After children, after marriage, you have to find a new normal.
Text messages no longer make your heart flutter like butterflies; date nights become rare. Stolen kisses happen less often, tucked between bedtime routines and household chaos.
It’s a big deal to come back from it, and it’s hard. I never thought I’d need relationship counseling, yet now I see it differently. When you marry and have kids, you must learn a new language of love—a new way to communicate, to truly see each other, to appreciate each other.
Suddenly, you realize love isn’t about the biggest bouquet of flowers or dramatic gestures like throwing rocks at windows. It’s not about appearances, money, a perfect body, or the illusions of Hollywood romance.
Love shows itself quietly. At 3 a.m., when your children are calling out for you after a long day of work, after holding a teething baby in your arms and thinking you cannot go on, he gets up—and he goes to them.
And you, exhausted, fall back asleep.
It’s the quick kiss before work, the consistent “I love you” every morning. Or a simple text: “It’s late, should I bring takeaway for dinner?” It’s the little things—a favorite chocolate waiting at home, a car filled with fuel, small acts that say, “I see you. I care.”
I used to scoff when people talked about marriage. “Why?” I’d ask. “Everything changes. Don’t do it. You lose love.”
I was so wrong.
I had lost the ability to recognize all the ways love quietly shows itself. I thought love had gone, but the truth was, I had stopped seeing it. I had lost it myself.
Now I say: get married. Have children. Experience it fully. But choose carefully. Marry a man who will be a father to your children—who will rise at 3 a.m., who will let you rest while you put your cold feet on his legs, who will stand patiently at the pharmacy to pick up your anti-depressants.
Marry someone who notices every way you show love: making coffee in the morning, taking the kids out so he can watch the game, small gestures that go unseen but mean everything.
Be with a man who puts you first, who puts your family first, who sees you, who appreciates you, and when both of you forget to notice, who patiently waits for you to realize it again. Someone who will love you even on the days you struggle to like each other.
Fall in love with—and marry—someone who can handle loving all the versions of you: the girl you were, the woman you are, and every version in between.
All of you.
