Marriage After Motherhood: Who Even Are We Anymore?

 I love my husband.

Let's start there. 

I love the way he looks at our daughter like she's the most magical creature on Earth. I love how he jumps to warm a bottle without being asked. I love that even when we're both running on fumes, he still tries to make me laugh (usually with a bad dad joke from the dad joke book I won for him one Christmas.) 

But here's the truth no one really prepares you for:

Becoming parents can feel like dropping a love bomb into your marriage —and then trying to rebuild from the rubble. 

After the baby arrives, everything shifts. The nights are long. The days blur. You stop finishing your sentences —and meals. Your relationship can go from intimate conversation late-night talks to comparing diaper brands at 2 a.m. You forget what it was like to just be together without a bottle to warm or a burp cloth over your shoulder. 

We're still us...just...different. 

We're partners in the deepest sense now, navigating this brand-new world with our tiny human. But we've also had to relearn each other. I've had to reintroduce myself- not just as a wife, but as a mother and a woman who's still figuring out who she is in this new chapter. And I've had to meet him all over again too, not just as a "dad" but a man I chose to do life with, even in sweatpants and spit-up. 

We don't have it all figured out.
But here's what we're learning: 

• 
  Intimacy isn't always physical—it's also in the shared glances when our daughter does something new. It's in the small kindnesses, the tag-teaming, the late night giggles when we're too tired to stand. 
• Communication matters more than ever—even if it's just a five-minute check-in in the kitchen. 
• Date nights aren't dead; they just look different now. (Sometimes it's a couch, some takeout, and holding hands while the baby sleeps or is at grandpa and grandmas. And honestly? That's gold.)
• We both need grace. So. Much. Grace. 

Marriage  after motherhood isn't about "getting back to how things were." It's about choosing each other again, in this new season. In the mess. In the magic. In the becoming. 

So, if you're in that space, wondering if you'll ever feel like a couple again, I'm right there with you. And here's the truth I'm holding onto: 

We're not who we were. 

But we're still us. 

And maybe, just maybe, we're becoming something even stronger.