Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 40 how baby changed our marriage

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

Today in episode 40 of Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew, we continue our mini-series to discuss how our relationship changed after having Drew.  Let’s just say… we really dive into it this episode. We talk about having to start over as a couple. We had to relearn how to communicate and be together after a 3rd person was thrown into our relationship. Your hobbies. Your passions. Your priories. All of it changes. We’ll walk you through those feelings and how our relationship ultimately provided a source of support through it all. If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. ––– We’re supported by the following companies we love! Make sure to check them out using our links below. Best Finds! Download Best Fiends FREE today on the Apple App Store or Google Play. Care/of! For 50% off your first Care/of order, go to https://TakeCareOf.com and enter code COUPLETHINGS50. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Couple Things with Sean and Andrew. A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. Today is just us. And we are continuing our series kind of through our relationship, through having a kid, how it affected our relationship, how we're still working on our marriage and this whole new dynamic of having a third human in our lives. Just all of it. We're coming up on one year, so we're doing a lot of

reflecting. And boy, where our life's different before a kid. So different. Yes. I always laugh. I'm like, what did we do? Like, we did nothing. Yeah, I kind of feel like, what did we do with our time? We did a lot of things that like seemingly didn't matter that much. But we have a, a good show planned out. Sean, I put effort, a lot of effort into this one. We have stats that we'll get to in a second that are kind of jarring. But before we jump into it, if you guys having it, subscribe to the show, give it a rating, helps us out.

And today we are talking, as Sean said, about how our marriage changed after we had a baby. So let's just hit the stats real quick because this is pretty appalling when you think about it, but believable when you experience it. So for 83% of couples, the arrival of their first child constitutes a marital crisis. crisis for 83% married people who have kids are actually happier than unmarried people

raising children and their happiness quotient appears to increase with each additional child okay so married couples are happier than unmarried couples when it comes to raising a kid for this statistic for this statistics in this study that is a huge disclaimer um let's see about 90% of couples said they felt less happy in their relationship after having a child. 60% said they were less confident that they could work through marital problems. And many have reported lower levels of dedication to the relationship long term. A couple said they also experience more negative communication and more problems in the relationship after having a kid. But here's the thing. Okay, that's all pretty grim. I could tell.

This is a really uplifting. here's the thing they say that once you get about seven years into parenting kids are actually more likely to keep couples together. Is it terrible statistic? No it's not no I don't think so. So you just have to make it seven years ladies and gentlemen. I think it might take that long to actually find a groove of how to raise children. That is a doomsday thing as well. Yes. So all of the stats kind of lead to three ways that the marriages are affected okay are these more statistics no no this is just the trends that the statistics show child bearing um and child rearing years are times during which marital satisfaction tends to decline mother two mothers and fathers are more likely than the child list

to experience depression interesting and three studies have shown that couples who have had a first child are less satisfied with their marriages during the first postpartum year than they were late in pregnancy. So up until the first child. Anyway, this is so doomsday. I don't, I'm not trying to, but let's talk about how it is difficult. Well, okay, so now that we've covered the kind of broad, gloomy statistics on what children usually do to marriages, let's talk about what our child did to our marriage. Okay. Well, there's a lot that goes into it. First, since we're in the doom's day in the gloom okay um i wanted to bring up we had a little bit of a i want to say a moment i guess yesterday was actually the third year anniversary of our miscarriage which was crazy i was telling

andrew was really strange last night i kind of just felt the weight of it because every year i don't know why i do that to myself but i rewatch her video and just kind of relive it it's not like i would take anything back i mean i i wish i wouldn't have gone through that if that makes sense but it brought us Drew and it brought us like so many beautiful things but I felt like that was the beginning of our journey into all of this and how that first affected our marriage which we talked about but talking about having Drew that was a whole new thing so we left off let's try to like spin some positivity here okay so we left off the last episode talking about how

pregnancy affected our relationship and we talked about how intimacy was affected, hormones affected everything, the fear and the anticipation of having your first kid, you just kind of, we felt a little bit like we were living out our life as fast as we could because the world had scared us and said, as soon as you have a kid, your life's going to be over, your marriage will be over, like all these different things, very dunezay again. Fast forward, we go to the hospital. It is time to have Drew. and I was talking to Andrew about this right before we started this podcast I feel like and this might

have just been with our relationship but I feel like up until that moment up until walking into the hospital where you strip down naked you spread your legs on like a delivery table and you just bear it all you maintain some sort of like barrier or distance or I don't know what word I'm looking for there, but you maintain some sort of like discretion from each other. You still feel like you're dating to a certain extent. Okay.

What am I trying to say here? Are you following? There's some things that are reserved. Yes. Until the pregnancy. I felt like we were still like embarrassed to talk about certain things. Even though we had a very, very strong and close marriage,

I still felt like we were two separate human beings. fast forward to the week in the hospital where we go through labor and we go through an emergency C-section and we go through these fears and these tears and these massive emotional roller coasters I felt like I had been literally stripped bare and you saw who I was for the first time in our relationship truly who I was and I felt like I was so much closer to you immediately than I had ever been in our relationship. I felt that way too. I'm wondering why it took pregnancy to make that happen though,

or having a child to make that happen. I don't know. I feel like maybe you can achieve that in different ways, going through different things, whether it's like trauma or injury or something like tragic. But I feel like it was the first thing outside of the miscarriage that you and I had really gone through together where we were so vulnerable.

I feel like the miscarriage, I was more vulnerable than you were just naturally, like naturally. But I think that's the first thing that affected both of us equally. Yeah, I mean, having a kid, you just get thrown into the fire and you kind of realize like, all right, we don't have a choice except to do something. And I think what that something is, there's a lot of different styles. You have a certain style. I have a certain style of how to change a diaper or how many bass to give or how to feed or whatever like who gets up in the night and who all of the things that go into taking care of a baby you have to do it and you have to just have these crucial conversations we'll call them of how like how it's going to get done

and you're both strung out stressed tired and you're a team in like the most beautiful sense I think here's my digestion of the statistics now having gone through it with one child and I know that multiple kids is going to change this but there is so many stressful things okay a million new variables that a married couple has to figure out and that can be stressful or it can be an opportunity to like grow closer and we've talked about this before but you and I I think at the end of the day had the understanding that we are a team we are going to make it through this we are dedicated first and foremost to each other and so we operated off of that understanding which made a difference in like I could have gotten I mean we did

get upset at each other yeah it could be like it could be like very very sensitive arguments that I could see tear a couple apart. Well, I remember, so I think we talked about this in a different podcast, but I remember when we went into the hospital, when we were nearing birth of our baby, I had this consuming fear and almost a jealousy of the baby before she was even here because I feared that I would lose you. And I don't mean like divorce or you would leave me. I meant, I mean that in saying, a baby from what people have said before we had Drew and we've

actually experienced it is like the deepest love you can ever know because it's your child. I feared before we had her that she would steal you away from me. And I feel like that's a fear a lot of people have. And I felt like it would affect our relationship and which it has, we'll get into. but then you go back to the hospital and you know they hand us Drew for the first time and I just all I can remember is looking at you and being like oh my gosh we did this and I remember being rolled into the emergency room for the C-section and being so scared and just thinking, like, as long as you are here, I'm okay.

And I think that's probably going back to what connected us so much, is that vulnerability of, like, I have my comfort here, which is you. And then fast forward a week when we're leaving the hospital, I distinctly remember looking at Andrew. We were in the car with this tiny human that we didn't know how to raise or take care of. and I loved her so much already but I looked to Andrew and I was like babe you are my number one

you will always be my number one but she will now be ours our number one and will forever be our number one and kids will like be together jointly our number one and I think that's been an important thing for us to remember because it gets challenging yeah why is that saying

so expand on that. So we talked about this before we had Drew of I think the best way to parent if you are in a marriage is if your marriage is strong, your parenting is strong. And if you take the side of your child before you take the side of your spouse, you're already like separating your family. And so Andrew and I think that's why this first year has been more more challenging than I think we expected is because whenever we saw something going wrong between our marriage or us feeling that separation or feeling tired or felt like an argument was coming up, we would like hit it head on and we'd be like, there's something wrong.

We have to fix it because we were so aware from day one that if we weren't strong together, we couldn't be the best mom and dad to Drew that was possible. Yeah. As terrible as it is to like go through it could be several days or weeks worth of conflict. Yeah. I'm glad we did. That was one of the things that we came across when we were researching is like it is so easy. I mean, typically our situation is unique in a number of different ways. We both work from home. We didn't breath. We bottle fed. And so I was able to be a part of that. That was huge. But that caused tension as well. 100% and it's freaking, yes, yes. But usually like usually the mom would, I mean, I feel like we grew up with our mom staying at home, taking care of the kids, feeding. Like they're the one who has to wake up in the middle of the night. They don't have a choice to.

You did. What? That's how you were raised. I'm saying if you're breastfeeding, I don't, I as a husband, don't have to wake up. No. I don't have to. You have to. No.

Absolutely. So this is one of the things we came across is the person who is the primary caretaker, who in a lot of situations is the mom, they're always with the kids and the other person gets jealous or they feel left out or they feel uninvolved and there's like guilt involved. Like there's a lot of emotions. And then there's can be bitterness and we've experienced this from the primary caretaker of I'm doing all the work with the kids and it's stressful.

and it's not a rational human being yet. Can I just get some help here? Well, okay. So to break all of that down, I feel like we've talked about this a lot. And one, I feel like innately we are all very, very selfish. And it takes a child to kind of self-reflect on how selfish we are with our time,

with our preferences, with our habits and our hobbies. We like the things we like and we like to spend time doing the things we like. like. Well, when you have a kid, you don't have time for that or you have less time. And going back to, I feel like this is just a thought that I'm going to try to articulate. We were married for four years, three before we got pregnant with Drew. We dated for three or four years before that. It took us seven years to kind of get the hang of marriage, to figure out as grown adults what our preferences were and how to cohabitate with those preferences, right?

Now you add a baby who's not an adult who can't voice what they need or what they prefer, what they like, being raised by two people who are raised differently, from, you know, a mom who stayed home to a full-time working mom, to dads who are more or less involved, just like, just difference that like set our expectations differently in raising you're together it just like it's this huge mixture of if it took us seven years to figure out how two people two adults can live together now when you throw a third person that shares your heart that you care so much for that you would die for any day like that's a huge mixture that's a huge stirring the pop moment of you basically just start over it's like you just met someone on the first date but

they can't walk talk feed themselves take care of themselves anything and you're having to do it together and it's just a lot to figure out it's a done it's a ton because going back to bottle feeding rightfully so because it's how you're raised and it's it's just how the world paints pregnancy and birth and feeding and taking care of a baby they paint it as you have the baby the mom takes care of it for like a year because the mom breast feeds and the baby's just with the mom the whole time that was the expectation yeah okay I think we're going to get in an argument live but go ahead oh really go ahead no I don't think so go ahead and that was my expectation too I wanted to and when that didn't pan out it put a lot of tension

on us because we've our expectations were kind of crushed to a certain extent there are different ways in different ways absolutely there was a lot of guilt on my side and I didn't know how to ask for help and on your side there was a lot of tension because your expectation wasn't fulfilled and it was just a change like we had to figure it out I don't feel like there's an argument coming. Well, I thought you were going to get into like, that was your perspective of a traditional parenting model. But it's like, no, but usually if you're breastfeeding,

as a mom, you do not have a choice. Oh, no, not at all. And I agree with what you're saying of like that was your preference or your perspective of a traditional upbringing, you know, upbringing. but I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. I think that's, how do I paint this picture? So back when we got pregnant the first time, I think one of the big things that led us or myself to such pain

when I miscarried was the misconception of, it's so easy to get pregnant. Once you get pregnant, you're going to have a baby. It's that naive thinking of, that's how it works. There's no other factors involved except for I'm pregnant and I'm having a baby. And I think the slap to the face was it's so much more complicated than that. And there's so many different things that can be a factor and come into play and happen

that I was just blindsided. Yeah. And I think for us and having Drew with the whole breastfeeding and bottle feeding and raising a kid, TV paints it so. in such a black and white misconception, like weird way that we got blindsided. I would say that expectations in marriage generally are the most important thing.

But this counselor that we consulted for this, said that mismatched expectations when it comes to parenting statistically tends to lead to marital dissatisfaction. So that's, I mean, what you're talking about is expectations. And that's why I think we're fortunate to have really discussed a lot of, a lot of things beforehand so that our expectations were set.

You know, like, but it's one thing to discuss. It's another thing to realize what reality is going to be like. Is that where you're nodding? I was getting ready to talk about that. So it's like in dating, I used to be the guy. guy that like kind of tried to set I would like say oh here's the expectation I'm going to help with everything just hypothetical whatever situation but in reality I'm lazy just like anybody else and I like to do certain things I don't like to do certain things I'm messy here I like to

sleep whatever I have found that marriage and parenting even more so is this constant process of i mean it's just it's love in the sense that you're sacrificing your preferences and your habits to contribute to the marriage or the family unit you know so i reflecting on some of the more recent like our arguments and i say arguments it's just disagreements and it's just miscommunications that you have to work through so it's not like they're knocked down and drag out fights, they're just arguments that we've had lately. There's been a lot of, we've said two things a lot. One, which is, I'm trying my hardest or my best.

Dang, preach. I remember. It's not enough sometimes. It's not enough. And I don't remember where I read this, but I read it somewhere way back when, when we were dating in a book somewhere, I'll have to find it. but it basically said one of the biggest reasons for divorce or breaking up or failed relationships is when both parties give all of their effort but neither party like recognizes it

because it's being the efforts being exerted in a way that the other person doesn't understand and we had a little disagreement and an argument the other night where I was like last night where I was cleaning the house a lot and I don't even remember what we were arguing about but basically one of my love languages towards Andrew is like keeping the house tidy when I don't feel like there's anything else I can do to contribute I'm like oh I'll clean the house so it's like nice well he doesn't receive that at all because it's not a preference to him it's not something that he I don't care if the house is clean or dirty yeah so it's just like oh Sean just doing this because she likes it but then when

the argument came about because I started to feel underappreciated and he's like well I didn't know you were trying to you know love me because it's not a way that I it's not a thing that I recognize and vice versa I did not say that just for the record you I wish I could be so precious but go ahead he didn't say that but I feel like going back to Drew and going back to your first kid or another kid it's such new territory that a lot of our arguments and a lot of the miscommunications we had had to do with you were doing everything you could to help but you were doing it in ways that i didn't need and vice versa i was communicating things to you that you weren't hearing and i was doing things that you didn't need and weren't being seen and i think

another conversation we've had a lot of is we are over communicating so much lately that we're arguing more than ever and i don't want to say more than ever like in a bad way but we're arguing arguing and having like disagreements about a lot of little things but it's because we've made the choice of communicating everything so that we each know the one rule in our relationship is transparency so yes sorry i just word vomited a lot no i think i think there's a couple different types of people everybody's different obviously there's some people who aren't helpful or aren't eager to help i don't think that those people are this is my opinion ready for marriage because i think like you just have to be willing to help and probably certainly not overly ready

for parenting either then there's the other side and i feel like we're more neither of these are better neither these type of people are worse by the way we each try to help too much in the sense of like I will hover by Sean and like just constantly chirp what can I help with can I do this or can I do it that way and so then we're both always by each other always giving each other opinions always like annoying each other when sometimes it's like and I'll be on the other side I'll be like what do you need what do you want what can I do what can I make what kind of like this morning I kind of got I'm annoyed by you I'm not going to.

Are you actually gonna, like, admit that something was wrong this morning? No, not, not this morning. I'm talking about when I was putting Drew down, two separate things. Yeah, whatever I was trying to help you. No, you freaking know. I know, but I was trying to help.

I was putting Drew down, which we've communicated. That's each of, like, that's one of our favorite things to do, both of us. And Sean came in from a jog and like, like, Drew and I are peaceful we're about to go to bed the lights are off and you storm in there freaking stomping around you like you come in multiple times you turn lights on you're like I was like and you said I got this and I was like no no I got this go away I just trying to support you I bring that up though

because yeah I just there's different ways that people annoy each other and that's how we do it where some people it's like oh you're not contributing much at all all, I wish you would step in more. We're kind of the opposite of like, is overbearing the right word? Yeah. And I think, too, it's just we're overbearing is the right word. Yeah. Great.

Now I know. I think we, something we struggled with from day one and are still working towards is we want to feel appreciated. Everybody does. But you also want to show your appreciation for the other person. person. And sometimes those both can get lost because you're trying so hard for something that you want to give. And if you aren't getting something back, then you feel resentment. And it's just like it gets confusing. I do have to say one of my favorite arguments, not arguments. It was just

like a little thing that happened right after we had Drew. We came home and I'm exhausted. exhausted, exhausted, just like any new mom, just like any new dad. I've gone through birth, trying to figure out how to breastfeed, and Drew's having a hard time. Just, you're not sleeping, you're not eating, your body is changing. It's just a lot of things. And I was so jealous that you could sleep. Yeah. I was so jealous that I resented it.

And I remember we were on the couch in the living room. I'm just going to call it. I think that's immature to. in your part but go ahead what resenting me sleeping but go ahead i acknowledge it okay i was just pouring salt in the wound yeah accidentally go ahead go ahead my bad i apologize i was just acknowledging it i'm sorry so andrew falls a slate and i am a week out of a c-section i cannot sit up by myself i can't get off the couch and drew fell asleep on me and i remember she starts like crying and i need to get up to go to the bathroom and you are out you are so i wasn't sure if you

were alive because how you slept through her crying and me yelling at you i was like andrew andrew andrew and i'm screaming at him and he's like you're 10 feet away and he's out and I start throwing stuff at him and then you wake up pissed and I was like babe I cannot sit up and I need to pee how did you not hear a cry like I just remember that being

but thanks for sharing that story but I say that because it's just all so ridiculous right after you have a baby because you're so delirious well here's one thing too and I think we've talked a lot about how exhaustion affected our relationship, an amplifying conflict. But I don't think we've talked enough about how it's actually

more an issue of identity and not exhaustion of you and I are just trying to figure out what our role is now. I'm no longer just a husband or just a guy having fun. I'm a dad now. There's certain responsibilities. And it's like this, it's this identity transformation. And everything about you changes everything like your priorities your preferences how you get ready in the morning what you eat how you act your hobby like so much so it is truly i think an identity issue um again we're i'm not just kind of close with some optimist optimistic things but the reason that we started off with these grim numbers and statistics is not to stress you out. I think we're here to share our story as much as possible to help set expectations.

Yeah. And so like because parenting just like there's nothing more to it, it's stressful. Like if you ask, if you ask someone who's getting like studying to be a lawyer, they're probably not going to say like, yeah, it's a ton of. fun like no it's stressful but it's worth it yeah you know yeah so it's so fulfilling it's just it takes work just like a marriage just like anything work like and work means it takes a ton of energy yeah and so then like you're drained and one thing i think is worth saying and you change my perspective on this i compliment you all the time on being a good mom and this goes to identity too

I don't compliment you enough on being a really good wife. That's something that we need to do a better job at is like I see you pouring so much effort into Drew and you see me doing so much to help Drew. But let's balance that out and help each other. You can't forget at the end of the day that each person wants to feel loved as as being like your spouse and each person wants to be loved as being a parent and it has to be separate

because I don't want to just know that Andrew loves me just because I'm a mom I want to know Andrew is attracted to me and loves me as his wife was girl you are bad girl okay and then I also want him to love and appreciate me as a mom separately and I think you have to be very aware of that

and vice versa. Bottom line is, too, we'll close with this. I think having a really strong friendship in your marriage and a healthy emotional connection are crucial to being able to get through the conflict and have that trust that, hey, this person actually does have my back. And if you want a family, if you want the joy of having kids,

you have to go through the highs and lows. Just know that there are probably, going to be more frequent lows but higher highs right and it is amazing it is the biggest joy of my life by far it is and remember that even though you argue even though you're figuring it out even though it tested our relationship not because we ever thought it was going to end it just changes we always made it a point to tell each other even if we were yelling at each other that we love each other yeah and that's all that matters because i will get you through that argument into the time that you're going to be laughing hugging and crying so know that sean and i believe in you you can do

this you just got to get through it's going to be a tough phase just get through it and it'll you'll be better for it yeah um thank you for listening i hope i hope this helped you even though we started off kind of on a rough note we almost had an argument live on camera um we'll see you next week yes for another interview and um if you haven't yet subscribe to the show give it a rating that's all we have for you have a wonderful day we'll see you later it's the east fam out