My husband (24M) and I (23F) have been married for 2 years. I would say that we are in a good place. We have a beautiful daughter and we are about to buy a house. My husband also just got an amazing job offer where he will be making significantly more money that will support our family. I love my husband and I enjoy being around him. He is a great man, he is funny, smart, sweet, and we have a decent sex life (only because my sex drive has plummeted recently). The only bad thing I can say about my marriage right now is that I feel my marriage is lacking romance. Our marriage is full of love but there is no romance in the sense that my husband doesn’t ask me out on dates, the sex is very predictable, and he doesn’t surprise me with sweet gestures. I know we are no longer in the honey moon stage especially with a child but our daughter is one now and she is a lot more independent and I feel we have gotten past the hard part of being first time parents and are in a good routine. However, I don’t feel like he is pursuing me romantically. How do I get my husband to initiate romance in the relationship?
tl;dr: Me and my husband are in a happy marriage but there is no romance and it is affecting me.
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Are you pursuing him romantically? Are you asking him out on dates? Do you do sweet gestures?
Pursue *him* romantically.
Did you communicated what you see on your perspective and how you feel about it to your husband? Opening the conversation might be an interesting start 🙂
Have you asked him out on dates? Have you left sweet little love notes where he might find? Have you been initiating anything romantic, or do you just expect him to? It takes effort from both. Now if you are doing these things, and he’s not reciprocating, then time for a convo. But lady, buy him some flowers … men usually get the hint if you buy them a bowyer and some beer or similar. When asked why? Say you’re being spontaneous and romantic cuz you’ve both been lacking!
What are you doing to foster a romantic connection?
Have you asked him specifically for what you want? It sounds like you have unarticulated desires based what you’re experiencing (“our daughter is one now, so he should…”), but it’s not clear that you have sat down with him and said, “I love the life we’re building. I know there have been a lot of changes, with the pregnancy and the baby, and I think we should talk about us, and what our relationship can look like now.”
I know it might not sound romantic to say “can you plan a date for us once a month” or something like that but… the date itself will end up being romantic. You’re totally right to want stuff like that, it just takes very explicit communication to make it happen sometimes 🙂
Honestly, kudos to you for wanting romance in your marriage! I’ve been married almost 11 years and we have kids 5, 7, 9, and 10. I’ve been a SAHM since pregnant with my first and my husband has been the breadwinner. I would say we have close to zero romance in our marriage, but we are lacking nothing. I am even more in love with him today than I was on our wedding day and I know he feels the same way. We have joke that we now practice abstinence because we have sex maybe once a month due to my lack of sex drive, burnout, and kids crawling in to our bed. What’s replaced romance for me is him enthusiastically supporting my hobbies by pushing me to buy the new quilting frame, or register for the next half marathon and do a girls weekend for it. I just feel seen and appreciated and that works for me.
All that to say, maybe you can reframe some things he does for you to see them as romantic actions? Like others have said, you can ask HIM out on dates and help keep that spark alive. I just asked my husband to meet me for lunch next week on the first day EVER where all four of our kids will be in school!
Talk to him about it, I’m sure if you voice your thoughts to him he will understand and probably start doing these things again or will surprise you in someway
Welcome to living the rest of your lives together, in theory. You have “all of the boxes” checked and the trappings that go with it. Marriage is, and will always take work and deliberate effort. Love is an action, not a feeling. A marriage is about communicating and talking openly, and the other person is coming from a place of good. It’s about true forgiveness and growing. It’s about doing things as a couple that don’t include children. Marriage changes the dynamics of a relationship. Adding a child really changes it. You trade fun and romance for stability and safety, and the fun and romance have to be planned. Spontaneity has left the building, and calendar events replace it. Your lives are a delicate balance between your daughter, your careers, your home, your relationship, and yourselves in that order. The ONLY way to balance it all out is by talking without distractions, such as the TV, phones, play dates, etc. You should plan 1 solid hour a week where you discuss last week, next week, and your relationship. During the week, a solid 15 minutes a day will help keep you connected and on top of things. It’s the 2 of you against the world.
To answer your question about romance, it’s not dead, though given all that is going on, is it fair to expect it? Lay out your week, his week, and daughters’ week in a calendar and figure out where the time comes from. You have to budget time for romance, which isn’t easy. Marriage is hard in that it can get monotonous, frustrating, aggravating, and predictable, and life can drive events. It can also be very loving, safe, fun, and a warm place to grow old together while building a future. Communicating and compromising will get you to end if you continue to put each other before yourselves and work together. That’s a monumental ask, especially these days.
If you can find an older couple as mentors, it’ll be a huge help. Your first 5 years are the first hurdle, and extremely difficult as you learn to become married. The next 5 is difficult because it becomes settled in. Mentors help navigate the tough times.