"New Mamas of Spirtual Awakening in Our Marriages" roll call - Page 12

[mystic~mama]

bye May May, I'lll see you around



loved ~~I truly wish you, your children and h all the best~~


I will be saying my goodbye also, I finally realized it was over about a month ago. We are leaving here on Monday and going home! I cant wait to see my *family*! :

blessings to all you mamas and to all the mamas who come across this thread, may you find strength and inspiration here and within your self

[MsMoMpls]

It is kind of funny that this support for marriage thread is dying... I bowed out a long time ago because my marriage is pretty good. Not sure who will be left.

Good luck to all you wonderful powerful women who are doing what is best for yourselves and your children. I have been touched and inspired by your stories and have learned much from you all.

[ankh]

Well I'm here.

[tug]

I'm still here and still need support and ideas! my marriage is also mostly good (dh is wonderful, fully takes on half of child care and cleaning responsibilities) but we have a few issues.

so, here is a question.

i read somewhere that for the first year or couple of years after having a baby, the baby (or babies) fulfill all of a woman's need for intimacy, particularly if she is breastfeeding. clearly, that leaves daddy out in the cold. for me that seems to be true. thoughts anybody?

[lilgreen]

Tug... I can vouch for that. At least I think so. I'm not sure what it is, but I have zip, zero desire for intimacy with dh. I've mostly attributed it to our problems, but I suppose that doesn't account for no sex drive... not even fantasizing. This, in itself, has been a major 'issue' in our relationship.

Interesting. Where did you read this, do you know?

lilgreen

[tug]

i read it on another message board where one of the mamas said her midwife told her that.

it just makes sense to me. i am like you. no desire and it's not because of other issues. it makes the issues.

the sad thing is that the advice i have read seems to be:
1. pay attention to dh because the more you do the more you will feel like it
2. leave your dh because you don't need him
3. wait it out because eventually your mama hormones will relax a bit -- like when you wean.

none of those options really suits me, so i am trying kind of my own thing. i am trying to work out and do yoga. somehow i think that separating myself a bit from the kids and creating a "me" space in my head will also create a "him" space in my head. i don't know. i guess i'm kind of desperate 'cause things are pretty bad sometimes. he is helping too by working out a lot himself to lose weight and get more in shape.

[MsMoMpls]

The research on marriage definately points to a dramatic decrease in marital satisfaction following the birth of the first child, even though satisfaction in life can go up. I think, especially modern couples, are struggling with how to me et new expectations than anyone's parent's struggled with- how to partner, while putting the needs of children first. I was really lucky that having been a mom for a really long time, when my husband became a father when Joey was born, I kind of knew what to expect. Becoming a mom changes women in such a profound way and either her partner either gets behind you or positions himself in competition with the baby (where he will always feel like a loser). Since I was already firmly a mom, and Paul was the one going through the transformation, I think we have managed better than some. Paul still complains about the lack of time and energy for sex but he doesn't blame me or the boys (much), he sees it as part of our committment to parenting. I miss the connection, but don't see how it can really happen in the time that we make available for us. I can't do intimacy on fast forward... sex maybe but not intimacy, that requires real time.

[mamameg]

I'm here, too.

Maureen, I am intruiged by this intimacy conversation. I agree, sex can be done in a quickie style, but intimacy... no way. DH and I are struggling with this right now. But where do we find the time? Our counselor suggested that we find a sitter we trust and make plans to get a hotel room (even if we stay in town so we are available for emergencies) and give ourselves the gift of 24 hours alone together. (The thought alone makes me well up with tears... I miss him so much!) The wife and woman part of me thinks this plan sounds DIVINE, but the mama in me feels apprehensive and I'm not sure about it.

It might not be the most AP approach -- I've read threads around MDC before about people who are strict about never leaving their kids, and I can appreciate that standpoint, and sometimes fall into that mindset -- but I think my DH and I NEED this time together. Also, the couselor has also suggested that it will benefit the children to allow them to see that we trust other people to care for them. This sits well with me, but I'm not sure if I'm rationalizing or what. I'm curious about what some of you on this tread think about this. How do long overnight trips away from kids fit into an AP philosophy? Can they co-exist? Opinions?

Somewhere in all the day to day, we seem to have lost that deep, intimate connection and I'm desperate to get it back. I may just have to say to hell with AP this time. My marrige is at stake and I think that's more important right now.

[ankh]

Originally Posted by mamameg

I'm here, too.
It might not be the most AP approach -- I've read threads around MDC before about people who are strict about never leaving their kids, and I can appreciate that standpoint, and sometimes fall into that mindset -- but I think my DH and I NEED this time together. Also, the couselor has also suggested that it will benefit the children to allow them to see that we trust other people to care for them. This sits well with me, but I'm not sure if I'm rationalizing or what. I'm curious about what some of you on this tread think about this. How do long overnight trips away from kids fit into an AP philosophy? Can they co-exist? Opinions?

Somewhere in all the day to day, we seem to have lost that deep, intimate connection and I'm desperate to get it back. I may just have to say to hell with AP this time. My marrige is at stake and I think that's more important right now.

I have been battling with this concept too. Surely it is more beneficial for us to to be together and happy, than never leaving our children?

We are both way off leaving them for a night, we don't go out without them, we probably have 6 times since Liam was born(3 1/2 yrs) and I sleep with the kids, him in the other room. We have some time together in the evenings but no sex..ever.

I know if we had this time back, just a little of it, our relationship would improve. It's finding the balance...We are not leaving our kids overnight for a long time, I know that, but we are working on finding a babysitter so we can have the odd date night.

dh is talking now about getting new beds so we can all sleep together again, so now I'm just flippin' confused ( he's been going on about wanting his wife back etc)

[lilgreen]

I just wanted to update that after being on a waitlist since early April, DH and I finally got into counselling (2 weeks before my due date, nonetheless). We start next week.

I'm very optimistic.... at least today. If I don't think too much about the future and focus on the moment, I seem to do ok. I find it so much easier to just be with dh without thinking about the past or future since we have such different goals and wants out of life. Living day to day, moment to moment works best for us right now.

It can't last since we need to make some decisions about our future at some point.... where we will live once we're out of the university family housing, what my career path will be, when we'll have more kids, etc.

But, for now, we have been sharing in the pleasure of spending time with ds and it's been good... although ds seems to be our only common ground, it certainly is an important one.

As for the time to ourselves idea... I agree it sounds good. I think before we do anything like that, though, we need to be at a slightly better place with our relationship. There has been too much resentment and disrespect to want to do that and to be able to enjoy it.

I'm hoping this counselling will help us learn to respect our differences and learn to appreciate eachother for who we are as people. Once that begins to happen, then we'll call in the inlaws to babysit for a night. (Although with another one due in just days, we have lots of time before we could feasibly get away for a night). Until then, I think the odd dinner date or walk would be all we could handle.

Anyways, I'm not sure if anyone is still interested in this thread, but it feels good to just talk about it, regardless.

Thanks and take good care,
lilgreen

[tug]

lilgreen - congrats on getting in for the counseling. i really liked it when we did it. we had to stop when i got put on bedrest. dh liked it at first and then suddenly decided that it wasn't helping. still, it was useful for me to see the ways in which we were doing certain things. now, i can at least identify what's going on and tend to get not sucked into it as much. plus, it did help me see how important respect is. and i do sometimes tend to be not respectful -- with dh, with my dad who lives with us, with the animals...probably with myself too...

i hope you will be able to have some time alone. it is really important. when we're sort of on the outs, we still use our time alone to go see a movie or something so we don't have to do the heavy talk thing but can enjoy being grownups together.

someone said --was it on this thread? -- that if we don't work on the relationships with our dhs when the kids are little, what will we have left when the kids grow? it's sometimes hard to remember that this time with little ones is really short.

hm, now i've made myself sad with the shortness of childhood thought...

[ankh]

I'm glad things are looking up Lilgreen.

I feel a bit lost about this thread really. Maybe a new one needs to be started, just to freshen thigs up a bit? I think a lot of us need some support and encouragement in our marriages and having so many changes happen in this thread may have knocked us off course a bit.

Nothing wrong with a new start eh?

Any opinions on this?

[tug]

sounds good to me.

[ankh]

Ok.. I'm crap at catchy titles etc. I'll have a think.

Hopefully Tug or someone else can come up with something inspiring.

[mamameg]

I think a new thread would be good. Do we need a new name? How about keeping the same name, but just starting a new thread for August?

[tug]

Same goals, new thread:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=321343