When you get in a relationship, things for the most part are adventures and love, date nights, and excitement. Everything is about spending time with one another. However, that all seems to change when you bring a child into this world, with that person. There are many reasons why I regret having children with my boyfriend.
• Intimacy changes
• Added newfound stress
• Loss of time for one another
• I lost myself
• Arguments
Let’s face the truth, bringing a child into the world is a lot to take on. Things change, and as a new parent, you change.
1. Changes in Intimacy
When you are in a dating phase, the intimacy is usually great.
You enjoy each other’s company and don’t have a care for the world because of how great things are going. When the baby did come out though, changes in intimacy occurred.
I expected to just jump right back into being intimate again like how it used to be but that is not what happened.
It took weeks of healing for me to feel like I was myself again but my boyfriend obviously didn’t understand. He would constantly ask, “Has enough time passed yet?” not knowing how exhausting it is to hear that every single day after I JUST gave birth!
Even as the baby gets a little older and turns into a toddler, there would be so many days where I was just exhausted and didn’t want to be touched. Staying at home with a child all day long is hard work and requires a lot of energy so the last thing on my mind would be cuddling or having sex.
It’s not all just about the fact that everyone is worn out from raising a kid all day, it’s the fact that when you finally get time to relax for the day, being romantic is usually not on your mind.
You’re both tired, and what if the kids wake up? I let my kids sleep with me, so that right there put a stone in the bridge for any intimacy between my boyfriend and I.
It’s a lot to take in. The sexual attraction is still there between my boyfriend and I, but as a parent, the children come first.
As time goes by, it becomes more depressing to see the intimacy loss between us but figuring out a balance to try and still keep the flame going is something that needs to be worked on.
2. Newfound Stress
I think we all know stressful dealing with children is.
Whenever my boyfriend and I had children, it added a lot of new stress to our relationship. Every day it was me doing everything, while he worked. Then when I would go to work, he wouldn’t do anything.
Our home stayed messy constantly since he didn’t feel the need to help me with daily chores anymore.
This caused many arguments between us to the point where some days, we did not want to be in each other’s presence.
I raised our children all day and worked at night while he would come home and just sit on the couch watching YouTube.
I did everything like cooking dinners, changing diapers, and putting the kids to bed while it seemed like he did nothing.
It was then when I realized why I regret having children with my boyfriend. I was overwhelmed with stress. Being a parent is stressful, but having a lazy boyfriend who just isn’t a good parent? That’s SUPER stressful.
We didn’t experience this before having children. He helped me clean and take care of the household without a problem before the kids came out but once they did, he did not seem to care or put any effort.
Another issue that caused a lot of problems in our relationship was financial struggle.
We went from having money to do whatever we wanted, to spending lots on our children which causes us not to have that much left over to spend on ourselves.
This was causing fights also because we did not have the same amount of fun we used to because we had to save more. As much as that is important, losing some financial stability was frustrating.
3. Losing Time Together
Before children, we spent all our time together. We went on date nights pretty much every day. We had many mini-vacations, cuddling time, movie nights and so forth.
After having children, we didn’t have that much time to spend together alone anymore.
This lead to no more date nights, no more random adventures alone, no more movies unless we watched them on the couch. Even when I did have a family member help watch our children, he wouldn’t even try to take me out somewhere nice.
Aside from that, when we were able to get time together while the kids were asleep or at school, we chose to work more hours or go to bed early.
He wasn’t interested in putting time to focus on our relationship and because of that; neither was I. That was one of the major reasons why I regret having children with my boyfriend.
4. I Lost Myself
As I was saying before, it was always me doing everything.
When I wasn’t taking care of children, I was cleaning up what my boyfriend wouldn’t. I was working, cleaning, cooking, being a parent and a partner. I had zero time for myself.
Over time, that made me dislike my boyfriend. He would go out at night every now and then, but I didn’t. I was always at home being a parent every hour of every day, which was fine but I just couldn’t understand why I was the only one that never got personal time.
I soon realized it had been months since I did my makeup. I never dressed up. I started getting anxious and felt like I was losing my mind.
I tried explaining to my boyfriend that it was not fair that I had no time to enjoy for myself and he acted like I was crazy. I had little to no hobbies, I was depressed, and overwhelmed so it made me feel like I had lost all hope to find the spark in me again.
Losing myself was the worst thing to ever happen. I wanted to go back to the old me but I was to busy working hard and had no time for myself.
This has to be one of the main reasons why I regret having children with my boyfriend.
5. Arguments
Every couple has arguments from time to time. When you share a child with someone who has different parenting styles than you, the arguments can become too much.
This can be a major problem because arguing in front of children can take a toll on their mental health.
We fought over any and everything. Whether it is about bills, schools, punishments, or child development, it seems like anything can be fought about.
It came down to every night we would wait until the children fell asleep, then the arguments would start. It was just too much for me to handle.
The thing is, when you have children; they watch and listen to everything. Arguing in front of them was never something we wanted to do.
Being a parent changed who we both were. The arguments took a toll on us to the point where we pushed each other away.
We ended up going to therapy so this issue does not lead to separation down the line.
Related: How to know if your child’s father still loves you
Final Thoughts
Yes, I regret having children with my boyfriend. I wish we would have waited and I wish things would’ve gone differently but there isn’t much to do except striving to be the best parents we can possibly be.
Life can be chaotic for a while and you will miss everything about your life before having children but it is a responsibility that needs to be taken care of.
However, we grew into the lifestyle. We learned to parent together, grow together and overcome. It’s part of the life experience, and our kids are happy now, as are we.
All I’m saying is, I do have regrets. Here I still am moving forward, staying positive, and grateful that we made it through the thick and thin.