My First Year as a Mom Taught Me How to Make a Marriage Last
On the morning of our second wedding anniversary, my husband Nick and I awoke to the sunrise in the guest bedroom of our friends, who had graciously hosted us at their Hollywood Hills home for the night. At the foot of our bed slept Bennett, our six-month old, whom we had towed through Universal Studios for fifteen hours the day before in celebration of Nick’s birthday. For two months, we’d been living with my parents in San Diego since we could no longer support ourselves financially. This trip to Los Angeles was a reprieve from reality; we'd both long dreamed of visiting the Harry Potter Hogwarts castle.
At the theme park, though, we spent the majority of our time taking turns riding the water-splashed Jurassic Park: The Ride. While one of us floated under the prolific Brachiosaurus, past the wild Velociraptors, and beyond the knife-bladed teeth of Tyrannosaurus Rex into a tidal wave of cold water, the other watched the baby.
Each time I floated past the fictitious dinosaurs and heard the Jurassic Park theme song, I looked up at the stars sparkling through a smoggy L.A. sky and realized what I’d been missing: an escape. From responsibility. From the muddled feelings I had about who I was in motherhood.
Back at our friends’ Hollywood Hills home with the baby nearby, the sun sauntered through the windows. I rolled over closer to my husband and whispered memories from our wedding day: the rain that had collected that morning, which we chose to take as a sign of a fruitful, lasting marriage; the vows he had written on an old piece of paper he saved from the restaurant where we both worked and met; our first dance to Frank Sinatra’s The Way You Look Tonight; our honeymoon trip to Costa Rica.
“Mm-hmmm,” he said, then turned over to look at his phone.
I rolled my eyes. And suddenly, my stomach hurt. I realized: We were no longer acting like the happy couple who shared our love story to anyone that would listen. Now, we were part of the 67 percent of American couples who say they are less happy in their relationships...because of new parenthood.
Before we were married-before we were even friends-we were coworkers who competed to outsell surf-and-turf at an overpriced hotel restaurant. One day during our shift, I complained about my grungy, guitar-playing ex-boyfriend. Nick quickly whipped out the black book that he took guest orders on and asked me, “So what are you looking for in a man?”
I thought about it. “Tall, dirty blonde hair, blue eyes. Comes from a good family. And you know, someone funny. Like Adam Sandler.”
I paused, thinking about whether my answers came across as shallow and off-putting, since Nick had dark brown hair and warm brown eyes. Right after I said Adam Sandler, he closed his book and walked away. Then he turned around and silently mouthed, I can be your Adam Sandler.
The baby was stirring in the pack 'n' play as I waited for Nick to get him. I’d spent the last six months attending to Bennett after I decided to leave my job as an adjunct English professor. Nick, meanwhile, continued to straddle between two worlds: By day, he took graduate school classes to become a doctor of physical therapy, and by night, he played with the baby.
I was jealous. Motherhood often left me lonely and resentful. I wanted access to my old world, too-and out of the fog of something that felt like postpartum depression. But I didn’t have the guts to share my feelings of sadness, fear, or confusion with anyone-including Nick. Instead, I was waiting for him to see through my facade himself.
Nick didn’t pick up the baby, instead continuing to play on his phone. I wondered whether or not we could give our son the gift of happily married parents. I knew we had the potential: Both of our parents remained married, and Nick and I steadfastly promised to remain committed until the end. Six months into parenthood, I wondered if we had already reached that point.
I inhaled my frustration and morphed it into a high-pitched “good morning!” as I scooped the baby up to feed him.
Before heading back to my parents’ house in San Diego, Nick got out of bed and began packing our things into a Batman suitcase, a prize I'd won on the game show Let’s Make A Deal, which I went on in hopes of scoring a grand cash reward. We'd recently moved home because we had not anticipated the financial stress that came with parenthood. Moving back home at 29 felt like failing.
“Aren’t you going to talk about our wedding day?” I asked Nick.
He looked disappointed. Like I had done something wrong.
“Stop trying to control everything,” he said. “I don’t think I can do this forever.”
“Do what forever?”
“This.”
“So, you want a divorce?”
“If this is how the rest of our life is going to be.”
“Well, I’ll divorce you first."
I bit my lip and cringed like I’d just swallowed poison by speaking the D word aloud. We had promised plenty of times to never to joke or argue using the D word...and yet, here we were. The truth was: I didn’t want a divorce. I just wanted to spend time with Nick-alone.
We loved Bennett fiercely, but one thing had become clear: The baby had changed us. We’d morphed from two cute, fluffy black caterpillars to flapping, unwieldy butterflies-or, rather, wild killer moths. With unruly hormones and months without sleep, I had become a wild something. Nick and I had only left the house together alone twice since the baby was born, and both times were at night when the baby was asleep. The idea of “dating” your spouse even after you’re married sounds nice-but for us, was mostly improbable.
But I missed the version of us who dated. I longed for the sunset bike rides, the picnics in the park, the impromptu trips to Denny’s at 2 a.m. for the Grand Slam breakfast. I missed sleeping in late with no one to care for but ourselves. I missed the happy hour pale ales, the daylong waterfall hikes, and the Adam Sandler jokes.
We both used to make each other laugh. People at work called us the Two-Headed Monster. We finished each other’s sentences. No one believed we actually enjoyed spending 24/7 with each other. But we did.
Despite our D-word argument, I shared a photo from our wedding day on Facebook that morning. In it, the two of us looked out onto the San Diego skyline, surrounded by water. I captioned the picture with, “Looking forward to year 3,” and the engagement ring emoji.
I wondered why I couldn’t just write: My husband and I are driving each other nuts. I need to go back to work but don’t want to. I mean, I do, but I don’t want to miss anything with the baby. Nick’s grad school is hard. We just moved back in with my parents because we don’t have an income besides Nick’s school loans. We are on food stamps. We hope next year will be better-but who knows, right? Happy second anniversary. Let’s try and make it to year three.
I think of the idea of marriage like a pristinely packaged product being sold on TV. Thanks to an advertising team, marriage is touted as something larger than life, as something that offers the illusion of perfection. It’s presented just as burgers are: with sauce sexily dropping down a beautiful person’s face.
But when you actually go to the burger joint, you realize the lettuce is wilted and slimy green-so off-putting you wonder if it is lettuce at all. The smoking chargrilled burger is actually lukewarm, and the sauce is scant-if it’s even there at all.
When I shared this realization with Nick, he responded with exasperation as he loaded some bags in his arms to take to the car: “You paint these things in your head, about how things are and how you want them to be.”
“Don’t we all?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Your parents don’t act like this.”
“They’ve been married for 32 years,” I said. I picked up the baby bottles to bring them to the kitchen to wash. Nick remained quiet. But I think we were both wondering how couples can survive a lifetime of this.
During the four hour car ride home to San Diego, we remained silent.
When the three of us arrived home, my family asked what our anniversary plans were. When we said we didn’t have any, my sister encouraged us to try the Tuesday dinner special at the restaurant on the beach where she worked. It took some convincing since it had already been an awkward morning, but we decided it would, of course, be good for us. Leaving the baby with family, we set out to enjoy an anniversary meal by the water, one of our favorite places.
With a view of the pier and surfers catching offshore waves, we enjoyed a $39.95 “Couple’s Night Out” special, which included a bottle of wine, salad, and three appetizers. There was no baby to tend to as Nick and I looked out into the ocean, mesmerized by its blue hue. I once heard that the salt from the ocean can cure anything; just by looking at it, I felt the salty breeze settle on my skin.
At dinner, Nick gave me a gift: a white Brachiosaurus succulent pot. He knew the dinosaur was my favorite part of the Jurassic Park ride.
I traced my finger over the ceramic dinosaur’s long neck. It felt like a symbol of my new-mom status: Someone who pokes their head into everything because they’re not sure where they belong in the world.
But then, I put my hand over my mouth, unable to stop laughing. It really was the perfect gift. And also, perhaps, felt like a sign: bend more. Be as flexible as this leaf-eating dinosaur.
I thought back to the first summer Nick and I were together, when I’d moved away for graduate school and he’d drive up on the weekends. During one visit, he brought a handwritten card with quotes about change-and a mixtape CD full of songs with the word “change” in it. It was ridiculous-and perfect, just like the dinosaur succulent.
“I’m sorry about our fight this morning,” I said. I told him he wasn’t doing anything wrong, and that our baby was so lovable. How lucky I felt to have both of them.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I need to do better in those situations.”
I placed my hand on his knee and told him it was okay. We were both getting a hang of this parenting thing, and I realized: we were doing the best that we could. I handed him his gift: a cooler disguised as a backpack. “Perfect for future picnics,” I said.
Nick leaned in to kiss me as the sun began to settle over the Pacific Ocean. “I love you,” he said.
“Love you more.”
Over a year later, Nick and I are still married. I went back to work a couple of weeks after our D-word fight. I no longer try to make our messy-cute life appear perfect. Now, while I believe in the power of love, I also believe in the power of work. Marriage and a baby? That takes work. More of our friends have become parents, so we have more people we can have “real talk” with. We’ve started going on more dates, even if that means turning on Netflix from the couch while the baby sleeps upstairs.
What I wished I’d known entering parenthood is that when a baby is born, a parent is also born. I wouldn’t understand this in the way I needed to until after I graduated from the first year of parenthood.
After our fight about divorce, rather than simmering over our resentments and letting the daily stress build up, Nick and I decided we’d talk more. And he’s shown up more, too, whether that’s offering to bathe Bennett or putting him to bed or washing the bottles.
Now, the second year is a whole different dreamscape. I savor the moments when our son runs up behind our legs to hug us, or when the three of us read Goodnight Moon for the 100th time, or the delight I see on our son’s face when we have an impromptu 8 a.m. techno dance party.
For a couple, there is something both magical and fierce about the first year of parenthood. For Nick and I, it cracked us-then healed us in ways we couldn’t expect. In a way, we needed to break completely to understand exactly how whole we were. Year one reminded us that love is our most powerful life force. And if nothing can snap you out of a tunnel of funk, well...there’s always dinosaurs.
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