No one warns you about what happens to a marriage after you have a baby.
Sure, people talk about the sleepless nights, the dirty diapers, the never-ending exhaustion. They joke about how romance fades, how date nights become rare, how sex turns into a distant memory. But no one really talks about the loneliness.
No one tells you that the person you built a life with—the person you swore to love forever—might start to feel like a stranger. That the love between you might shift, might feel distant, might turn into something that barely resembles what it used to be.
That’s exactly where we are.
Before the Baby, There Was Us
Before the baby, we were us. We had inside jokes, late-night talks, spontaneous adventures. We laughed, we loved, we liked each other. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but we understood each other in a way that made everything feel okay.
We were a team. We fought sometimes, sure, but we always found our way back.
Then, we had a baby.
And suddenly, the foundation we had built didn’t feel so solid anymore.
The Distance That Grew Between Us
I don’t know exactly when the distance started. Maybe it was during those first few sleepless weeks when we were both running on nothing but caffeine and sheer survival.
Maybe it was when I started resenting him for how easily he could sleep through the baby’s cries, while I lay awake—exhausted, angry, alone.
Maybe it was when I realized that our conversations had turned into nothing but baby updates and household logistics.
“Did you grab more diapers?”
“She hasn’t napped all day.”
“Can you hold her for five minutes so I can shower?”
No more How was your day? No more I miss you. No more You look beautiful.
The silence between us started to feel heavier than the words we used to share.
And instead of reaching for each other, we started drifting further apart.
The Pain of Feeling Like It’s Failing
I never imagined feeling this alone in my marriage.
I have a partner. I have someone sleeping next to me every night. And yet, I feel like I’m doing this alone.
We barely touch. We barely talk. And when we do, it’s either about the baby or it’s short, clipped sentences filled with frustration.
I know he loves me. I know I love him. But love isn’t always enough when resentment starts creeping in.
Resentment that he gets to leave the house while I’m stuck in the same four walls all day.
Resentment that he gets to sleep while I’m up at 2 a.m., rocking our baby back and forth, praying for just one solid hour of rest.
Resentment that I don’t feel like me anymore—just a mother, just a caretaker, just someone who is constantly needed but never wanted.
I wonder if he resents me, too. If he misses the way I used to be before motherhood swallowed me whole. If he feels neglected, forgotten.
We don’t talk about it. Maybe because we’re too exhausted to. Maybe because we’re afraid of what the answer might be.
Trying to Hold On
I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to look at my marriage years from now and realize that we let it slip away.
But I don’t know how to fix this.
Do we need more time together? Probably. But how? We can’t even find five minutes to sit in the same room without the baby crying or a million responsibilities pulling us in different directions.
Do we need to talk about it? Yes. But where do we even start? Hey, I love you, but I feel like we’re falling apart. How do you say that without making things worse?
And what if it’s already too late?
What if we’re both holding on to something that isn’t working anymore?
Maybe This is Just a Season
Everyone says this is just a season. That it gets better. That one day, the exhaustion will fade, the stress will ease, and we’ll find our way back to each other.
I want to believe that.
I want to believe that one day, we’ll laugh again. That we’ll feel like us again. That the love that feels buried under stress and exhaustion will come back, stronger than before.
But right now, all I feel is the distance. The pain. The fear that we won’t make it through this.
And I don’t know how to fix it
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