It's Like A Bad Phil Collins Song. Or Great, You Know, If You Love Phil Collins.

He's said it only a couple of times, mostly lightly, even in passing, but it never fails to unnerve me nonetheless--in spite of or maybe because of the inherent truth in it.

"It's like we're two people who happen to live in the same house.  It's like we're living separate lives, together."

It's not meant to be hurtful.  It's not even really meant to convey a problem from his perspective.  It's meant merely as an observation that's been inserted into a couple of conversations we've had about other things.

But it kind of makes me shudder.

Because it's kind of true.

I get up super early with two small kids.  I spend the entire day, almost every day, corralling, feeding, cleaning, wiping, changing, and herding.  With a side of becoming an indoor jungle gym-slash-drool cloth.  He gets up early and goes to work, braving a long-ass, awful commute and a hectic never-sitting-down-lucky-to-get-lunch-day.  In the evening, I'm juggling kids, trying to make sure only the dog is eating the dog food and trying to prevent his water bowl from becoming a mini-water table while at the same time, making WHATEVERTHEFUCK for dinner.  He is braving the long-ass awful commute back home and walking into controlled chaos. (Sometimes it's controlled. We have cable.)

We eat together and I take The Boy, he takes The Girl and we do baths and bedtime. 

Then he goes downstairs to do more work and I spend some time arranging and cleaning and then [fucking around on Twitter for a while] reading before collapsing into bed.  He's a night owl and I don't even know what time he comes to bed.

Then, you know. Rinse and REPEAT.

He and I have been together forever. Well. You know. Like 15 years or something like that.  Our relationship, our marriage, is solid.  Built on bedrock.  Having been together for 12 years, married for 8, before having kids has given us a couple of incarnations of our relationship, really.  Dating for 4 years before getting married, we were students, then professionals.  Married for the 8 years, we were professionals, working and getting promoted and having expendable income.  We traveled some.  We remodeled some.  We went to dinner and movies and shit like that.

And then we had two small kids.

We went down to basically one income. We travel less. We go out with the kids but not a whole lot without them.  The day to day caring for children, leaves me with less Nice at the end of the day.  It probably leaves me with no Caring For Someone Else, if I'm honest about it.  His job is stressful and demanding.  It's not easy, I'm sure, to have the sole responsibility of maintaining and providing for a family.  And although he never complains about it, I would be wicked stressed if the situation was reversed.

And so, there it is.

I don't think that there's anything wrong in our relationship.  I think that having two small kids, who rightly need a ton of attention and care, siphon so much of our finite physical/emotional energy, that our focus has shifted temporarily.

Does that make sense?

I just don't think that we're alone.  As strong and as deeply rooted as our relationship is, it's just not an easy time for the Couple Maintenance, if you know what I'm saying.

But, I think the reason it makes me shudder is that those very sentences are spoken thousands upon thousands of times. To, like, divorce lawyers. Or Oprah.  You feel me?

I am as sure as I can be of anything that The Man and I are long-termers.  I think, though, if we're living separately together, there has to be a liiiiittle more overlap.  Maybe we get a sitter and go to dinner and a movie (or maybe just dinner because *YAWN* I might not be able to make it through both.) Or, maybe I go to more of his baseball games with the kids in tow.  Or maybe I turn off twitter and go down into the basement and sit with him.  Or give him a back rub or bring him some cut fruit before I go to bed.

I don't want years to go by, with the only increasing busyness that comes with kids--when the bounce-house play dates turn into weekend-long travel soccer--only to find that we have stumbled into some tired but still painful cliche.

Because I love The Man so.  I really, really do.

I mean, you know.  That's how we ended up these Little Cute-Ass Time-Slash-Attention Suckers, to begin with.

Comments

[anne]

My kids are 11 and 4 now. When we had the 11 year old in 1999, we bought an orchestra subscription and a theatre subscription. We paid for it, it was on the calendar, we had a babysitter: we had to go no matter how tired we were and how good wearing sweatpants and sitting on the couch sounded. It was the best thing we every did. We've been married for 18 years and we still plan evenings out. We make an effort not to talk about kids. I read the paper and listen to NPR to make sure I have something to contribute to the conversation. (He's more social than I am, so it takes more work for me). I think in my head "if this was a blind date, I'd want to make sure he's glad I'm the one who showed up". We also talk alot about what we'll do when we don't need a babysitter anymore. We love our kids dearly, but being a good couple makes us better parents.

[jordan retro]

What sucks for me is that I feel like I have to make the effort. Scheduling dates or weekends or whatever it is. He'll tell me he had this great plan to bring his parents down so we could go away, but suddenly, those plans never come to fruition.

[Velma]

We still go through this, after 19 years of marriage. The Date Night is crucial, because otherwise it is really easy to stop connecting. Some phases of your marriage are different from others, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Like you said, we are in it for the long haul. Ebb and flow, and remember the love.

[Kelly]

This is transient. It will pass. In the meantime, sit down and figure out some small things both of you can do to put a little more emphasis on your relationship now.

But I have found that 'two ships passing in the night' stage does pass, just like that stage of infancy where you maybe get two hours total of sleep a night. Everything just gets much less intense, when the kids grow a bit.

[beanski]

really beautifully said. these are my exact feelings. i have told him before that i just hope there is something left once the little time-suckers get done sucking. it's a good thing they are totally rad or we'd have to put them up for adoption.

[jive turkey]

I never anticipated how having a baby would result in so much time apart as a couple (and we only have ONE). It sucks, and it's so, so easy to feel like we never see each other. But the summer has been awesome for re-connecting purposes. Being able to sit on the porch with some booze after the baby goes to bed and just shoot the shit has done wonders.

[jodifur]

Date night is the classic advice and I think it helps, but I think so does just making an effort to connect. Close the computer, put the kids to bed, make a nice dinner or order in and sit and talk. You don't have to go out to have a date. Open a bottle of wine (or not) rent a movie, just be together.

I read recently there are 4 major stress points in a marriage. The first year, when you have small children, when the children are teenagers, and when the children all leave the nest. I think you just have to keep working. Marriage is work.

[mom,again]

Next time he makes the comment, ask him what HE would like to do about it.

Date night can be a lot of effort, and a lot of concentrated and obligatory attention might not be the right way to solve the problem. I know some swear by it, but the few times we tried it, it seemed fake.

Our style was more like finding a few minutes a day. My husband is British, so our occaisional habit of having a cuppa sometime in the evening became a nightly ritual. Sometimes, well, too often, with some sort of dessert like item until we determined that we were not losing the baby weight. Making a pot of tea to share and sitting down to share it was nice. He was usually the one to offer and make the tea cause he was raised that way. I'm more likely to make proper hot cocoa with milk (not water and instant mix). Now that we are back in California, we finish off the pitcher of iced tea in the evening. Either way, the tiny bit of trouble taken to prepare a snack for the other, and the few minutes it provides the other to finish their task and switch their attention was nice. Even when all we ended up talking about was filling and emptying the baby and how we never had time/energy for anything except our job/the baby.

also, I realize that, like Swistle, we both had touching habits.

*sigh* now if I could just get my favorite sister in law to understand all of this and NOT LEAVE MY BROTHER!

[Amy Jo]

We're kind of in the throes of this also, and I can say that I'm confident it will get better with time. My oldest is 4.5, and he is soooooo easy right now. I can only imagine how much better it will be when my 3 year old and baby are older. Good luck!

[Marie Green]

Right now we are in a season where our kids take up MUCH LESS of our physical energy to keep everyone happy (our kids are 7 (twins) and 3 1/2)... Since our oldest are not YET uber-involved in sports, and our youngest has now been diaper free (but not pull-up at night free) for over a year... well, these things you are describing are oh-so-familiar, but not something we are currently experiencing. Or at least not to the degree as we have in the past.

I think that was a really long way to say "It gets easier".

[inannasstar]

Having a child has changed my marriage in ways that I never expected. I would skim over the parts of the baby books that talked about "nurturing your relationship with your husband" thinking..."whatever, we've been together for 9 years, I've got it covered". I had no idea how much I would be emotionally and mentally drained (physically, not so much because I only have 1 child) at the end of the day and CRAVE alone time. I love my child more than anything in this world, but I have to say that if we were childless, my marriage would be much easier.

[Melanie]

It gets easier.

[stljoie]

You are not alone. Your situation is not unique. But you are both missing enjoying each other. So what we found that helped was to set one day/night a week for ..... a date night. Something special, a dinner out, dancing, concert, whatever you don't do anymore. And have romance, be seductive, touch, light candles, step out of every day. Talk about .... not work or kids....memories of growing up, of meeting, rediscover what drew you together. If child care is a problem ... bet you have a friend with the same needs. babysit for each others time out. You can do this and it does make such a difference...something to look forward to

[Christine]

We are there with you as well. We have talked about it a lot and at least we are on the same page about it. Its temporary and when the kids are just a bit older and bedtime and mealtimes aren't such a hassle we'll be doing the date night thing. We both have a hard time with infants and that stage sucked the life out of us. Our girls are 3 and almost 1.5 now so we'll be getting out more starting with our anniversary in a few weeks. We are also planning on taking a long weekend trip next year.

I heard the funniest quote on one of my favorite shows. The wife wants to go back to college at night and the husband says, "NO! The evening is when we have our time together. You know, you watch TV upstairs and I watch TV downstairs." This is us to a T.

[Julie]

I totally hear you on this. I am looking forward to hearing what you are able to do to help yourself feel better because we are in this same spot (our kids are the same age as yours too). We are doing better than before because we took a week vacation (first EVER since our honeymoon) and that really helped us. We also put the kids (age 3 and 1, see? I told you they were roughly the same age) to bed together. That means one parent can do the entire thing start to finish (bath together, jammies together, then give him milk and put him down, then read her story and put her down)... meaning the other parent can do whatever he/she needs to do (clean up from dinner so the mess isn't staring you in the face afterwards, be on twitter :) or whatever, read books if it's been a particularly hard day). i have found that this little step helps me personally feel a) more appreciative and b) more recharged on my husband's days of putting the kids to bed. even though he then turns on his computer and works EVERY NIGHT, i still feel like hanging out with him so I will read in the same room or whatever, because I had those seconds to be alone. and the same is true for him. So that's our first little step.

For me, I find that date nights are more stress than they are worth when our kids are so little. the amount of work it takes to get the kids ready, the lack of time to clean up from the day, the fact that my husband then has to put in work hours after we get home... it's just not worth it for us right now. It's more reasonable for us to make the best of every day... that's not to say that I *won't* do the date night, it's just to say that when we do, he finds it so stressful that it isn't fun. It's so much better for us to make an effort day in and day out.

[anne nahm]

Sometimes I bitch to my mom about how I exhausted I am and how I need a break. Then I smile and say, "I know this is just temporary and so I should suck it up and deal."

Then my mom says, "Holding your head underwater for 10 minutes is just temporary too. But it'll still kill you."

It helps me get over myself and go on date night, even if it costs money and even if I fall asleep in the bathroom trying to find unexpired lipstick to wear. Once you get in the habit of going out, the energy feeds on itself. So go have fun with you and your sweet assed husband!

[The Domestic Goddess]

It is SO HARD. We've just decided we're ok with the sitting on teh couch being our big date for the week. There are more important things going on and our kids need our total focus. It just happens. We don't mean for it to be that way.

[Kristen]

I hear you on this - though we didn't have those years to make things solid beforehand.

I've had fleeting thoughts about the nonsense of marriage. Or really, the bullshit that it is because OMFG what kids do to you! Regardless of how awesome or great things were before. Maybe they weren't that way. Who knows.

It's yet to be determined if I'm a long termer. My kids are turning me into one - for fear that doing something to stir the pot might negatively affect them. Then I think that stirring the pot is what they need.

Then I just turn off my brain and watch True Blood.

What sucks for me is that I feel like I have to make the effort. Scheduling dates or weekends or whatever it is. He'll tell me he had this great plan to bring his parents down so we could go away, but suddenly, those plans never come to fruition.

It's like one more thing that I can't take care of right now. And so, surprise. I'm upstairs folding laundry. He's downstairs watching HGTV. And we enjoy our separate lives. Or "enjoy" them.

I know it's worth it for me to just suck it up and do it myself. And I have. But I'm slowly even losing motivation for doing that. I'm not even sure what we'd talk about alone together.

So I avoid it - and just seethe about the fact that he's not doing anything about it either.

[a]

Make the time. Go to bed a little earlier, and ask him to wake you up when he comes to bed - a little snuggling goes a long way. Get the sitter. Go to the baseball games as often as possible. It's work, but it's worth it. Maybe use that cable to get 10 minutes when he comes home from work to have a "Hi, how was your day" conversation. Besides which, it's always a good opportunity to teach the little ones that interrupting is not polite. :)

Also, work in some time for yourself. Refresh your own energy so you can meet his needs a little more. It's not all your responsibility, though. He's got to put the work away sometimes and arrange the date night sometimes.

Much luck...

[Clueless But Hopeful Mama]

My husband and I are in EXACTLY the same place. I so hear you.

The part that scares me is people who say they thought everything was fine until the kids disappeared into their own lives and they woke up one day to realize that they didn't know their partner anymore. Until recently, I didn't understand how that could happen. Now I get it.

[Tessie]

I have absolutely no authority to comment, since I'm, like, divorced and shit, HOWEVER. I really, really like this post, and I know it will be as helpful/soothing to other people as it was for me.

[Jenny]

"I am as sure as I can be of anything that The Man and I are long-termers."

I was pretty sure of that too. Married fifteen years, no problems, no fighting, no issues. I thought we were fine. I thought we were each busy with our own stuff, but that we both understood that life was just busy and hectic. We had four kids. He worked full-time, I worked part-time. It was fine. We had a good life, I thought. And he wasn't the kind of guy who would ever, ever, EVER do anything suspect. That just wasn't in him. He was THAT guy - a good man, a moral man, the solid guy who is honorable and dependable and decent.

But now all of a sudden it's I-love-you-but-I'm-not-in-love-with-you, and we-just-grew-apart, and he didn't mean for it to happen but he fell in love with someone he spends 8 hours a day with. And I should feel good because they haven't slept together, they're going to wait until he's divorced, because otherwise that would be cheating. It just happened, you and I were so distant and it just happened, he said. He's sorry to do this to me, but can't see living the rest of his life with someone who feels more like a roommate than what he has now, this soulmate connection. Life is too short, and he's sure that someday I'll find MY soulmate too.

Yes. Find the connection. Date each other. Make an effort. I wish I had.

[amy]

I hear you! I hear you! OMG it's so true. It's extremely easy to still be in love with someone, and to lose touch with them. Take that moment to touch them, to reach out to them, to kiss them, to watch them as they do what they like. Remember why you fell in love with them in the first place :)

[Sarahviz]

I call it living "parallel" lives. I mean, we're both THERE, but we're so not on the same track at the same time. I totally think this is the typical Married With Children scenario. I'd tell you it gets easier as the kiddos get older, but I'd be lying, since mine are now 8, 6 and 5 and I was nodding my head in agreement throughout this entire post.
You just have to make time for each other, I guess. It's so much easier than it sounds. *sigh*
But when you do go out on that occasional dinner date? It's so relieving to realize that "Hey, I really do like this guy."

[Swistle]

I really do think this is normal at this stage of life. I think of it not as roommates (who are living their own separate lives in a communal area) but as coworkers (who are working on a joint project in a communal area). Coworkers WITH BENEFITS heh heh.

One thing that makes it worse in my own coupledom is that I'm not an instinctively touch-oriented person. I find that if I even make an EFFORT to OCCASIONALLY skritch the back of his neck as I walk past, it makes a huge difference in his happiness level. I started thinking of it as one of those SIMS or Facebook games, where you have to click the buttons occasionally to keep the person/pet happy. The way I'm putting it, it sounds depressing, but for me it was like a sudden insight: even just pushing the button is SOMETHING, and actually HELPS. I guess I was thinking that if we couldn't be like newlyweds all the time, it wasn't worth investing what I DO have (even if that's literally 15 seconds)---but no! it IS worth it!

[beth from sj]

Wow, you summed this up perfectly. My kids are 10, 9, & 7 - when they were babies/toddlers I told my husband "I have some being on me or grabbing me or calling me all day long. I'm sorry, but at the end of the day I have no more to give." Saying it to him out loud made me realize that although true, it's not fair to him - I then made more of an effort to give attention and time to my husband. Nothing outrageous, but little things like what you just suggested you want to start doing for your husband...it makes a difference on both ends, believe me.

[Alias Mother]

I have nothing to say to this except: yeah. Yeah. On the one hand, the roommate-like existence that we've got going on seems inevitable. On the other, I want to fight it with everything I've got.

But when? And how? And where will the energy come from?

[becky]

Wow, does this ever resonate. My husband and I have been together 15 years, have 2 kids (5 and 2), and the only difference is that I work full time outside the home--but every single other thing you write could be us. We both have jobs that could take ALL our energy, if we let it (and he is in sales, so the more he works, the more money he makes, talk about hard to turn it off).

Anyway, what really helped us was just talking about it. We're not "talk about our relationship" people, so we went along, as roommates basically, for a while until things got kind of bad. And we just talked about it, and realized that we couldn't do it. Issa is right, I think. Making time...FORCING yourself to make time, is key. We avoided it at first because we both thought "we love each other! Quality time should just happen naturally!" But it doesn't.

So, we still live crazy lives, and many are still lived separately. They have to be, or else we wouldn't get anything done. But it's better, because we know there's a foundation below us. We make time, now, not as much as we'd like to, but enough to keep the connection going. It's still very much a work in progress, though.

You know what else helps, a lot? Your post, and the comments. Sometimes I get caught up in Facebook-land, where all my friends-with-kids post about how fabulous their lives are, and I wonder what is wrong with us? This helps me realize that nothing is wrong, except my tendency to take status updates as a reflection of 24/7 reality, which they certainly are not. Thank you for posting this.

[The New Girl]

Issa: I totally hear you. Totally. Some years ago, one of my best friends got divorced in the marriage-fail-surprise of the CENTURY. After that, I stopped thinking that it couldn't happen to us. For real. You just NEVER KNOW, do you? That's why I say I'm as certain as I can be of anything because, really. xo

[Issa]

I don't know that I'm the right person to comment on this. Because I'm getting divorced after 11 years of what I thought was a solid marriage.

I guess the reason I am commenting is just to say...make time. Find time. Get a sitter every few weeks if you can. Even once a month. Watch a movie together once a week. Make him not work quite so late a night or two. Something. Even the small things like that, can make a huge difference.

[Sahara]

I absolutely hear you on this. Only problem is, I see it as a temporary unavoidable part of raising kids together, while he sees it as something much sadder. Which then makes me sad because it seems like I don't CARE as much, or something. Endless cycle of guilt and sadness.

[Julie @ Mommy Said What?]

I can't speak for everyone, but I've certainly been there. When we're in a good space, sitting on opposite ends of the couch watching TV is just heaven; when we're in a bad space, it's like there's a huge chasm between us.

I think at this stage of family life, what you describe is inevitable. But I also think you need to get out just the 2 of you more often. Or try to have a conversation over dinner (HA!).

I don't think there's anything wrong or unhealthy going on, but if it worries you, or invokes negative associations, do something about it. But remember - this phase is temporary. The kids will grow up. You will have more time for each other again.