When Mr. Cereal and I first got married, we had visions of what our life would be together. We’ve fulfilled some of these visions, and others have died without us even noticing. The one thing we always wanted to ensure each other is that we are a team, no matter what. Having children has tested this more than I thought possible, but we are still strong together and we have found ways to get around the sticking points we run into. Being married is hard sometimes, as I am sure most of you already know.
Newly married us…
Time. Time is our biggest issue right now. We never seem to have enough of it and that makes us both kind of cranky at times. We are stretched really thin. We both work full time outside of the house and that leaves very little time during the week where we get to see each other. The weekends are usually pretty packed with errands and running all over the place. It really seems like we never really get time to just sit and chill out.
Money. Oh money, there never seems to be enough. I have stopped worrying about this as much as I used to, which is kind of hilarious because we have way more expenses now and I should be stressing about it more now. Mr. Cereal is constantly worried about the finances. It keeps him up at night. This is one of those things we don’t really have any control over right now, but it certainly puts a damper on our marriage at times.
Sleep. I can’t even begin to tell you the heated discussions we get into in regards to sleep. I sleep very little, he sleeps a lot. It’s annoying. He can’t really help during the night because Little Bug is still feeding every two hours throughout the night. I never get to sleep in because I go to work earlier during the week and I have to drop the kids off or get them ready for the babysitter, and the weekends are packed so the opportunity to sleep just isn’t there. I know this will change soonish, so I need to just hold on, but in the meantime, it is slowly killing me and making us cranky with each other.
Chores/Responsibilities. There is the whole theory of second shift for mothers, where you come home from working for 8 hours and you get into your second job of taking care of everything else at home. We split some of the chores, but a lot of it still falls on me and that definitely causes some tension at times. This is something that we go around and around about, but nothing really changes. Someone told me that I should stop pretending that I am cleaning up for him and own up to the fact that I am doing it for myself, so I can’t keep expecting him to acknowledge it. That has helped some, but in reality I just want more help. A work in progress.
The House. We are in the middle of closing on our house and we have been in a lease to own situation for 5 years. We will finally take full ownership in June and we are ready to start making some of the changes to the house. Up until now, it still felt like we were renters so we made very few changes to the house and now that we are no longer renters, we have the opportunity to start changing the things we dislike. This is both exciting and super stressful. We have different ideas about how the house should look and that means a lot of compromises. But it is also fun, so this is probably the least of our stresses at this point.
5 years in…
No one has ever said that marriage is easy, because it’s not. But for Mr. Cereal and I, our commitment as partners and as parents is strong enough that we can have these stresses and still be happy with each other. I like being married to him and I really love that he is the father of my children. It’s the little things, the hugs and smooches in the morning and the Gatorade he brings home from work that really make the bad stuff melt away. And those kids, whoa man, we are lucky!
pomegranate / 3225 posts
Definitely hard! I recommend a house cleaner. My husband fought me but now he loves it!
blogger / apricot / 431 posts
We are in our 5th year of marriage as well. The sleep situation is similar. I LOVE my sleep and now get little sleep. Mr. Pizza…although doesn’t get a lot of sleep, can sleep through the night (bc nothing can wake him up once he is asleep). That can definitely make me annoyed on days I am especially tired. I love the pic of you guys. You look great and the short hair looks great on you. Seems like a new pic or maybe I have an old pic stuck in my mind.:)
blogger / kiwi / 675 posts
definitely its all about the little things! This is a good recount of the past few years for us too, marriage is different with kids but its also a much deeper love I think!
apricot / 409 posts
Yup having a kid definitely changed my marriage. I imagine having 2 kids must be even harder. I really struggled with the sleep and time issue and was building alot of resentment towards my husband. Things are getting a little better now that my DD is 1.5.
guest
1-3 are all as if I wrote them. Sleep-wise we do share more responsibilities now that we have 2 kids, but he sleeps through it unless I wake him. The monitor is on my side and I’m basically a taxi dispatcher bc I’m up EVERY time one of them wakes up, and I either take the job myself or I assign it out
So 1) I’m tired because I have woken up 6-7 times a night even if I didn’t get out of bed for all of them, and 2) since he sleeps through everything, when I get up he doesn’t know….so there is an argument half the time that “[he] had to get up for everything last night!” 
What bums me out the most is how much our lives have been distilled down to a tit-for-tat with all things kid & household related. I hope once they’re more self-sufficient it gets better, because for now it’s just a lot of back and forth about who is more tired or who should/shouldn’t have to do [abc] because they already did/didn’t do [xyz].
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@kml636: Oh man, if I could afford this I would totally go for it. I can see it solving a lot of our problems.
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@Mrs. Pizza: I miss sleep like no other. And thank you! I cut my hair right after Little Bug was born and I LOVE it. I always had really long hair so this is a crazy change.
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@Mrs. Palette: Definitely true about the deeper love. I feel like if we had been younger when we had children, we probably wouldn’t have made it through this period, but we are so completely committed to each other. It’s nice.
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@SCB Ha! A Taxi dispatcher, so funny! I totally agree with you about the tit-for-tat BS. It is just so exhausting to be cranky with each other so often. I just wish we could get to the place where it gets a little easier and we can start to have fun again. I feel for you mama!
pea / 23 posts
When our kids were babies we took turns… I would get to sleep-in on one weekend day and he would get the other day. It’s so tough on moms cause it’s not easy to sleep when you know the rest of the house is wide awake but, there were days when even an extra hour was heaven.
Also, I had this trick. When we were (re)adjusting after having just bringing home a baby (or two) I always gave him options. I didn’t want to feel like a nag but I also couldn’t do it all. So, it was “next, the kitchen needs to be cleaned up from dinner and the kids need a bath. Which one do you wanna do?” It made him feel like he had a choice. It made him feel relieved that he didn’t have to guess what I needed him to do next and, even though he always chose the easier task, it took a huge chunk off of my plate. We very quickly fell into a nice routine that we still kinda stick to years later.
But, indeed, marriage changes. You just make the best out of what little time and money that you do have and give your best self to your partner and your children!