What’s that Sinatra song – ‘Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage, Go together like a horse and carriage’…cute song, full of the joys of love, and, er, marriage. But like all good love songs, it seems to end before the kids arrive, doesn’t it? Just as well, I suppose – ‘Love and marriage and kids, go together like a horse and carriage AND DICK BLOODY TURPIN’
Not that I would wish to compare children to rampaging highwaymen. I mean Dick Turpin by all accounts was single minded in pursuit of his plunder, creating chaos to ensure he got what he wanted, and leaving dire consequences all around him if he didn’t. Nothing like kids at all…oh. Come to think of it, Dick Turpin actually comes out of this looking bit better – after all, he only wanted your money OR your life.
Seriously though, how the effing eff are you supposed to maintain any sort of grown up relationship with young children? If you google the top ten tips for a long lasting relationship (I haven’t googled this by the way, and if I were to google it, it would TOTES OBVS be for a friend) but just say someone were to google it, while researching a blog article or something, and I bet the top 100 search results would be all spaff like ‘Make quality time for each other’ and ‘When you talk to each other, make eye contact and listen carefully before responding’ and ‘Have a sexy weekend away’ and ‘Don’t forget the romantic surprises, how about a note in the fridge to tell him you love him’ and ‘Do a relationship MOT once every few months’ and ‘Make sure you have time away from each other with your respective circles of friends’ and blah de bloody blah.
Are you having a LAUGH, internets? Quality time? When, exactly? We used to put the kids to bed at 7 and know we’d at least have a couple of hours to do something together, even if it was only the VAT return…now they are bigger, bedtime is later, and our ‘us’ time is squeezed – and at weekends it’s non existent. Eye contact? We could probably do that, if we slept facing each other and propped our eyelids open – would that count? Romantic surprises? Do you mean the ones that appear from nowhere when you just might be having a bit of cuddle that just might lead to something else and – oh. SILLY ME. Hahahahdebloodyha. What’s next – ah yes, a relationship MOT. Right. So if it’s anything like the car MOT, you remind each other for weeks that it’s due, fail to book it, blame each other for said failure, finally book it, and then wish you hadn’t because you get a whopping great bastard bill to get the stupid car back on the road for another year, oh and a sheet of advisories just to tell you that despite all the cash you’ve just thrown at it, the car is probably going to die in the next 12 months anyway…Nah, not feeling the love for the whole ‘relationship MOT’ thing. And finally, make time away from each other…what the WHAT? If we don’t have time FOR each other, how on this earth are we supposed to make time AWAY from each other? And in all this time making, what do we do with the kids???
Admittedly this is made more tricky by the fact that we mostly work different hours to each other. We worked it out like that so that one of us could always be around for the kids before and after school, but the flip side is that one of us is working at least one evening a week and often two, and one of us is always working on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. Throw in Welsh classes another evening (which are essential as the kids go to a Welsh speaking school) and weekly admin for the business, and it’s not unusual for us to go weeks without having time for a proper conversation. Weeks? Possibly months, come to think of it…
So, oh grown up ones who are out the other side, how does it work then? Is it just keep your head down and get on with it? Does it get easier? And when? Are we the only ones who are finding that our kids, desperately wanted and loved as they are, are Dick Turpinning things?
As always – pearls of wisdom welcome!
…16 months on and this remains as true as ever, so I’m linking up with ‘The Truth About’ over at Sam’s blog ‘And Then The Fun Began’…pop over for a root through truth, truth and more truth from some fab bloggers!
Oh that is such a funny post and so so true. I love the MOT comparison – fantastic.
Glad it made you laugh! And sadly enough, we have just had the car MOT and it went exactly as predicted, right down to whopping great bill :/
Great post! Made me laugh lots and lots. Afraid I can’t give you any advice because, as you know, we didn’t make it to the other side. And bloody glad I am about it too 🙂
Lottie Lomas recently posted…2013 – A Year of Regeneration
Cheers Lottie – and for your great blog too which has seen me through a few dark days!!
Awesome post Michelle! I’m loving your turn of phrase – I will definitely be using ‘spaff’ from now on 🙂 All so very true innit? How anyone actually maintains a decent relationship I don’t know. Although today the hubster and I actually had a childfree lunch together (it’s my day off and he’s on a late shift) but even then I was speeding through it as I wanted to do a billion things including making pumpkin soup with the ones rolling around the boot of my car, so I feel like I’m *slightly* in credit with him in the run up to Blogfest but actually, if we’re going to compare our relationships to cars then ours is probably a 1990 Ford Orion right now. Thanks for linking up with The Truth about… loved reading this X #thetruthabout
Sam recently posted…The Truth about… #2
Oooh Blogfest, better break that to mine sometime this week, ha! x
LearnerMother recently posted…House Project is GO!!!!
A very good read and reassuring, too. The colonisation of our evenings is the bit that irks me most. Don’t they know I have an anonymous blog about fatherhood that I need to write?
Touchline Dad recently posted…Not Having it All
Oh, this is so horribly true! We go whole weeks without having a proper conversation… Certainly one that doesn’t revolve around the children 🙂 It must get better as they head into their teens, surely?!? #thetruthabout
Sara (@mumturnedmom) recently posted…Alphabet Photography Project: Z is for… Zoo
A relationship MOT? Having quality time? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
We barely have time to do the car MOTs. And does sleeping in the same bed together count as quality time?
Tim recently posted…Silent Sunday 2/11/14
I have just scared my baby as I started laughing! Brilliant post! ‘Do a relationship MOT once every few months’ will stay in my head for a bit, ha ha!