike rides, softball. Etc. We don't wholly succumb to parenthood, so we always feel like "us" underneath it all. Time for ourselves and time together. When I feel like I'm drowning, I ask for help and I receive it. And vice versa. We aren't at odds, we're on the same side

@buttermilk: hi! So DH and I had been together for 10 years when we got married. Shortly after we started TTC and that took a while. I'm not going to lie, that first year was really tough on us. It was probably the hardest year of our 12 year relationship. Our communication was lacking, our sex life was pretty non existent. Our first was a very difficult and high needs baby. She cried a ton the first few months of her life. She was a crap sleeper and napped. I was breastfeeding and since she was a cluster feeder I felt like she was constantly attached to my boob. We had no family nearby so that meant no help, no breaks, no date nights etc.

Butttt like others have said. It's incredible to see just how much he loves our girls. How amazing of a father he is. We have come out on the other side even stronger as a unit than we were before. Things were SO much better the second time around.

My best advice is to communicate. Try to make time for each other even if you're not getting sleep. If you have family nearby - use them for date nights!

A lot of things changed for me when my son was born, so naturally, it affected my relationship with my husband. It is a challenge to sum up exactly what changed and when, but I feel like relationships are always changing in that your needs change, your partner's needs change, your needs as a couple change, you add children, you lose family members, etc.

It has brought us together in some aspects, but it has also widened some divides. Not in a getting separated kind of way, but in a how we handle things kind of way.

I was worried about this too but DH and I are a team and it helps to remind myself of that. The first 6 months were really hard (mostly due to sleep deprivation, it's hard to be kind when you are exhausted), but it gets easier. Now I feel like DH and I have an extra dimension to our relationship because he is an excellent father and I love seeing him with LO. It takes work to balance family time vs. couple time (we probably don't do enough date nights), but I feel like overall so far, having a child had strengthened our relationship. I can see how it could go the other way though. I am lucky to have a husband who really tries to be an equal parent and I think that can play a major role in how women perceive their relationships post-children.

Yeah, it's hard. No matter how long you've been together, and even if you agree on all the big things, there's no way to prepare for how to deal with all the little things. And of course life happens, and sometimes you have to make tough choices that neither of you saw coming because of work situations or family situations or whatever. And you often have to do it on not enough sleep. I guess it helps to get really good at forgiving each other and remembering that you're still a team.

@Mama Bird:

@Mamasig: for sure!

Our relationship was probably not as strong as yours to start and it was tough dealing with two years of infertility. Then we had a traumatic pregnancy and birth which brought us closer together. We had a honeymoon period for a few months after birth but the year after was really hard. Now 2.5 years in, watching my husband be a dad makes me love him a million times more than before and we are in a really great groove and happy place. It's not perfect because there are so many new things to disagree about, but it's special and overall way better.

I don’t think there is any way to truly prepare for the changes that take place after you have a child, because you won’t know what they will be until you are there, in that space.

After I had LO, my love for my husband definitely evolved. In many ways, I love him so much more now, and feel a deeper connection because we made a human being together and we will always be strongly tied together, no matter what happens to our relationship. On the flip-side of that, that’s also a sort of scary thought – before, if things didn’t work out, each of us could move on and now, while we certainly could still move on and people get divorced every day, the stakes are SO MUCH HIGHER.

Having a kid just changes everything – it impacts everything. From future plans to day-to-day plans, this little person needs you to give 100% all the time (especially in the beginning) and that’s really hard.

My husband and I don’t fight more than we did pre-kids and we still are very close and love each other fiercely, but things have definitely changed. Some for the better, but in some ways, for quite a while after LO was born it was more like we were roommates than married people. We've also been together for 8 years, so I think some of the "rut" is just natural based on length of our relationship. There was a long time after LO was born that we were just keeping our heads above water and there wasn’t time or energy to really tend to our marriage.

I would strongly suggest making it a point to get time for just the two of you on a regular basis after your LO is born. If we didn’t have regular date nights away from LO, and overnights with just us, I know we would be in a very rocky place. It’s important to remember that you’re working on the same team, but that each of you is important too, and that you’ll need to work at getting time together.