When Parenting Drifts Us Apart

Sairindhri · Jul 30, 2016

Nice write up.
True to a lot of extent, but I feel kids make a relationship much stronger, from personal experience.
Views differ but in the end as you told the ultimate aim is for the sake of kids benefit. Surely sacrifices had to be made by the couple for that, but that is how life is going to be. As long as the couple have a mutual understanding, everything should be fine.
Thanks.

sanjuruby3 · Aug 24, 2016

priyabaghel said: ↑

After those 20 hours of intense labor, I assumed there’s nothing that can be more challenging and exhausting than this. But soon enough, I understood that there is indeed something which is more challenging physically and much more emotionally. We call that ‘Parenting’ I believe. Because labor is going to end sooner or later but parenting is going to be lifelong task.
Remembering those good old times, when we just conceived, our happiness knew no bounds. We were ecstatic to become parents. We discussed everything from diaper to discipline. But there’s something I wish we would have discussed much earlier on so that we remained ‘mostly’ on the same page (because ‘always’ would be too much dreamy) and that is the style of parenting we want to adopt.
We have been together for so long that never did I imagine that we can have such differences in our opinions and approach that it will one day start questioning the stability of our relationship. And one does not realize this until one already has a tiny human being screaming at his best to garner all your attention that he could. We spoke about everything under the sun, but I guess the most important thing we neglected to talk about is the specifics of how we want to raise our children. And soon after our little one arrived, we realized what a blunder we made!
The problem arises when the style of parenting clashes. Each one of us has been brought up differently. Of course the basic values like honesty and being good human remains the same, there are certainly differences in the way they are inculcated. There’s always a mystic feeling of bringing up our little ones as we were brought up because we believe that’s the best way. Well, undoubtedly it was for us but not necessarily for our children. It gets further intricate when it is an inter caste partnership where the two individuals merge with absolutely two different style of upbringing. A small example where one believes it’s not good to over eat and hence leave what you cannot eat and the other says do not take what you cannot eat because wasting food should never be an option. Very trivial, right? But it is good enough for some arguments and lot of stress. It’s never about who is right and who is wrong because parenting can never be a win-win situation. It’s about what you want to pass on to your kids.
So the problems started pouring in as everyday for the most trivial things, our parenting style started to clash. We started arguing on every possible thing on earth right from eating habits, bedtime habits, how to bathe the baby and what should be the correct temperature of water and the list is endless! Discussions turned into arguments. We went to bed and slept without facing each other. We hardly enquired about each other’s day. However trivial these might seem, it surely builds some stress in the relationship. As I pondered on this, I realized we have stopped being a couple ‘in love’. It was getting hard for me to remember when was the last time we hugged each other or stole a kiss? I don’t know how things changed but I soon realized this certainly needs to change. It wasn’t leading anywhere, nor being successful as parents neither being supportive as a couple.
Although we loved our little one the most, we soon realized that parenting is drifting us apart. Let me not forget what brought us together in the first place, what brought this tiny part of us into our lives. It’s Love! Then why are we losing it now. After all it’s happy parents who build a happy home. It’s not good to let the ‘parent’ in us overshadow the ‘couple’ in us because until we are at the happiest state of our mind, we cannot make our children secure. So the day this dawned on us, we started making effort to make our relationship smooth and to not let the parenting issues overpower it because such issues are always going to be there. We can make it less but we cannot totally run away from it because at the end of the day we will still remain two different individuals, whose approach to a thing is going to be certainly different.
I have learned certain things with time. I learned that communication is the key to any problem. It is important to respect your partner’s views. Having a child is never an answer to save a relationship. Parenting is an art; one becomes better at it with time. But if you ask me, as a new parent it is pretty challenging. It is not always an easy transition from a ‘lovey-dovey’ couple to ‘responsible parents’ as life takes a 180 degree turn. As parents we need to work as a team because our goal is the same, however different may be the ways. And most importantly do not let these things ever, ever drift you apart because as long as you are together ‘in love’ you can conquer the world and this is just parenting after all!
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I know this is old post. This is so much of my story. While I was reading this, I was confused and I went up to see poster's name to make sure its not me and ofcourse, I do not have fabulous writing skills .

We have same issues going on for 2 yrs now and we have no alignment on anything. There is nothing common in us. We do not like talking to each other. I have been going though so much stress lately because of job and all that. I talk to him and most of the times, I find out he is not even listening. Not that I talk a lot or call him a lot. What hurts me more is that I am away from my family and can not go easily. All this is doing negative on me and what I want to be go farther away and blame our separate backgrounds and cultures for all this differences and swear not to let my sister or kid do that in future. :-(

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When Parenting Drifts Us Apart

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