Getting your needs met as a couple after kids
4 things josh and I do now as parents to make sure we are both getting our needs met, putting our health first and avoids bickering
After Paige was born we knew things had to change for us to both thrive, to avoid bickering, resentment & make this parenting and relationship thing as easy as possible so we came up with a few rules and routines to ensure that we could both thrive.
Mornings for us individually, nights together
Josh has Monday, Wednesday and Friday & I have Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday morning. This is our time to go walk, swim, gym, whatever we want. But nighttime is for us, together. When the kids go to bed but for us when the kids go to bed it our time to have an actual conversation, watch tv together, have sex, connect, just be together rather than individually going our own ways, thats what mornings are for
All the house jobs got allocated
When I was on maternity with Paige I did a lot but when I went back to work there was an unbalance not only did I go back to teaching but I was doing more housework than ever before so something had to change, & me always asking & reminding wasn't working, that was just causing me mental stress & relationship stress, so we allocated all the jobs in the house. I do the grocery shopping & he does the bins, bins are overflowing, I don't care it's not my job! Yes this took a lot to let go of but I couldn't keep micro managing & I couldn't keep doing it all so I had to let things go & know that he will do it when he gets home from work.
Shopping list on fridge
“Jayde we need this, did you remember this?”
This was a pain in the ass, having the shopping list on my phone didn't work because something always got forgotten. Now the shopping list is on the fridge you need something it goes on there if it's not on there you don't get it. Again this just takes out that unnecessary communication that kept adding mental stress to the house.
Joint account
Now this one I know people can be resistant to, hell I was resistant to it. Before kids we had our own personal accounts & then our joint accounts that we'd each put money into. Though once we had kids and I was on maternity leave not earning as much I couldn't put as much money in the joint & felt like I couldn't buy anything for me. It affected my worth & felt like Josh was above me & what he was doing was more important than what I was doing. So much we got rid of the individual accounts & all our money went together. This ill admit was hard to let go of but now it's the best thing we could have done. It helped with my mental health, stress, worth and our relationship.
