I remember being pregnant with my first child (a fact my husband and I discovered a mere four weeks and one day after our wedding; yes, it was a fantastic honeymoon) and thinking that our baby was going to be that final bit of glue our relationship needed to stay cemented forever. And in a way, she was, teaching us more about ourselves and our relationship than we ever even knew to ask in our prekids life.
We were united in our love for our daughter and in our goal to give her the best life possible. We moved from the city to a leafy suburb with plenty of yard space and great schools. We sacrificed sleep and our social lives for a new kind of 3 a.m. party, the kind where you literally beg a newborn to go the f*ck to sleep, and then beg your spouse to try to get them down because your attempts aren't working. But we, as a married couple, were good. So, like the naive baby lovers we are, we decided to have another.
And that's when things got tough; like, make-an-appointment-with-the-marriage-counselor-because-we-need-a-neutral-referee-immediately tough. It's not that we had changed as individuals; it's not that we loved or enjoyed each other any less. It's just that having two kids, especially in the first few years, is insanely hard on a marriage. Here's why (and what you can do to make it better).
Three-and-a-half years after becoming parents of two, things have gotten way better in our marriage, but we've also put in the work to make it that way. Besides those occasional marriage counseling sessions, we've both made an effort to make time for each other, on date nights or even a few minutes before bed, and we've also made an effort to connect more there, too (even when one of us — yeah, that would be me — doesn't initially feel like it).
We've learned that we can't just "wait for things to get better" and instead need to be proactive about communicating, both when things are good and when they're headed south. And we both try to stay on top of all the things we know our marriage needs (scheduling sitters, asking for alone time and nights out with friends, avoiding stressful situations with extended family, not holding onto resentments, etc.). Our kids are tough, but these days, we're even stronger.