How my marriage survived year one with a newborn
When my daughter, Conley, was seven weeks old we went to the beach with my in-laws. One day while I was in the house feeding her, I cradled my newborn, my only child, to my chest and looked out at the ocean. A feeling of love and serenity that I had never felt washed over me.
And then I saw my husband Tony, the love of my life, the father of my child, lounging in his beach chair, chatting and laughing with his brother-in-law. He reached into the cooler sitting between them, grabbed a beer and popped it open. They toasted each other. It was when I watched those beer bottles clank together that I realized exactly why waiting periods for guns are so very important.
This was not what I expected. None of the pregnancy books that I had read prepared me for the primal rage that I felt toward the man who helped me create a creature who was made of dancing fireflies and twinkling stars. These books, so detailed about feedings and diaper changes, failed to mention that not only were we now responsible for the very being of another human, but that we would be shouldering this incredible responsibility while we were simultaneously engaged in UFC-style cage matches.
After Conley was born I quit my job as an AVP of Marketing at a commercial real estate bank. This decision surprised everyone, myself included. It had not been our plan. I had a nice office in uptown. I traveled to fancy resorts on the company dime. I ate lunch with my friends and grabbed happy hour drinks after the day was finished.
Quitting my job was the best decision that I ever made, but it came with a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. We slashed our income by 40 percent. To put it mildly, it was stressful. I was was insecure about not working outside the home. I felt controlled. Tony was stressed about all the financial responsibility falling to him.
And, although babies’ heads always smell like a warm spring day and they make your heart ache from all the love it is carrying around, babies are hard. Like astrophysics hard. They demand so much of you that it can make you weak in your knees. You put so much into a being a good parent that it is very easy to forget how to be a good spouse.
Tony and I had hellacious fights when Conley was sleeping. Well, I guess it is more accurate to say that we had hellacious whisper-fights. As mad or as irritated as we may have been, we at least had enough sense to not wake a sleeping baby. I wanted him to be mesmerized and thrilled with me. Super mom, super wife. I needed validation. I needed my gold star. I felt that Tony wanted me to throw him a ticker-tape parade for doing something he had been doing for years — working.
We were also walking paradoxes. We were filled with joy about the life that we had created together. And, at the same time it was ripping our relationship apart. We were confused, bitter and tired.
However, after about a year, some of the demands started to ease up. I quit breastfeeding around 11 months and I started getting more sleep. We figured out our budget and I took some side jobs to help ease the financial burden. We started talking again, not just as mom and dad or even as husband and wife, but as friends. We realized that we had made it through and that it had been worth it, we were worth it.
Right before Conley’s first birthday we left her with Tony’s parents and went to Key West with some of our friends. We had fun. We sat on the beach with a cooler of beer between. We toasted each other.
Photo: Sosha Lewis
This story was originally published January 30, 2017 at 3:27 AM with the headline "How my marriage survived year one with a newborn."