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Post by petrushka on May 9, 2016 6:55:45 GMT -5
I read this syndicated article in a NZ paper tonight, originally from the Washington Post. Professor Matthew D. Johnson writes about how having children affects relationship dynamics happiness, and how it makes people less happy (!) but also less likely to divorce. www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11636099I am sure many parents here will disagree. As a failed parent (that is, I always wanted to be one, but it just never happened) I will keep out of it. BUT: seeing how a significant percentage of young adults self-destruct despite the best and most earnest travails of their parents, I sometimes think maybe I got off lucky. Sometimes ....... {wistful smile} |
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Post by greatcoastal on May 9, 2016 8:06:42 GMT -5
This article tells our story very well. I would like to elaborate.
3 children under the age of five.
I was put on the back burner. (On a stove that was broken)
Then came so many of my wife's life choices that I agreed too. (Happy wife happy life)
Role reversal, being stay at home dad.
Adopting another child.
Letting her father live with us ( going on nine years now)
Homeschooling
Adopting two more older children.
Buying a bigger house
Loosing my family, and only having interaction with hers.
Staying with a dead church ( for the children)
All of our finances revolving around children.
Yes we took on too many things. Valiant, noble, well intentioned things.
Our marriage is far beyond repair, living with a asexual manipulative controller and me being passive, says divorce is imminent.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2016 9:45:43 GMT -5
I see where the author is going, but it doesn't exactly mirror my personal experience. I remember watching my husband with our baby daughter and feeling overwhelmed with how much I loved him. The years when our children were young were actually the happiest years of our marriage. Maybe it's because there was a built in "excuse" for our not having sex so I didn't have to feel like I was doing something wrong. Maybe it's because I had the children to focus on, so my attention could be drawn away from the issues in our marriage. But at least part of it was that I loved watching him be a father - and he was a wonderful one at that time. He loved being a dad, even through the sleepless nights and typical trials of parenthood, and we were such a good team. And we were so active as a family - hiking almost every weekend, taking the children to different museums or the beach. There was always something fun to do. As our children got older and had more activities of their own, there was less family time and for me, less connection to him. When our relationship had to stand on it's own without the children, there wasn't much there.
That being said, I do have friends that have chosen not to have children and all of them are still happily married. Hm. It does make sense that without children, you can focus more on your relationship.
Still, like most of the parents out there, I wouldn't give up having my kids for anything. Even with the way things ended up for me.
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Post by greatcoastal on May 9, 2016 10:34:30 GMT -5
I see where the author is going, but it doesn't exactly mirror my personal experience. I remember watching my husband with our baby daughter and feeling overwhelmed with how much I loved him. The years when our children were young were actually the happiest years of our marriage. Maybe it's because there was a built in "excuse" for our not having sex so I didn't have to feel like I was doing something wrong. Maybe it's because I had the children to focus on, so my attention could be drawn away from the issues in our marriage. But at least part of it was that I loved watching him be a father - and he was a wonderful one at that time. He loved being a dad, even through the sleepless nights and typical trials of parenthood, and we were such a good team. And we were so active as a family - hiking almost every weekend, taking the children to different museums or the beach. There was always something fun to do. As our children got older and had more activities of their own, there was less family time and for me, less connection to him. When our relationship had to stand on it's own without the children, there wasn't much there. That being said, I do have friends that have chosen not to have children and all of them are still happily married. Hm. It does make sense that without children, you can focus more on your relationship. Still, like most of the parents out there, I wouldn't give up having my kids for anything. Even with the way things ended up for me. I believe my wife would feel the same way about me. greatest Dad in the world!! So much fun being with the little ones. However you have some " maybe's" and some doubt about not having sex. Well I remember all the rejection, and all the excuses. Especially the, " I am too tired, or exhausted" yet rarely were the children told that! even all those fun things to do together, revolved around " the children". Every book I have ever read about marriage says, relationship first, children second. i believe this comes back to being submissive, and who wants to be in control. And how men have very few other men to connect with when this is happening. Men are supposed to suck it up, endure, handle it, live with it. Or risk looking selfish, unloving, incompetent, stubborn. While yearning the intimacy that they are only alowed to get from one person on the planet. |
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Post by bballgirl on May 9, 2016 11:21:09 GMT -5
I was married ten years before we had kids. I had to go the route of a little infertility assistance. There was a time I was not sure if I would be a mother. My mother used to tell me "if it's meant to be it will happen and that children do not bring a couple closer".
In my case the children did not bring us closer as a couple.
There are two different types of love.
Love for our children and family and romantic love.
Love for our children is pure and unwavering.
Romantic love is perishable like a fruit tree. If it's not cultivated and taken care of it will rot away and die.
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Post by unmatched on May 9, 2016 18:40:16 GMT -5
I don't know, it seems like such a cliché. Couple has kids, the wife is devoted to the baby, the husband comes home from work at 5.30 and puts on his slippers, only to find that he hasn't had a kiss and his dinner isn't on the table. He feels like he is no longer the centre of her world and stops talking and goes out and spends the rest of his life doing something mind-numbingly vacant like golf. I am sure it does happen that way, but these days I think life is a whole lot more complicated and gender roles a whole lot more mixed up than that. There is no doubt that having kids ruins your life (kidding ... I think?), but being in stressful situations doesn't make your marriage worse - it just shows you when it wasn't very good to start with but you never had cause to notice.
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