Love and Relationship After Baby

We are standing in love.

But our relationship has changed.

My hope in love has always been to find someone I can grow with.

I feel like my love for Jorden has grown. It feels deeper and more intense.

Learning to unpack these new feelings as a parent and his partner, have been hard.

It’s so funny to me when people make their love out to be this constant fairytale, when in reality love is constant work. Constant sacrifice, patience, compromise, failing then getting up together and trying again.

Even without a baby.

Don’t hide your cracks, we’ve all got em.

It’s okay to admit when things aren’t perfect, that doesn’t mean you don’t love someone. The internet and a fear of judgement bullies people into pouring out this “perfect relationship” image and it’s so backwards to me. Why aren’t we preaching about the work and about the endless effort in learning your partner? The work of unpacking each other’s baggage, and choosing to stay in it together.

Love is not glamorous.

That is why so many relationships fail, people are waiting for this magical moment, and when it doesn’t come… they give up.

Don’t let unrealistic expectations ruin a good thing.

But let me be VERY clear here, that does not mean put up with endless amounts of bullshit. We had a strong foundation before our baby, trusting and loving. Once we added our little, it has begun to test those things. Raising a child together can bring out the best or the worst in someone, you really will begin to see your partner in a different light.

I have seen a baby strength relationships and tear them apart.

I am a firm believer in not staying together for the kids. After your children are gone, it’s you and your partner. Who do you wanna fill those days with? Develop a loving and nurturing environment because your child first learns love from their home.

Growing up in a “Stay together for the kids” home, showed me love in a very twisted light. I faced a lot of broken relationships because I didn’t understand until I was older what love should really look.

Choose your partner wisely, and continue to choose wisely after your baby.

Love is messy, complicated and straight up hard work. Especially after you add a child.

But If your relationship is rooted in love, everything else will fall in line and you will find the magic in the little moments you share.

Allow these moments to mold your relationship.

Our magic is found in the slow mornings where we all get to sleep in a little longer together. When we choose 5 more minutes of cuddles and kisses. It’s found when Jorden hops out of bed before me to change Hendrix so that I can sleep a little longer. It’s in the nights he puts down his xbox controller to say, “Babe, what can I do?”. It’s found in the giggles he shares with our baby, and the times he cleans the kitchen without me having to ask.

I wanted to share what has changed and how this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Especially being new parents, we are learning so much about each other through this time. Which in turn, helps us be better partners to each other and better parents to our baby.

He will know love from how we love each other and he will know respect from how we love each other.

Our fuzes are a lot shorter.

Our patience is thinner.

Our social lives are on pause.

Our sleep is well, what is sleep?

But our hearts got bigger.

With bigger hearts and more room in our bodies to occupy the love of our son, comes a lot more responsibility which comes a lot more anxiety and pressure.

We will argue about the tiniest of things, but they become so big because we are surviving on little sleep. Our arguments are not just centered around us, but the baby, our time and “Can I stay an extra 20 minutes at the gym?”

It’s a balancing act.

Our goodbye kisses are a lot fewer.

And that’s ok.

Once you recognize you two have been missing each other, fix it.

Sometimes we fall short in love but that’s not the end.

Love requires us to get a little uncomfortable, to face the hard stuff. The HEART stuff.

Learn and lean into it.

Before our baby we were all over each other! Very active sex life, worked out twice a day, so infatuated with our love and I mean honestly still in the “honeymoon” stage of our relationship. Going out all the time, being social and active! Then I got pregnant and our lives slowed down.

Which it should.

Our love remained but this is where our relationship started to change. We stopped doing a lot of things we used to, and people who once showed up for us… disappeared.

It was an adjustment, but we were so excited to be parents.

Although date nights are now us plus one, we have to make sure to take time for just us. It is more difficult to just get away us two, but it’s absolutely necessary so you don’t lose what you two have built.

Nothing can infiltrate our relationship because we both want to make this work. When one partner has one foot out the door, that’s when it complicates things. You both have to want to make it work after you have a baby. One person cannot be sacrificing while the other continues their life they had before the baby. Both parties have to make some compromises because it’s not just about you two anymore.