3 out of 4 times when you ask someone for advice or what to expect when pregnant; you will get advice such as ‘sleep while you can’, ‘babies are expensive’, ‘being a mother will be amazing’. Some people will even be honest and raw with you about how having a baby is stressful, tiring, and that post partum depression is very much a thing.

When I was pregnant, I did thorough research on all things pregnancy and baby related. I was constantly reading articles and blog posts about pregnancy and life as a first time mom; I had even joined forum boards with moms that were due around the same time as me (shout out to all my wte moms). Even with all that information I had read up on, everyone seemed to gloss over or skip the one major topic that most couples are not prepared for. How difficult it is to balance being supermom AND still keeping the spark alive in your relationship.

I will be completely honest when I say I had the absolute hardest time balancing the two. After about two months postpartum a.k.a. once your baby gets to the point of staying up longer and actually moving and needing to be entertained is when you realize “F*#K! I’m exhausted!” and you only get more tired the older and more active they become. I just could not fathom sacrificing my few hours of precious, uninterrupted sleep(not counting the every 20 minutes you wake up to check your baby’s breathing) to sit on the couch and watch tv or entertain a whole other human.

Now this obviously does not apply to all new and expecting parents but it for damn sure applied to mine and literally every single other couple I knew with a baby. I heard sporadically, ‘having a baby will put a lot of pressure on a relationship’ but that warning wasn’t mentioned half as much as people warning me of no longer being able to sleep my weekends away. I would have preferred for people to brace me and my significant other that we will have to now make conscious efforts to prioritize one another rather than hearing about not being able to sleep until noon on Saturdays. Do not forget about your significant other, do not stop doing the little things that keep you two connected, prioritize your relationship and make a conscious effort to spend time with one another.

I mean for this to be such a common issue, why is it not talked about? Feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, but still proud (because I mean every day deserves a pat on the back) and then resentment towards my significant other. No one warned me about these feelings of resentment. You will feel resentment (again, this does not apply to all women) because lets be honest, dads are just not doing half as much as moms are and if they are, they damn sure aren’t doing it half as good as we expect 😉 Now if you do have a significant other who is doing half as much and doing it as well you expect, please never let your unicorn go; just go ahead and lock them in the basement and throw away the key.

For me, I was resentful because he wasn’t as tired as I was. Being a parent didn’t come as natural to him as it did for me so therefore that made me the go-to parent. I was resentful because all of a sudden I couldn’t relax, even when he said “sit down and relax” with me; I would sit down and think of 5 other things I could be doing. I did not know how to express these feelings because I couldn’t even understand my own feelings. As our daughter got older, the feeling of resentment began to subside because he gradually became more confident with me being gone all day and not have to call me to ask how does he do something which in turn helped me to become more relaxed because all the pressure of having to be the go-to mom and supermom who doesn’t make mistakes began to ease up. My piece of advice is work on your communication skills, address your feelings, and if you can do some type of counseling because it’s worth it.

Am I the only that experienced these feelings once I became a mother? Let me know what are some other things you wish people would have warned you about.