This is more trouble than it’s worth.
We tried intimacy too.
Quiet, exhausted sex that was more about proving we still could than actually wanting it. Sometimes it felt nice; the closeness, the reminder that we were more than co-parents. Sometimes it felt like another task, another thing to squeeze into a day that already didn’t fit.
The rare times we got close to a moment, something always happened.
One night we actually got as far as kissing, proper kissing, and Dan paused mid-breath.
“Did you hear that?”
We froze.
Silence.
Then, from the hallway:
“Mummy? I did a poo but forgot to wipe.”
Dan buried his face in my shoulder like he might scream.
I laughed so hard I nearly cried.
Another time we did have sex, actual, proper sex, but we were both so determined to finish before an interruption that it was possibly the most joyless, robotic shag of all time.
Afterwards, Dan lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling, then said quietly:
“That felt… productive.”
Productive.
Sex had become productive.
Sleep was sexy now.
Then we tried to do “real” date nights, out-out, and that’s where reality properly came for us.
Because childcare.
People love to say,Just get a babysitter.Like they’re ordering a pizza.
We don’t have the kind of family you can rely on.
Dan’s parents are both gone. His dad died when he was young in a fishing accident; the kind of tragedy that lives in the background of a family forever. His mum died of cancer not long after Dan and I first got together, which meant there was never that gentle slide into grandparent help. No “drop them round.” No emergency backup.
My parents are here, technically, but not in a way that counts.
My dad’s diabetes has left him disabled. My mum is drowning caring for him, still working full time, trying to keep them afloat. She doesn’t have the energy to take on three children. She barely gets time to sit down herself.
So it was friends. Mum friends. My sister.
And everyone meant well. Everyone wanted to help.
But life with kids is a constant, contagious mess.
We’d plan a night. Actually plan it. Feel that tiny spark of hope.
Then the messages would start.
