Marriage After Kids: Why It Gets Harder and What Helps

The short answer: a marriage rarely breaks for one reason. Small daily care, like stopping to look at each other after work, protects the relationship and the whole family.

You talk every day about pick-ups, the dentist and the bills, and you haven’t really talked in weeks. Many couples with children feel more like colleagues running a small, exhausting company than like two people who once chose each other.

My view: a marriage does not break for one reason. Busyness, distance, small daily criticisms, all the attention going to the children, and the differences each of you brought from the home you grew up in: one raised strictly, the other in an easy, relaxed house. These pile up quietly. The remedy is also several things together: a shared goal and responsibility for the family, time out together, a table where you sit and talk, no criticism over nothing, and real problems taken to a closed room and settled there.

What research says

In a study that followed 218 couples over the first eight years of marriage, Brian Doss and colleagues found that couples who became parents showed “sudden deterioration following birth” in relationship quality. Couples without children also showed a decline over time, but a more “gradual” one (Doss and colleagues 2009).

That is sobering, but also reassuring. If you feel your relationship got harder after children, you are not unusual. It is one of the most common experiences of parenthood.

And it matters, not just for the two of you. The relationship between parents is part of the climate children grow up in. A review for the UK government found that the quality of the relationship between parents has “a significant impact on children’s well-being, in both intact and separated families” (Harold and colleagues 2016).

Looking after your relationship is not selfish. It is part of looking after your children.

Part 1: Notice what has changed

Before trying to fix anything, it can help to name what has shifted. You might each answer, privately, then share:

• What do I miss most about us before children?
• What do I feel most alone with now?
• What does my partner do that I am grateful for, but rarely say?
• What do I wish my partner understood about my day?

Often, couples discover that both feel unseen. One feels unappreciated for the work at home. The other feels unappreciated for the work outside it. Or both feel invisible in the busyness.

Part 2: Share the load fairly

Unfair division of work at home is one of the biggest sources of resentment in couples with children. In many homes, mothers carry more of the daily care and the invisible planning, even when both parents work.

Sit down together and list everything that keeps the house and family running: not only tasks, but the remembering, planning and worrying. Then talk honestly about who does what, and what feels fair.

Some couples find it helps to give each person full ownership of certain areas, start to finish, rather than one person “helping” the other. The question is not “Can you help me?” It is “Is each of us doing our role?” And share part of the load with the children too; a house carried by everyone leaves more of the two of you for each other.

Part 3: Make small daily moments

You don’t need expensive date nights to keep a relationship alive. Small, daily moments often matter more.

• A real greeting. When you see each other after work, stop for ten seconds. Look at each other. Say hello properly.
• A daily check-in. Ten minutes after the children are in bed, phones down: “How was your day, really?”
• Small thank-yous. “Thanks for doing bedtime.” “Thanks for sorting the car.”
• Touch. A hand on the shoulder, a hug in the kitchen. Affection that asks for nothing.
• Laughter. A shared joke, a silly film, a memory.

Part 4: Protect some time alone

Even an hour every two weeks can help. A walk while a grandparent babysits. A coffee after drop-off. A meal at home after the children are asleep, with the television off.

If childcare is impossible, try a “home date”: one evening a week where you eat together after the children’s bedtime, and agree not to talk about logistics.

Part 5: Argue better

All couples argue. What matters is how, and where. As much as possible, the argument stays inside a closed room, and you come out to the children with one decision. Avoid insults, contempt and silence that lasts for days. Take breaks when things heat up. Come back and finish the conversation. And, importantly, repair: “I’m sorry I snapped. I was exhausted.”

Children who see their parents disagree respectfully, and make up, learn something valuable about love.

What the children see of the two of you

Children watch the couple at the centre of their home. Not only the fights, but the ordinary moments: whether their parents greet each other, laugh together, touch, help each other, or pass each other like strangers in a hallway.

A child who sees warmth between their parents often feels a deep, wordless safety. A child who sees only logistics, or coldness, may wonder what holds the family together. You don’t have to perform affection. But letting your children see small, real moments of care between you is a gift to them as well as to each other.

Part 6: Get help early

Many couples wait until things are very bad before seeking help. Couples counselling, relationship courses, or even a good book read together can help earlier, when problems are smaller.

When it is more than difficulty

If there is violence, threats, control, or fear in your relationship, it is not a matter of spending more time together. Your safety and your children’s safety come first. Domestic abuse services can help you think through your options. If you are in danger now, call your local emergency number.

One small step

Tonight, after the children are asleep, sit together for ten minutes with no phones. Ask each other one question: “What’s one small thing I could do this week that would make you feel more cared for?”

Then do it.

Under the children, under the bills and the school runs, there are still two people. They deserve a little care too.

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Next step

Look at the pattern between you. Answer a few questions about what keeps repeating between the two of you, and get a 7-day sheet to try together. Pattern Check →

Sources

• Doss, B. D., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M. & Markman, H. J. (2009). The effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality: an 8-year prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(3). PDF
• Harold, G., Acquah, D., Sellers, R. & Chowdry, H. (2016). What Works to Enhance Inter-Parental Relationships and Improve Outcomes for Children. Early Intervention Foundation. PDF