Post-baby marriage woes

My husband of six years and I had a DTR last night.

For those of you who don’t know, a DTR means to have a long, painful discussion to “define the relationship.” It’s usually reserved for awkward young co-eds when they are getting serious, or when one thinks they are serious and the other one has gotten engaged to someone else.

So it may seem odd to have a DTR with my husband, but since our daughter came along, we pretty much have them every month. Although we had our husband-wife relationship working great pre-baby, we are having to redefine everything about our relationship as mommy and daddy.

For example, I always promised I wouldn’t be one of those moms that throws the baby at her husband the minute he walks in the door and says, “You take her!” Well, turns out I am exactly that mom. I’m working on it.

It also turns out that while a baby increases the love in our home in the long-term, she can really interrupt our marital bliss in the short-term.

My theory is that I use up all of my patience by about 10 a.m. by dealing with a 1-year-old, so I’m all out of understanding and tolerance when my husband leaves his socks on the floor.

So, the outcome of our DTR was that we both got to pick one thing for the other person to work on. Mine is that I’m trying to be more trusting of my husband and his decisions. Like when I walk into the kitchen and he’s watching a movie and our daughter, Nicole, is standing on the table unsupervised while holding a knife, I’ll smile and say, “Honey, I trust you and I know you’ve got total control of this situation.”

All kidding aside, I feel like things will be smoother after this DTR . . . until next month anyway.

How do you think husband-wife relationships change after having children? Has yours changed?