Bonding Time With Husband During Parents/in-laws 6 Months Visit

Dear all,

Looking for some ideas here because I am out of my wits on how to resolve this. Married to my husband for 4 years now and we have a 1.5 year old LO.

We are not in India but both our parents visit us regularly for 6 months each - usually with a gap of a few days or weeks between each other. We both love our parents very much and the relationships between in-laws is cordial.

However what I've realized is that this is just like being in a "small" joint family without any private time for my husband and me to really bond. This is taking its toll on our relationship severely.

Every morning as soon as we wake up - I give the baby a bath and take him to the grandparents because they wake up at least an hour or two before the little one and are just waiting to play with him. Husband starts work from home itself, has tea with parents and needs to get ready and leave for the day to work - and already at the laptop since he is expected to be on-call 24x7. I am rushed to get breakfast ready for me and LO and then start my work. I WFH. Grandparents take care of baby along with a full-time nanny who does cooking for the adults and baby chores for us.

As soon as I finish work, I take the little one out to the park or library. By the time I get home its time for dinner - we all chat together but the key point is our communication is formal and just updates about the day. I really miss the kind, tender, loving exchanges with the husband. I know my husband for 13 years and ours is a love-marriage so I know how close we can be - but we both just cannot be open and loving to each other in front of our parents. (maybe its a cultural thing, or our personalities, but the way we talk to each other is so different in front of anyone) We are highly introverted and give our full attention to our parents when they are there in the room or at home.

After dinner, I come to put baby to sleep - sleep time routine takes 45 to 1 hour atleast. Meanwhile husband and parents tidy up after dinner and wrap up kitchen for the night. Since his parents stay up for sometime he stays with them for company. By the time he is ready to come to the bedroom, I am either asleep with the baby or have put the baby to sleep and resumed my office work. On most days I need to put in an extra hour or two at least to keep up with my office load.

So we rarely find any time to share a few loving words with each other. Most of our "action items" "household chores" are shared via email.

We both know the other cares deeply for us - but without time and words - I feel every relationship will begin to struggle. I feel the resentment and aloofness in us and it's getting worse with time and no action to make the situation better. We seemingly fight for many trivial reasons and most fights boil down to one of us thinking the other person doesn't truly love, care or think of the other person.

We are extremely grateful to have our parents be healthy and willing to visit us and stay with us. We consider ourselves really blessed so we spend morning and evening outside of works hour taking care of them, keeping them entertained and giving them our presence - but the other side of this coin is that our relationship is going for a toss because of this. I didn't realize how much I go heads-down into taking care of my parents when they visit - but I realize it when my in-laws visit and my husband gets heads down in to taking care of them - and then I find it extremely hard to live through for 6 months.


Any personal experiences to share on how you made time with your partner with a small baby and parents to take care of at home?

 

Hi @Vedhavalli
Thank you for your kind words. You are correct, I count my blessings (send myself a gratitude email) everyday. My husband and I had to go through some very tough times to reach this stage of "calm". We've had our share of misunderstanding, even "hatred" with the in-law relationships - but we had to work on many things to get to the current status quo (including having a cook) - which is why the intense desire to have a great relationship with my husband (which is the reason we had to go through trying times) after all we've done.

The previous trying times, is probably why my husband and myself spend all our awake-hours taking care of parents and our LO to our utmost - since we don't want any fingers pointed to us - by any negligence on our side.

But the side-effect of this has been the frequent and intense tiffs between us.

I like your ideas - thanks for thinking through my situation. I appreciate it very much.

After 5:30pm weekday and all weekend, I and husband are fully-responsible for LO. Grandparents are tired by then - and take care of their self-care after than - calling family, yoga, walking, shopping, tea time. So dinner dates weekdays or weekends won't work. Once a week we try to all go out to eat out - but once again conversations center around baby or formal news/family discussions. It's not possible for husband and me to be caring/loving/appreciative of each other.

For weekends, we can't just head out in the afternoon during naptime or evenings - because we make some outings together as a family - because otherwise grandparents are home-bound throughout the week. Also during nap time my 1.5yr old toddler needs someone by his side and won't sleep for more than an hour if left by himself.

I know appreciate and understand that my problem is nothing when compared to some really tough ones faced by indus ladies. But it still takes up all my mental resources and drains me out when our tiffs happen. So I am basically looking for life-hacks that other indus ladies might have come up with.


I like this idea the most.
> 3) Spare the baby library, park time to alternate days, instead go out with husband to park or join a gym together. Why not a simple drive for 10 min?

We can't leave baby home and go. But maybe we should join a YMCA type of place for the evening. So that husband and toddler and me can go together - and there may be some kid-friendly activity too.

 

>> Then another thing, you, your kind and H get to sleep in same room. I know I know its US and we get all different rooms but many indian people still live in apartments or have to share spaces while parents are visiting. So thats also good.

You're right, we are lucky we have a separate room. Thank you for making me see this perspective.

>> They come every 6 months so when they are gone, you have all the time.
Parents in law visit us for ~6 months and then parents visit us for another ~6 months. Yes, me and my husband keep telling ourselves about how lucky we are - but all through these years our tiffs increased a lot - and I think it is because of zero-time we've given to nourish our relationship. Because we are always in a rush taking care of office work, baby-time and then taking care of grandparents.

>> After baby, that bonding anyways changes. You can still go for movies or eat out once a while. Take half day from work. Me and my H have always been living alone after baby and honestly, we have forgotten meaning of word bonding, in every way. so now even if we have chance, we don't.[/QUOTE]

Hmm..I see - you mean even when you have time to bond - you don't feel like it because you are mentally/physically exhausted because of home/work/child-care?

 

>> I think your work hours are to be blamed. How many hours do you work?
The constant need to connect to team or go on conf calls in the evening can put your personal plans at bay.

Good point. You're right both my and husband's office hours includes 2 or 3 hours after typical timings on most days.

>> When I was in such a situation my Mil once said, you spend time with my son exclusively for 8 hours in the night. True, One third of my H time is spent with me, that gave me a starting point to value that time and make use of it for bonding.

You're a true sport. I would have fumed if my mil suggested that hubby time is only the 8-hours he sleeps. But I get the essence of how you've chosen to taken it - I like your spirit. Note to self: Make the most of whatever little time I get with hubby.

 

Maybe hard for you to believe - I don't watch movies or follow celebrities in the news. I've watched probably a dozen movies after I left home at 21 and am in my mid-30s now. I dislike celebrity-fan following. So my need, as far as I can tell, isn't stemming from what media has imposed on me.

This thread is about finding ways to go beyond daily mundanities with your partner - I chose to call that "bonding", I chose to call that "not formal-talk about news, relatives, diapers, daycare" - but instead "being able to share tender, caring, loving words" with your spouse. And these cannot happen in my personal case in front of my parents or in-laws (either due to my upbringing, or my personality or circumstances.) So was looking for life hacks on how others do it. It's very common for grandparents to visit their children for 6 months (given visa restrictions) in the US - so wanted to reach out to others who've faced anything similar.

Asking frankly - are you trivializing this need (that's what your comment sounds like to me)?