How Your Relationship Changes After a Baby
Episode 5: How Your Relationship Changes After a Baby with Rachael’s Husband, Marley!
Join Rachael and her husband Marley as they get real and personal and talk about what they miss most about life before kids and the biggest ways they think things have changed since becoming parents. In this episode we discuss:
planning for the birth of a baby together
how relationships change after the first baby, versus second or third
the hardest part about being a new dad
their thoughts on date nights and vacations without their kids
how sleeping arrangements do or do not affect relationships
advice for expecting dads or partners
Marley is a clinical social worker from San Francisco, CA and a dad of three!
Listen to the full episode
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Rachael: Welcome to the No One Told Us podcast. Today we have a very, very special, extra special guest, my husband, Marley.
Marley: Hi everyone.
Rachael: And I think this is going to be a very highly anticipated episode because every time we do Q&A’s and have little snippets of you on my Instagram page, people really enjoy hearing your perspective and I think part of that is because you share great insights obviously, but also there's not a lot of dad perspectives out there. So I think it's nice, it's just nice to have.
Marley: That’s very kind of you to say.
Rachael: So the particular topic we're going to talk about today is relationship changes after baby or babies. And I think this is a really important topic. There was a Gottman Institute study or survey or something that found that a lot of people, the majority of people, 67% of couples report a drop in relationship satisfaction for up to three years after the birth of a baby, which definitely tracks definitely makes sense. I can see how that is a stat, but I also think even though it's the majority of couples that go through that, it's not talked about all that much. Were you expecting our relationship to change after a baby?
Marley: I mean I think sure. I was expecting it to change some. I don't know that there had been much conversation in my life by older generations or even peers who had had kids before us about what to expect or the impact it's had. I think that there's probably, I mean I know that there is sort of a lot of shame and a lot of paranoia about it being a reflection on your relationship.
Rachael: Totally. There was this one TikTok I posted a few weeks ago and got a lot of heat for. People were really mad at me for saying that it's kind of delusional, I didn't say it in these words, but kind of delusional to assume that your life is not going to change at all after you have a baby and that everything will just be exactly the same. And I don't know, I guess that could potentially be true for some people if they maybe have just one kid or if they have a really easy baby. That was definitely not our experience with our first though. I felt like everything changed.
Marley: I felt like everything changed and now we're obviously on our third and we know that it can be hard and it can get better. You can definitely regain so much of what you had at the beginning of your relationship and so much more because you've bonded. You've gotten so much closer having these experiences around children. But I certainly understand that couples that are self-conscious when they're in the midst of it and they don't want to talk about it because maybe they're just concerned that they're not going to come out of it, that this is actually “the beginning of the end.”
Rachael: And I think so much of what we see on social media plays into that. Everybody just assumes that a baby should bring you closer together and that you shouldn't struggle, but also I think mean we can just start I guess with talking about our first experience, but if you or your partner are dealing with postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety, that can also make it seem like your relationship is just the last thing on your mind. You're just in survival mode and thinking about going to couples counseling or making time to go on dates or to be intimate, all of that just seems so far outside of what you're capable of at that moment.
Marley: Yeah, absolutely. And having a baby is hard.
Rachael: It's a lot.
Marley: It's a hardship. It is certainly something that you have to take on. I think couples that would struggle with any sort of hardship in their life, this can be one that exacerbates some of the fissures in a relationship, but for a lot of people it also makes things stronger. It allows you to work together. It allows you to be a team and navigate all of those things as a partnership. And while it might seem bleak at times, it can really help build a stronger foundation.
Rachael: I think that's an important point, too, is that sometimes it just kind of highlights the things that are already maybe not huge problems. Every relationship has its issues, but it definitely highlights things like lack of communication or resentments or things like that and it can make those things feel a lot bigger or a lot worse.
Marley: Yeah, how you treat each other when you're exhausted, when there's a screaming baby that doesn't care.
Rachael: Well, that's why we made that rule. I think we made it with Otto, right? It was our first, we made this rule.
Marley: Don't take anything seriously said in the night.
Rachael: Yeah, do not take anything said in the middle of the night seriously. Every morning you get a clean slate because I said some real, real fucked up stuff to you in the middle of the night when I had a baby on my boob all night long who would just not settle down. I hadn't slept. I was such an anxious mess.
Marley: A lot of that was informative for us. I think that when Otto was born, you initially wanted me to be up with you in the night, but then when all he wanted to do was nurse and I'm sitting there trying to rub your back…
Rachael: Get off me.
Marley: Or say encouraging words to you, you were like, you're not doing. I was like, okay, well….this would have been good in theory.
Rachael: We figured that one out that it made more sense for you to kind of be more rested during the day so that you could take care of me so that I could take care of him. That's another thing I got a lot of hate for on TikTok was saying, if you're exclusively breastfeeding, it might actually be worth it to just let your partner sleep. People really did not like that advice.
Marley: I don't think that you would've liked it the first time.
Rachael: No, I wouldn't have. And it doesn't make sense for every situation of course, but I think there is this idea, especially when you have your first baby that we are going to split everything. It's going to be a 50/50 partnership. I love that for you, if that's what you're thinking, you might have an amazing partner who's very domesticated, like you do all the chores, you do so much with the kids, you're so involved in hands-on, you're an amazing partner. It still could never be 50/50 and that's just the reality.
Marley: What you don't think we're doing 50/50? I'm just kidding.
Rachael: So I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble out there. It can't really be 50 50 all the time, but I feel like if you're both giving your 100% towards the cause, that's sometimes the best you can do.
Marley: For a non-birth parent. That does mean though, that if there is a task at hand, and you're trying to figure out who is going to do it. It's gotta be you.
Rachael: You kind of took over all the dog stuff, all the cleaning in the house, all the finances, communication with our families. I really was just focused on keeping the baby alive and look, they're all alive and I did it, so yay me. Okay, so what do you think was the biggest shock after our first baby? How do you feel like our relationship changed the most? Was it time together? Was it intimacy? What do you feel like was the biggest surprise?
Marley: I think it was just, and this, I acknowledge this varies from couple to couple baby to baby, but for us it was just how much attention we had to pay to the baby and I know how incredibly dumb that sounds.
Rachael: Turns out babies need attention all the time.
Marley: And I think, I mean what I thought about or what I missed the most from life was that you could just kind of live your,
Rachael: Yeah, you can be selfish, you can do whatever you want.
Marley: You can just pay attention to like, oh, I feel tired today so I can be, I'll just take it easy. Or hey, I feel like having a fun spontaneous day. Hey Rach, why don't we just walk across the city and pop into bars and go,
Rachael: Oh, that was such a fun day, great day.
Marley: But you can't do that stuff. And even when you plan for everything and prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for the challenges that might come in the day, you just can't really anticipate how it's ever going to go. And so I feel like what I miss most is just the control that we had over our lives.
Rachael: And the autonomy. Do you feel like there are things that we should have done to prepare? Looking back now, I mean I know it's been almost six years, but I talk about this with new parents a lot, is make a plan before your baby even gets here. Who's going to do, how are you going to handle this scenario? I feel like there's so much emphasis on preparing for birth. I mean we took a birth class, we went to this birth class every single week for what, six or eight weeks or something. Imagine if we had taken that type of time and effort and energy into our relationship prep before the baby came. I don't know, going to therapy once a week for a few months or something like that I feel like would've been so worthwhile. Do you feel like we were prepared at all?
Marley: I don't feel like we're prepared.
Rachael: Or can you be prepared? I guess?
Marley: Yeah, I think if we had had a class similar to our birth prep class where knowledgeable people really talked about all the various scenarios that might come up in the first few months or year of having a kid and not necessarily giving you a plan but sort of giving you choices and options of how you might want to follow things
Rachael: And just things to think about.
Marley: I think one of the big things that sort of stressed us out early on with our first kid was that we had plans, in sort of, not rigid, but we had some fixed ideas about how we were going to do things.
Rachael: Like what?
Marley: I mean we had ideas about sleep and I mean that's the big one.
Rachael: Most of those came crashing down.
Marley: But how we were going to do things together and we were going to try and get the baby so that both of us could feed equally and some of that stuff worked and some of it didn't. But I think that we didn't know it was okay to go a different way. And so I think we maybe tried to stick to a blueprint too long that wasn’t working for us and that was a source of stress. It's the same thing with parents stressing about their kids not hitting milestones at the exact moment they're told that some book.
Rachael: Yeah, that's so real.
Marley: And so I think that sure, have a loose, a working plan, have a fluid plan, but if it doesn't work, make sure that you're kind with yourself and allow you and your partner just to make adjustments on the fly. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think maybe I don't need you up in the middle of the night with me because you staring at me just makes me more angry.
Rachael: I think probably the most helpful thing, at least for us would've been kind of a mental healthcare plan where it's like if you see these signs, if you see this from me or if you see me behaving in this way, that is a red flag and cause for concern and this is how I would like you to approach me. Because looking back now, we obviously can see pretty clearly that I had postpartum anxiety after our first, we had never really even heard of that. I mean, you're in the mental health profession and still this is stuff so just not talked about. It's not common knowledge. And also for a lot of the moms or the birthing partners listening, your partner might also show signs and symptoms of being depressed or being anxious. It's one in 10 I believe, of non-birth partners experience some type of postpartum mood disorder. And so those signs, researching those, knowing what to look for and knowing what your partner would want you to do to help them is also so valuable. I think that's one thing that, I mean, I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but one thing we did really right with our third is that we were both in therapy before she was born and just we knew what to look out for as far as that kind of stuff.
Marley: And the experience obviously helped. I mean the first time around with Otto, certainly
Rachael: When you don't know what you're doing, it's just a whole other layer.
Marley: And just in the mental health field regularly, it's hard to know when something is just due to extraordinary circumstances that's short term or if it's something that's going to be ongoing.
Rachael: And so to that point, let's talk about, because I think all in all, our first postpartum experience, even though it was really hard, really intense, it just is for most people with your first baby. I think our relationship actually was in a pretty decent place other than me cussing you out in the middle of the night. Luckily the rule that we made up benefited me and so he always forgave me in the morning. So that was great. But I actually think overall we kind of got back on track after him pretty quickly and pretty well. I think we were a team with him and that all really fell apart after our second.
Marley: It certainly changed with our second… with Otto, we were both able to concentrate all our energy with the same kid. So we were having these same experiences. We were paying attention to the same thing,
Rachael: But we were kind of like a team. It was us against him in a way. Not in a bad way, but it was you and I were both so invested in this one little person and I think once Noe was born we kind of split up to divide and conquer and we might've done that a little too much.
Marley: I think so, yeah, I think that we, instead of being knowledgeable about everything with both kids, I sort of took Otto as my kid and you took Noe.
Rachael: Yeah, we each took a kid and said, see you later. see you never.
Marley: I think that we made that plan before Noe was born that
Rachael: Yeah, I was really worried about how he was going to do with you being, I don't know why I even thought that way. He had already been used to you being his sole person. When I went back to work as a teacher, you were his primary caregiver, but I don't know, I just thought we need to prep him for me not being available at bedtime, so you need to take over bedtime when I'm six months pregnant or whatever it was.
Marley: It was a change. And I think consequently it also impacted my bonding with Noe because I didn't get a lot of that alone time with her. I didn't get a lot of that really, really rich experience when you are responsible for everything. When I was on paternity leave with Otto, I didn't have to really think about her feeding. I didn't have to think about her naps and because of that I missed her being really close to me and her being lying and comfortable with me for doing all of those things
Rachael: Well, so for some context here, Noe was born, our middle daughter was born at the end of January 2020. So by the time she was about five weeks old, you had just gone back to work and COVID hit, obviously Otto's daycare was shut down. She was now home with me full time. I was starting this new sleep certification, starting this new Hey sleepy baby page. We had a lot going on. You were an essential worker and you had to go to work and this was obviously very early pandemic. It was very scary to have a newborn. Nobody knew what was going on. I remember every day you would come home from work and strip off all your PPE and put everything right in the washer and go take a shower. We were just so scared of contaminating the house and the baby. So like you said before, some of it was probably just life circumstances and the circumstances of the world and the time that we just happened to be postpartum in, but none of those things were great for our relationship.
Marley: No, they weren't. I mean COVID was a pretty awful time for most people early on. I was really anxiety ridden when I was “deployed”. That's the terminology my employer used, to go be an essential worker. So I was worried about that. I was worried about our family. We also couldn't see a lot of our other support system. We couldn't see my family, we weren't seeing friends
Rachael: And they usually help us so much. So we were just all of a sudden drowning with no childcare. Like probably most people listening that had a child during that time. So you guys know, it was really, really tough. Whenever we talk about this, it's hard to tease out why our relationship struggled so much during that year and during that postpartum period. And I think a large chunk of it was just that we had obviously so much stacked against us and so many life stressors. We were also moving during that time, which I mean why did we choose to do that?
Marley: I dunno, there was a lot going on. I mean there was a lot of social unrest in the wake. There was George Floyd, there was the political stuff, there were so many things going on and it was hard not to let that stuff impact your mental health.
Rachael: Yeah, the world just felt extremely heavy.
Marley: Yeah, it did. I think that neither one of us handled it very well individually and then we were sort of siloed in these experiences parenting.
Rachael: We weren't connecting as a team very much.
Marley: No, it was hard to get away to just do things as adults. There was nowhere for the kids to go. Normally, I think that I would be the one to try and catch that and my head was too wracked with anxiety and stress and I think you were going through something really substantial.
Rachael: Yeah, I mean just talking about mood disorders. I remember this one weekend very specifically, I think Noe was maybe three or four months old and we had decided to try to get out of the city for the weekend. So we rented a house, where were we? Albion or something and we were driving and I just remember saying out loud for the first time, I think I'm depressed. And there was just not very much reaction from you, which I don't know what exactly I was wanting you to say or if anything that you said would've been the right answer, I truly don't know. But I think you just didn't really know what to do with that because it was just another thing to worry about.
Marley: Yeah, I remember not taking you seriously because I thought that you had maybe just watched a TikTok video of somebody self-diagnosing themselves as having adhd.
Rachael: So lesson to all partners, believe your wife or whoever, when she says she thinks she's depressed, take that seriously. Please.
Marley: Another word to all partners. If they don't get it the first time, don't hesitate to just say it and say it again.
Rachael: Okay. So I was supposed to really just hammer it home. How many times would I have had to say it?
Marley: Just twice I think. Okay.
Rachael: We can laugh about it now.
Marley: But it was dark. It was not good. I think because I didn't pick up on it.
Rachael: I self isolated. Totally. And so we started kind of sleeping separately, not because of this necessarily. It just was easier at the time because we were moving and we wanted to have the safest situation possible for Noe to bed share with me. So it just was what it was for a few months where we were sleeping separately. And I actually wanted to ask you this. Do you think that that contributed to us drifting apart or having a harder time as a couple? Was that we were sleeping separately or when we had Noe in the bed for that matter, once we did have our bed back, our king size.
Marley: When I think back on that time and the struggles that we were going through, I don't think about it. I'm sure our parenting struggled in some ways, but I don't think that it really impacted all that much. And having Noe in the bed never came to mind as something that I resented or didn't want. I mean, I was a willing participant in it. I think with all of the challenging stuff with the world going on, I was really happy to have our baby close with us. I think taking the approach that we took with Otto, another room trying to endure X amount of crying before responding, I wouldn't, my nervous system would not have been able to handle that. It was a lot with Noe and having this sweet little goofy baby between us was sort of just a nice sweet reminder and it felt like I was sharing a bed with Otto and you were with Noe. It just felt like we were close to our kids.
Rachael: That's what we were prioritizing at the time.
Marley: And all I wanted to do was have some control over, hey, this crazy, crazy world, I just want to be there for my kids and I want them to know that they are just safe, secure, and unconditionally loved no matter what happens. And that felt good as a parent, and I know maybe our relationship struggled because of that, but certainly it made me feel good from the perspective of a parent.
Rachael: Yeah. It's funny because there's this topic that's been making headlines in the last few months and the last few years actually called sleep divorce. Have you heard anything about sleep, divorce or seen any talks about it?
Marley: I think you and I have different feeds.
Rachael: So maybe it's just me, but yeah, it's like becoming more of a thing that not necessarily just people who are parents but couples in general are deciding to sleep separately for whatever reason. And I actually didn't really mind it. I don't know. I love sharing a room with you and sharing a bed with you and stuff, but not because I need to sleep next to you while we're both unconscious, it's more about we're going to hang out at night and read our books or watch TV or talk or be intimate or do whatever. And then if there's a baby in your room, it's obviously harder to do those things. But the actual sleep itself, I don't really care if we're together or not.
Marley: That's not even true. Every time I go away you're like, oh my God, I have a headache because I didn't sleep because I missed you so much because I can't sleep without you.
Rachael: That's different. I'm talking about sleeping separately in the same house. I need to know that you're in the house. Otherwise you're right. I cannot sleep. I'm way too anxious. I don't know how people do that, but if you ever had to travel for work or something, I'd have to come with you. I would just be a groupie following you to wherever you had to go. I truly cannot sleep by myself. It's also crazy that people expect babies to sleep alone because I don't know. Anyways, there was this survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that showed that 35% of the people who responded were sleeping in a different room from their partner consistently. And 15%, or sorry, occasionally were 20%, which I thought was really interesting that almost a third, and actually it was even more when they broke it down by age group. So 43% of millennials are willing to find their own sleep spot. About 35% of people that answered actually were. So I thought that was interesting. I don't know that I would want to do that again or make it a habit.
Marley: I wouldn't want to do it again. I think even if we had the option, I think I enjoy having our own space, yours and my space.
Rachael: Here's the thing though is I hear this all the time from mostly moms who are saying, I need to get my baby out of my bed. My husband's at his wit's end, he wants the baby out. And that kind of breaks my heart too, putting all this pressure on not just the baby obviously, but on the mom. And while I get the husband's perspective, I'm also, I just want to slap him sometimes and be like, this is so temporary. Can you please just suck it up if this is what's easier for your wife or this is what your baby needs right now. Can you just suck it up? Why can't you, I'm not talking to you.
Marley: I know you're not talking to me because I agree.
Rachael: But it frustrates me.
Marley: And I think it's challenging. There are some men in my life who are particular about their sleep…
Rachael: I wonder who you're talking about.
Marley: I think you probably have an idea, but it wouldn't work for them. And I think that..
Rachael: And that's fine. That's fine.
Marley: And it's challenging. I think when you have, you ask me a lot sometimes in your q and a’s, what would people ask all the time? What would you say to a partner who doesn't want to bed share and would rather sleep train. If the mom does want to bed, share. And it's challenging because whatever advice I may have, if you're not on the same page, it can obviously cause resentments. And these are one of the hard things as you need to navigate as a couple is trying to have these hard conversations and expressing your needs and your thoughts and then making compromises. I mean, I would suggest, hey, this is a really, sleep is a challenging thing for a lot of families. I know not all families, but it is challenging for a lot of families. And so if you can compromise and make sacrifice so that the person who is ultimately maybe doing the majority of the heavy lifting trying to figure this thing out, is inconvenienced less.
Rachael: Yeah, I mean whatever gets everybody the most sleep is going to be the most beneficial for the families functioning. So that's kind of where I stand. It’s like let’s not pressure anybody to do something that they're not comfortable with. Let's figure out a way for everybody to get sleep and for everybody to get their needs met. And I guess maybe I'm just being harsh, but the dad in this scenario that I'm talking about, their needs might not be at the top of the priority list.
Marley: No, I mean I'm sure.
Rachael: Do you think that that's fair or do you think that that's really messed up of me?
Marley: I don't.
Rachael: As a mother of a son who might someday be a dad?
Marley: No, I think that first of all, getting the baby to sleep is also the dad's responsibility.
Rachael: Okay, thank you.
Marley: In the scenario that you're describing, it makes it sound like he’s like, hey you really need to get this thing to sleep.
Rachael: But that actually is what happens sometimes. And actually a lot is that it's looked at as the mom's responsibility and if she can't get the baby to sleep in the crib or if she's not willing to sleep train the baby, it's like this huge issue in the relationship. Maybe we should just do a whole nother episode on this because it's a big topic.
Marley: And to that point though, if you do have things that are assigned to just one person, then you need to go with what that person’s opinion is. If you've decided that, if I say I'm going to take on getting the baby to eat, and I want to do baby led weaning or something, you don't then get to have opinions if you don't have the mental burden to figure it out and do it and pay attention to it, because it takes a lot of learning and practice and mental energy, bandwidth, then you don't get to like…
Rachael: Criticize how you're doing it.
Marley: Have a contrary opinion from the sideline.
Rachael: Okay, that's a very good analogy.
Marley: You don't want to get the baby, you don't want to take on baby's sleep, then…
Rachael: Sleep somewhere else.
Marley: Then listen to what she needs and if that doesn't work for you, boohoo.
Rachael: Yeah, no, I think that's very fair. I'm glad we're on the same page about that because those types of messages really do upset me. I would just never want somebody to be pressured by their partner into doing something with their baby or parenting in a certain way that doesn't align with them, that can cause a lot of stress and anxiety and a lot of resentment. That guy is not going to get what he wants in the long run because his wife is going to resent him.
Marley: Yeah.
Rachael: Don't you think? I don't know. We'll maybe do another episode on this because I am getting fired up about this topic. Okay. So last thing I wanted to talk about was our third and how different it's been and how healing in a way the postpartum period with her has been. She's going to be a year soon, I can't believe it. But what would you say is the biggest thing that we did differently or that you think we did better? Or do you think it's just been luck because I have been more mentally stable this time and she's been a pretty chilled baby and we're just better at this? Maybe all the above. What do you think?
Marley: I mean, I think the thing we did differently was two practice runs beforehand. I mean we're….
Rachael: It’s true.
Marley: We're in such a different place. There's that. Who's the author that you like to talk about? Each kid didn't get the same parent.
Rachael: Oh, Gabor Mate. Yeah.
Marley: Gabor Mate. It's just so true. When Otto was born, you and I were
Rachael: Literally different people.
Marley: Different people. I was working, in grad school, doing an internship. We were not financially stable.
Rachael: At all.
Marley: We didn't know what we were doing. And now those things have changed. We were like, we have a stable living situation. We have stable income, financially secure, and we have five years of parenting experience. You have dove headfirst into this whole world about parenting. So you're constantly thinking about it and growing and learning and the kids have benefited. I constantly just think about the things that I would apologize to Otto for because….
Rachael: You know, I did apologize to him for sleep training him recently.
Marley: I do. I don't know if he's going to retain that apology.
Rachael: Yeah, I'll say it forever. I think that obviously the kids have benefited from us being better slash more experienced people than we were when we first started. And I think that that's just the journey every parent has to go through. I think, I mean, I'm an oldest child, so I'm sure my parents would say they made mistakes with me that they wouldn't make with my sisters, and that's just the way it is. There is no way you can really know or really prepare for your first kid. And we just have to kind of practice real self-compassion with the way we did things then because we were doing our best and we just didn't know what we didn't know. So I think our kids have benefited, but also I think we as individuals have benefited from that experience. And as a couple. And I think we talk about this all the time. The biggest thing really is just knowing that everything is a phase. And that everything is just temporary and you will get through the other side. And honestly, I think that's one big reason we decided we could have a third.
Marley: I think that we were able to weather some pretty serious storms. I mean, I think 2020 was such an incredibly challenging year on so many fronts and there were times in the midst of that that I didn't know how we were ever going to come out of it. I know it seemed like the world was just going to be like that forever and that we were going to be like that forever. But things changed and the kids grew and they changed and their personalities changed and you and I really started enjoying each other again through no big miracles.
Rachael: No, I know people ask sometimes. What helped you get through it? I wish I could say it was couples therapy or something. We both have been in individual therapy. We think therapy is amazing. We just never for some reason made the time to go together. It's probably something we'll do in the future. But yeah, I don't know if any one thing happened.
Marley: I think our stress levels went down and we were able to be more ourselves.
Rachael: Once the kids were a little older.
Marley: It really does get better.
Rachael: When you're not in survival mode anymore, you can see a lot more clearly, too.
Marley: And when you grow through it and you can see, oh wow, this can change. Even if you hit another hard spot again, then you at least have a point of reference that you can be like, oh wow, I know things have been challenging before and maybe it'll be like this for a week, a month, a few months, but it will change. And it's hard to endure that time before the change comes. But there's certainly hope hiding within the knowledge that it can and that it's not permanent and this isn't going to ruin your life because that's going to make you so sad. And it's going to impact the way that you exist through the world and how you take care of your kids and all that kind of stuff. So I mean I think self-compassion is also a huge important thing that we need to hammer home, is that just be kind with yourself. There are so many data points that come up through the course of a day in parenting and you're going to get a bunch of 'em wrong. It's just trying. It's incredibly trying. No matter how patient and smart and knowledgeable you are about all this stuff. It's just exhausting. And so if you get things wrong, which we all do daily, that's okay. Just so long as you are not complacent, you don't give into it. You're constantly trying to be better and learning from mistakes that you made. It's okay to be fallible.
Rachael: I think that's so true. What would be, I mean I ask you this every time you come on, Hey, Sleepy Baby. But what would be your biggest piece of advice for maybe someone who's expecting their first or maybe expecting their second and they're kind of scared or nervous about how their relationship with their partner might change, that they're going to maybe be going down a few rungs on the totem pole of priorities or they're going to get left behind. What would you say?
Marley: I would say that those fears are valid. That’s not my full answer, but yeah, there's another life coming in and your partner is going to be pregnant, breastfeed, do a lot of this stuff. And what having kids reveal to me is that I have a finite amount of bandwidth that I can dedicate to things. And I think that that pertains to most people. And so if your partner is going to be dedicating even more time to a baby or to another baby, it's really important that you are then able to dedicate time to take care of them. I mean obviously the kids too, you're both parenting together, but I agree that it's never going to be 50/50. So what you can do is take some of the stress off of your partner by taking care of their needs. But I think the important piece to add to that is it's important that you're getting your needs met, too. And so if you are looking out for your partner and your partner is maybe concentrating all of their energy on the kids and just trying to meet their own basic needs, like eating and sleeping whenever they can, that it's okay for you to look in other areas of your life to get your needs met. And I'm talking about family members, friends, and exercise. There are things that you can do to try to fill your cup that doesn't require your partner to pour more energy into you, just for a short period of time. I'm not talking about a lifetime, just talking about early stages of parenting when little kids are very dependent on moms. It's okay, you can feel like your needs are not being met and that you want to find ways to get them filled.
Rachael: So what would be an example of that? If you have an exercise regimen or a self-care regimen, trying to fit that in?
Marley: Trying to fit that in. But also if you want to talk to somebody about how hard parenting is or some of the challenges that you're going through, sure, you're going to talk to your partner about that stuff and it's nice to feel like you're going through it together. But if you’re both down about something and then it becomes like, oh my God, the baby's not sleeping. And you're both just sort of complaining to each other and it feels like you don't have a solution and it feels like talking to each other about it, it's making it even worse. Maybe talk to a friend about it, maybe talk to a family member, a parent maybe. Because you can also then talk more freely about frustrations that you're having that don't get caught up in blame or any kind of assignment of responsibility.
Rachael: I think you're so good at talking about your feelings and you love to talk about feelings.
Marley: Feelings are great, honor them.
Rachael: And I think a lot of people, in particular men, struggle with that. And so a lot gets bottled up and I think we don't have community anymore. A lot of people that you're mentioning like, oh, talk to your friends. And I don't know that a lot of people have a really strong core group of friends that they feel comfortable dishing all this heavy stuff onto. So that's also really hard.
Marley: It is hard and it's something, I mean obviously people listening to this probably already have kids, but trying to build a life outside of just your partner is really important. And this is something that I feel like I didn't even really embrace until recently, but that your partner, you're going to go through life together, but if you rely on each other to be everything, that's so much responsibility. And then when you have an addition of children and now they have to dedicate some of their energy elsewhere, then where are you going to get that from? I love the idea of going through life together and sharing all of the other things that you also pull in instead of just being like, I need you to be my lover, my best friend, my roommate, all of these things. It becomes a really tall order.
Rachael: Especially during this period where, like you said, you are so needed by these little people. And so yeah, it can be a lot. And it's also a tricky balance though, not wanting to put too much pressure on your partner to be your everything and to fulfill your every need, but then also making sure that you are checking in with each other and you are staying connected. That is also important too. I think I said the last thing was my last question, but I actually did have one more question that most people who responded to this question box wanted to know about, which was date nights and vacations, how we prioritize those, what we do. I think I've only talked about things that people hate on me on TikTok for, but I guess that's just the nature of TikTok. This is another TikTok that I made that people really did not like was that we don't necessarily prioritize very regular dates and that we don't go on vacations without our kids. That's just what we prefer. It's not a knock on anybody who enjoys date nights or vacations without their kids, but it's just not what we do. Do you think that that's been a mistake that we've made, or do you think that that's something that other couples get wrong? What do you think about date nights?
Marley: I think it worked for us.
Rachael: To have them very low pressure. We do them when we can, when we get a babysitter or actually now we need two babysitters because we feel like three kids on one person is a lot.
Marley: It wasn't super important. So we talked about that.
Rachael: You and I, we agreed about it.
Marley: When we do have a date every once in a while, it's fabulous.
Rachael: It’s so fun. Love it.
Marley: And every time we're always like, oh wow, this is fun. We should do this more often.
Rachael: I know. And then three months go by.
Marley: Well no. Then we get a call two thirds the way through dinner that the baby's screaming and we're like….
Rachael: Okay, that happened once to be fair, to poor Lenny. No, but you're right. I mean, every time we do it, we say it's worth it. We want to do it more. But again, it does kind of feel like sometimes it adds to that mental burden of planning what you're going to wear, getting a reservation, lining up childcare. It is a lot of stuff to think about. And I don't know, we're kind of like homebodies and it just has never felt like something we really had to do to keep our relationship strong.
Marley: No, and I would just caution if you and your partner are total extroverts and it's something that you….
Rachael: Yeah, some people love going out to people together.
Marley: Absolutely. It's something you need to feel alive then do it, prioritize it, and hopefully you have a baby that enjoys being taken care of by others. But I would also, for people who feel like they're supposed to do that but don't really want to, they kind of want to be at home with the baby. They kind of just want to chill for a while. Don't put that pressure on yourself.
Rachael: That's fine. And it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with your relationship or that you guys are weird. That's kind of where I was coming from with it too, because I know so many people are so well-meaning. But then when you're getting this pressure of like, oh, you guys have to get out, the baby has to get used to other people, or you need to make time for your partner, you need to go on a date night. Nobody has really ever said that to us. But this is again, something that I do hear. I don't think so. Although actually my mom, actually, mom, you do say this sometimes that we need to go on vacation and leave the kids with you, which might happen when they're like teenagers, but not anytime soon.
Marley: I think that's more about her wanting the kids.
Rachael: No, of course. Of course. And who wouldn't? They're adorable. But yeah, I think a lot of moms do feel this pressure to bounce back in every single way. Sometimes you do get anxious about leaving your baby, and I don't know if I can describe that to you because I don't know if you have ever felt that primal anxiety of being away from your baby, but it's a thing.
Marley: Are you kidding me? Of course. I've felt that.
Rachael: Okay. I didn't know if it was just a mom thing. I don't want to be exclusionary,
Marley: Turns out I love our kids too.
Rachael: Alright, well honey, thank you so much for joining me. This was really fun and I think we should probably do it again. Maybe we'll pick a different topic, but is there anything else that you want to add or say about relationship changes after kids?
Marley: Just allow yourself to evolve into a parent.
Rachael: Okay, I like that.
Marley: Yeah. Yeah.
Rachael: Because you do change.
Marley: You do. And it's okay. And if you're trying to hold on to that identity pre-kid, good luck.
Rachael: Good luck. Thanks babe. Love you.
