There's one thing that NO ONE talks about or wants to talk about when it comes to having a baby.
Most of us rather post our idyllic pictures and videos of our idyllic lives on Facebook. It's easier to edit life online. The Internet makes new parents seem like we have it all together and photoshop can mask not only our flaws, but even baby acne.
My friend Mary was the only one who really warned me about this one thing. Better yet, she gave me a book, called, "The Mask of Motherhood," when I told her I was trying to conceive.
At the time I thought this was a negative point of view of men, marriage and babies. However, here is the truth that I've found: when you have a baby, the shock of the shifting dynamic between a couple makes most women want to rip their husband's face off from time to time and may make men want to escape, whether through work, house projects, alcohol, hobbies, and transgressions. Some actually escape, like, in a car.
No one prepares you for this. In the book Mary gave me, the author mentions that the older a woman is when she has her first baby, or the more independent financially and emotionally... In other words, the more she knows herself, the more this new identity; the motherhood identity, shakes her to the core and leaves her humbled and somewhat lost.
Make that shock a little harder when woman no longer works and therefore "doesn't contribute to society." And, by the way, this is the most intense job I've ever had, because it never stops. Mothers don't clock out.
My friends who work feel that shift in identity too, maybe even more than I, because even though they may work as many hours as their husbands, they are still a mother, and mother's got shit to do.
Now enters marriage and what is left of it. Thankfully I live in a generation where men actually want (and look forward to) helping with the baby. I am lucky to have married a super father. I can't imagine a man that is more hands on with a baby than my husband, but even then we headbutt often enough. The truth is: I think we're just tired.
Here are some insights on marriage that I've had of late, so my friends contemplating the whole package can enter it a little more informed:
- Marriage love is not linear. It has peaks and valleys, and the trick (and what is tricky) is to believe in the ebb and flow of the ocean when the wave is crashing.
- It's better to stay together.
- Living together is hard. Period. You could live with mother Theresa and eventually get annoyed with all her goodness.
- The closer we are to someone, the more we know what pisses the other one off, and in the power struggle we get pretty good at using it as weapons, consciously or not. That's just a fact.
- Don't compare your spouse to someone else, because that other person also has some other quality that would drive you crazy, and your spouse has a combination of qualities that most others dont. That's why you got married.
- In the negotiation of lifestyle, whoever compromises the most will resent the most, so doing something you don't want for the sake of the other person is often a good idea.
- If you say the "D" word often enough, your spouse may take you up on it. I learned this from my first marriage.
- Find time for sex.
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