A couple of weeks ago, when my mom was visiting, Sona and I had our first date night since Finn was born. We’d gone nearly 2.5 months without having an evening to ourselves–without ever leaving our son.
Needless to say, it was time.
Not only was date night an excuse to spend quality time together, doing something other than changing diapers, but it was also a reason to actually wash our hair, put on a little make-up, and make more than the minimal effort to look, well, approachable and mildly socialized.
Everyone warned that we’d spend the whole night talking–and fretting–about Finn, but we have a dirty little secret: we didn’t. I mean, he came up a couple of times, sure, but we spent most of the dinner talking about non-baby things just like we would have BF (Before Finn). It was the best time I’ve had with Sona in a long, long while. It felt special in a way that our pre-baby date nights hadn’t. Maybe that was because we needed it so badly. Maybe that was because we recognized what a rarity dates nights will be, now. Maybe that was because Sona had her first drink of alcohol in nearly a year.
Either way, we had a fabulous time.
But things haven’t been completely fabulous in the relationship department lately, if we’re being honest. And that’s the whole point of this blog thing, right? Honestly. Or something like it. I know that, when reading other blogs, the ones I feel the most connected to are the ones were the writers–the humans behind the screen–admit their flaws and own up to their imperfections. I’ve thought a lot about this, lately–about resisting the urge to create a perfectly curated life for the internets. About authenticity.
And the other evening, while Sona and I were on date night #2, we had to acknowledge something: the image we craft online–via this blog and our various social media accounts–isn’t always completely truthful. It’s not that we’ve actively tried to lie about our lives, it’s just that the Instagram version of our family isn’t always fully representative of who we are.
So, here’s the truth: tending to a marriage after a baby is difficult, and we’ve been struggling a bit.
BF I worried a lot about how the dynamic between Sona and I would change. I’ve written a bit about that, before. I worried that I’d be jealous of how much attention–and love–she gave him. (I’m ashamed to admit that, but it is the truth.) I worried that we’d interact with each other differently after the baby. I worried that our home wouldn’t be the sacred space it’d always been for the two of us.
All of those concerns were for naught. None of that happened, luckily. Finn became a part of our family so easily and so completely.
But here’s what I should have worried about: time. There just isn’t enough of it–not nearly. Most days, it’s everything we can do just to keep up with our professional responsibilities, keep our home in some kind of working order, and take care of Finn. Even then, things fall through the cracks pretty regularly.
In an attempt to balance those things, we’ve forgotten about our relationship. It wasn’t deliberate, but our marriage just hasn’t been a priority. How could it be?! We barely get the dishes done, the emails written, the baby bathed… well, you get the idea.
We’ve focused so much on keeping everything else together; we’ve forgotten that we have to keep ourselves together. It’s a trap a lot of new parents fall into, I’m sure. Our therapist has warned us about how many marriages end within the first two years of having a baby, and it’s not hard to see why.
Time, of course, is the biggest culprit. There just isn’t any of it. Now that Sona has returned to working full-time, getting up at 4:30 every morning, the evenings are a non-stop sprint to get things done. She gets home, exhausted, and immediately has to pump. We have to clean bottles. Make bottles. Make dinner. Clean up from dinner. Take care of random household chores. Oh, and did I mention that there’s a baby that requires a bit of attention? Weekday evenings are tough and, when we’re lucky, Finn goes to sleep about 5 minutes before Sona falls asleep. Alone time? Pfffffffft. What’s that?!
I can’t remember the last time we got a chance to cuddle on the couch–or in bed–without a baby. Or without being so tired that we both had drool pooling on the pillow before the lights were even out.
And exhaustion is another culprit. I’m lucky enough to get a good bit of sleep, as Finn is still sleeping 10-12 hours each night. Sona isn’t so lucky, though. She’s experiencing what we’ll both be experiencing come next semester: you go to work during the day, and then you come home to work at night.
And even if I feel well-rested, I’m usually pretty stressed out. I’m still trying to figure out how to do it all: the teaching career, the photography business, the blog (which is, right now, the only creative outlet that’s just for me), the baby. THE WIFE.
Between the exhaustion and the stress, Sona and I aren’t always giving each other the best side of ourselves. In fact, we’re usually giving each other the worst. We tend to everything around us–neurotically and obsessively–and then we save the leftovers for our marriage.
Lately, there hasn’t been much left over.
There’s other stuff, too. Like the fact that having a baby–and thinking hard about how you want to raise that baby–forces you to put every aspect of your lives under a microscope. I’ve been thinking harder about the things I want for Finn–and the things I don’t want for Finn. And I know Sona has, too.
Sometimes, the things we can tolerate for ourselves, we can’t tolerate for our children. And so, there have been lots of conversations about re-prioritizing. De-cluttering. Re-focusing our lives.
All of this amid the new parent identity crisis that rivals tween-hood.
So, we need to do better. We’re starting by making date night a regular thing. We’ve found a sitter we like, and we’ve already got several dates on the calendar–we’re aiming for twice a month!
But we need to do better in between date nights, too. I’m not sure where we should start, but we’ll get there. We’ll get more used to our new routine. Finn’s bedtime will start to scale back. Maybe (hopefully) we’ll get more comfortable with there being dishes in the sink and laundry piled in baskets.
Finn deserves to have two happy, loving mommies, but he can’t have that unless his mommies are happy, loving wives. We’re going to work on being better at that. We owe it to ourselves–not just to Finn.
(And, of course, I never would have written this without my wife’s permission. “I’m going to blog about our relationship,” is probably the most terrifying thing you can hear.) 😉