In her next column for TheLatch— Sydney Instagram personality, Amy Gerard, lets us in on how she maintains her marriage and sex life with three small kids in tow.
The secret to keeping your marriage alive once small children are around? I wish I knew the correct answer but I barely have the energy to stifle a fart let alone slow-mo run at him and be all cheery and motivated when he gets home.
When you have kids hanging off your nipples, legs, neck and/or ankles non stop, a never-ending washing pile, and a house that (no matter how often you clean it) looks like it’s being renovated by toddlers, you tend to see your spouse walk through the door and handball the kids towards him.
That usually never ends well and there’ll be a verbal competition of who has had the harder day (I always win), and then we slide straight back into tag-teaming kids, responsibilities and cleaning until I go to bed early.
By the time my husband Rhian gets into bed, I’ve reached hibernating bear status and have drooled everywhere. And if you thought that was sexy, Rhian likes to pop off all night long. So every time I’m back from a kid waking up, I pull the blanket up and get hit with a smell of a week-old trapped dinner like an invisible brick to the face.
I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve decked him in his sleep. Romance is well and truly alive.
People also say you have to make time for each other in relationships, and we really do try. Sometimes we’ll have dinner on our outside deck while the sun sets. He talks about work and I daydream about the shower I haven’t had that day.
But we are in the eye of the storm at the moment; we are exhausted and depleted most nights and right now I think all we can do is hold on (to each other, never turn a mountain into a molehill) and wait for the kids to grow up a little bit.
When I first met Rhian, I used to light candles and make love to music after enjoying an uninterrupted meal over a bottle of wine where we spoke about future holidays and how much we loved each other. I’d fall asleep on his chest and we’d wake up at 8.00am intertwined with each other.
Fast forward AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT (because that’s what our relationship moved at) and I couldn’t even tell you the last time we had a cuddle in bed — I mean a proper wake-up-on-his-chest cuddle.
Candles are now used to defuse a shit smell in the bathroom; music is played for family dance-offs in the kitchen, and making love is now a 120-second quickie over the bathroom sink.
Not because Rhian doesn’t get laid very often (but also maybe), but because 120 seconds is all it takes for Charli to realise she doesn’t know where we are, Bobby to set fire to something and Kobe to shit through at least three layers of clothing.
Its usually over before it’s started, only one person gets a home run (*cough* not me) and then we peck on the lips like a metaphorical high-five and leave the bathroom at different times.
A wise lady once told me that the two things necessary for a marriage to survive are sex and communication (not necessarily in that order), so I try to live by that.
Sex definitely helps you to feel like you aren’t just co-existing in a household with your brother. It helps you to feel closer (even if just momentarily), it makes you feel good, and for those 120 seconds, it’s just like its the two of you all over again.
And communication for us is all about talking about our feelings, asking for help when we need it, having a laugh at situations we can’t control and most importantly, communicating.