Still Us, Just Tired: Romance After Kids!
- Kayli Liebenberg
- 10 hours ago
- 5 min read
After kids, sexytime doesn’t disappear - it just gets quieter, messier and far more strategic. Andrew Spires reflects on love in the age of bedtime battles
My wife and I have had some wonderful Valentine’s days full of excitement and passion. And then we had kids. Romance is very different these days though it’s still worth fighting for.
Keeping a marriage alive and kicking is challenging at the best of times. I met my wife when I was 24, 20 years ago. We’ve been married for 12 years and we’re lucky that, for the most part, we’ve ‘grown’ in vaguely the same mental direction, although my wife has definitely grown up more than me. I reckon we’re doing OK.
Before kids, keeping the romance alive meant lazy weekends cavorting in various cradles of civilisation, spontaneous weekend getaways to a cosy Cotswold cottage, and stealing a drunken kiss in an alley after a night out. After kids, romance is finishing a sentence without being interrupted by a tiny philosopher asking “which is hotter, the surface of the sun or the centre of the Earth?”, and the greatest luxury known to humankind is half an hour of total silence.
The arrival of children is less like gaining a family and more like having two adorable, chaotic roommates who have never paid rent, demand constant catering and boast a laissez-faire attitude to cleanliness. In this delightful chaos, romance doesn’t die; it just goes underground to hibernate, and when it does show its head, sexytime becomes a carefully planned cover t mission executed with the precision of a heist movie.
Romance in the Spires’ household has morphed from: Pre-Kid: “My darling! Your eyes are like pools of starlight, reflecting the infinite cosmos of my soul.” Post-Kid: “Have you seen their school trousers? They’re not in the laundry pile. You get the small one to bed and I’ll sort the dishes.”
After 10 rounds of “I’m itchy, I’m thirsty, I’m hungry and I don’t want to go to school tomorrow”, both monkeys are finally asleep and I’ve fought hard to retain consciousness, the last thing on my mind is a passionate tussle with my wife.
I used to go all out with Valentine’s Day. We’d mostly eat in and I’d spend hours prepping a gastronomic feast. I’d craft a romantic playlist and have Marvin Gaye serenading us as we sipped wine and tucked into Tournedos Rossini before retiring to the bedroom which would be decorated with petals and beautifully scented candles. I’d gift my wife a massage and we’d fall asleep content and cuddled up together.
Once we had kids, the candles became a fire hazard as one child is a moth-like creature drawn to the light and the other would use the candle to set fire to a breadstick. Marvin Gaye was replaced by the Huntrix soundtrack on a continuous, soul-crushing loop. The wine became a form of sedative to make the mess more bearable and take the edge off doing the dishes for the 12th time that day. The gourmet meal is reduced to whatever all four of us will eat without complaining and I can knock-up around my work, their homework and the laundry. The only use Vaseline gets in my house is for dry elbows.
The romantic gesture is no longer a surprise weekend in a ritzy five-star hotel. It’s the slow dance in the kitchen at 11pm after the kids are down, the dishes are done and the house has been put back to some sort of order – the music replaced with the wonderful sound of silence. It’s a foot rub on the sofa as we stare mindlessly at something dreadful on Netflix.
What’s to be done? Date Night is a great idea but it never quite works out the way we plan. We don’t have a helper so we require my wife’s mother to help out, meaning it’s always on the back of our minds that we can't stay out too late, and the entire evening is haunted by the spectre of our children. We make a pact not to mention the kids but that usually lasts for about half an hour at best.
So, is the romance dead? No. It has simply evolved from a blazing, carefree bonfire into a pilot light. It’s there, perpetually on, ready to flare up when given the slightest fuel. A break in childcare due to a tutor visit – bingo! A sleepover at a friend’s house (the kids, not us) – get in there! You need to be ready for any lucky break.
The alternative is routine. I have a friend based in the UK, who books a session of bedroom gymnastics with his wife at the same time and same day each week. That does rather take the frisson of excitement out of it but it gets the job done.
In the end, the secret to keeping romance alive after kids is to radically redefine what romance is. So much of my time revolves around the kiddos that I often forget my wife is the same person she was before the kids came along. She has the same need to be loved, thought about and cared for that she’s always had. I do my best to make sure she still knows I love her. I make her a cup of tea every morning whilst she sleeps. I leave little notes in her suitcase if she travels for work. I send her random unsolicited messages of profanity but I’m not sure how much she appreciates those.
Romance for us, these days, is holding hands whilst we walk behind the kids as they chat nonsense, catching a look together to acknowledge the little superstars we’ve brought into the world. It’s supporting each other in our various endeavours and appreciating life isn’t all roses on the other side of the work fence, and importantly, it’s checking in with one another to make sure we’re OK.
I like to break my life down into phases. When I was a young kid growing up on a farm – that’s phase 1. Then a teenager, phase 2. Then a young adult finding my way through terrible jobs and relationships. Then meeting and marrying my wife of nearly 20 years – that’s phase 4. Then came the tiny terrorists, which put me on phase 5. I call this phase of my life ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ – based on the true story of Chris Gardner who battles homelessness and single-handedly raising a kid whilst trying to make it at life.
Whilst I do have a roof over my head, I’m juggling work, kids, the house and a marriage… and I’m not scared to admit it’s hard. But the thing about phases is they come to an end, and this phase too shall pass. That’s a shame as having small(ish) kids is really fun and I’ll miss this phase a lot once it slides out of view. But I am looking forward to date night and a romantic lie-in on a weekend with my beautiful wife.
So, is the romance dead? No. It has simply evolved from a blazing, carefree bonfire into a pilot light
