My partner and I stopped sharing a bed after having kids: why I love sleeping alone
Honestly, bed-sharing with my snoring, hard-to-wake husband might inspire more resentment between us, more sleep-deprived fantasies of pillow smothering. I don’t think sharing a bed would save a failing marriage, nor do I think separate beds would destroy a good one. But what do I know? I’ve only been married for 9 years.
How do I support a friend who says she wishes she didn’t have kids?
While the topics we discuss are different now than before kids, most of the time I think we’re getting along alright. Occasionally one of the new parents will make comments about wishing they were childless again, and I don’t know how to respond to these comments. I get blowing off some steam, but at what point is it more than just frustration and something I should be concerned with?
When love becomes thicker than blood
In January of 2012, I chose to become a single mother. I packed what I could I fit into our minivan and left my fiancé of five years, my “son” whom I had raised since he was six-months-old, and an unhealthy partnership. I parked in a parking lot, only blocks from our house and cried. My two sons slept quietly in their car seats.
You don’t need kids to “start a family”
I’m married, and, if things go according to plan, we won’t ever have kids. Or, as some of my family members have put it “start a family.” Now, I take issue with that phrase. Blood… children… a family needs not these things…
Deciding whether or not they wanted kids led this couple to break up (and they wrote a song about it)
Musician Jonathan Mann and his girlfriend Ivory recently decided to end their relationship — and one factor in the decision was whether or not to have kids. Rather than tell friends one by one, the pair wrote a song about the end of the relationship. As the song says, “There are just some things no relationship can survive.”
My prenatal expectations of parenthood caused me to lose track of my marriage
I thought I would immediately know how to do “do it all,” even after a gargantuan life change. And I also expected a lot from my husband. Because, for some reason, I thought that he would just know what I needed from him, especially when I didn’t know what I needed from him, and how to help me once the baby was home with us.
Ignoring your partner after you have a baby happens, and it sucks
Here’s sort of how it happened with me: one second I was a happy mom-to-be with a baby safely tucked up in my womb. The next thing I knew, the baby was born and all of the sudden I was 100% certain I had never loved anyone in the world as much as I loved this child — including my partner. Whereas prior to our child’s birth I had always looked to my partner for happy expressions, security, and love, I found myself repeatedly turning to my child.
Maintaining friendships without losing yourself in Mommyland
I started to feel a bit irritated that most of them didn’t seem to understand the limitations of late pregnancy. And then I took a step back and realized that a few short years ago, I was the one who didn’t understand. I remembered that what I should focus on was the fact that they wanted to include me enough that, in the end, they had me pick the activity so I’d have fun and be comfortable, too.