Love yourself - day 12 - Relationships



We're almost there - just two days to go until you're swamped in flowers and jewels and chocolate from your beloved, with a lavish night out at an expensive restaurant. Or possibly not. Perhaps just a quiet night in front of the telly with a mug of cocoa and the gift of a him doing the night feed. In today's Emma-Jane Valentine's Day Love Yourself post, we're looking at relationships.

Day 12 - Loving yourself, loving your man
Before you had a baby, you were Alice and Bob (or insert your own names here). Two individuals in love. Then along comes a baby. And all of a sudden things change.

All those kisses and cuddles you used to give to him, now get doled out on the baby. You stop talking about whether to go to Fiji or Barbados for your next holiday, and instead discuss the contents of this morning's nappy. Sleep is infinitely more appealing than sex. You start to resent that it's always you who has to pack the change bag and that it's you who never gets to leave the house while he heads out the door to work in the morning. You actually consider smothering him with a pillow when he merrily snores through the baby crying - again.

Before you know it, you start to wonder if you even love each other anymore. You realise that you've become a resentful nag who looks like a frump and you wouldn't be surprised if he was off chasing secretaries at the office, because what the hell would he see in you right now? And quite frankly, you're not even sure you care. But you do and you feel rubbish about it.

You blame yourself (well you also blame him but deep down you blame yourself). You start to think if only I looked better. If only we could go back to what we used to be like. I wish we could communicate more. And you once again beat yourself up about where you're going wrong. Worst of all, you think it's just you two that are having these problems while all those other smug, married parents are blissfully happy.

They're not. Almost every couple goes through a massive period of readjustment after a baby is born. Each of them is a new person (more on this subject tomorrow). They have new roles. And they're trying to figure out how to overlay these two new roles onto their existing selves. It takes a while. A long while. The key is to communicate. That can be much harder than it sounds. After months of sniping about whose turn it is to get up in the morning, you've probably forgotten how to just talk like you used.

So practice, whenever you can. Try to get out as a couple regularly - or simply spend an evening playing a board game and chatting over a glass of wine at home. You need to learn to love him in his new role. And you need to learn to love yourself in your new role. Give it time. Most importantly though, you need to realise that this is normal. Believe in yourself and you as a couple and it will be alright in the end.

Just in case you need something to nibble on while spending a romantic evening talking to your partner on Valentine's Day, leave us a comment below on how having a baby has affected your relationship or Like Us on Facebook, to be entered into our draw.