9 things I have learned in 2018

Here are 9 things I have learned in 2018.

1. I CAN PERSUADE OTHER PEOPLE TO HAVE SEX WITH ME!
My self esteem has never been that high, and was frankly AWOL this time last year, so this came as something of a surprise.
I started dating at the end of the summer and it turns out I’m actually quite successful in this department.
(I’ve literally quadrupled my lifetime penis exposure in 4 months).
Either I’m more attractive than I thought I was or I’m just giving off some serious desperate middle-aged housewife pheromones…
At this point who cares?

2. I CAN ADULT
No not that kind of adulting – already covered.
I mean I can face my post, pay my bills, do my finances, mend shizzle, and organise single-working-parent life.
Mostly.
Okay, look, stuff is mostly mended with gaffa tape or by looking pathetically at neighbours, I rely on school mums and nursery staff to remind me about important stuff, friends often have to support the post opening and form filling-in, and I have to call my dad before I can look my bank account in the face,
BUT
I’m not quite the 1950s helpless housewife I was.
And you know what? Sometimes asking for help IS adulting.

3. I AM FLAWED
I’ve done a lot of soul searching, and a lot of counselling in 2018. And sometimes when you take a good hard look at yourself, you don’t like what you see.
I’ve learned a lot of hard things about myself.
I don’t like how I handle stress, how I become obsessive or fixated under it, how I batan down the hatches under fire, how much I peace-keep, avoid conflict, and how much I crave approval. I don’t like my need to be liked. I don’t like that I change myself to please others.
I don’t like living with the resulting imposter syndrome and inferiority complex, the continuous self-doubt, and that nagging, un-continuous dialogue – where no matter what our history, with 90% of people I know I still feel like I have to start at square one to prove myself to them, every time I see them.
All of that has seriously damaged my career, my friendships… and my marriage.
And all my worst bits – all of the above – basically stem from one thing. My fear of abandonment.
And recognising that is helping me start to change it.

4. I AM FABULOUS
Sure, I’ve done things wrong. I’m flawed.
But I am not mean.
I am not callous. I have never been cruel.
I’m nice. I’m funny. I’m kind.
The people I’ve had to cut from my life in 2018 are seriously missing out. Because I really am pretty okay, actually.
In fact, no.
I’m GREAT*.

5. I HAVE BOUNDARIES
If you follow this blog you know I struggle with the boundaries. I overshare. Like, a LOT. (See point 1, for instance).
They became confused by an interesting and toxic combination of baby brain, depression, fatigue, isolation and emotional abuse.
My instincts, my social skills, my confidence – were all eroded.
But I can and have set NEW boundaries.
I don’t keep the peace for the sake of it, anymore.
I’m learning what’s picking my battles and what’s losing my voice.
I don’t let people treat me badly, or watch others treat me badly and pretend it’s okay, because otherwise they might have to face some awkward truths. Wah.
I am learning where my borders are, and how to defend them more effectively.

6. MY EMOTIONS ARE NOT A WEAKNESS
I’m not mad. I’m not sensitive. I’m not over-emotional. I’m not unstable. I’m not over-reacting. I’m not intense. I’m not over-thinking. I’m not misinterpreting.
My feelings are valid. They’re telling me something important. They ARE my instincts.
They are my heart, my empathy, my essence – the core of my okay. My GREAT*.
And it’s okay to have them. It’s okay to be sad. Sometimes that’s an appropriate and reasonable response to external stimuli. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be as happy and as exuberant as I like.
When I listen to my what my emotions are telling me, I make GOOD choices.
I will no longer let my emotions be used against me.
They are my superpower; not my kryptonite.

7. CONNECTION IS EVERYTHING
For me, life is about connections, first and last.
It’s about sharing meaningful, joyful and tragic times.
It’s about family, friends old and new, my village offline and online – all the connections I was starved of because I was lost and hiding.
Each one of them is a lifeline I am grateful for.
Thank you all.

8. I AM STRONG
So I don’t look it (I weight just over 6 stone after the divorce diet), and often I don’t feel it.
But then I remember.
At the end, when things were SO bad, he wouldn’t have behaved to a friend, acquaintance or a goddam stranger the way he behaved towards me.
And when I finally saw on one particular evening that it was having an impact on the on the Big Small, too, I said STOP.
I did that.
I did that for me. For the Smalls. And actually, for him, too.
That’s how bloody strong I am.

9. I AM LUCKY
When everything has been razed to the ground, at first it looks like utter devastation. But then there are new tentative shoots, reaching for the sun again.
There is new life, new growth, and new opportunity.
I’m going to be 40 this year, and I’m starting over. And I’m also starting to see how wonderful that is…
How many people get the chance to rebuild themselves, reassess their life, their choices, their values, their direction? How many people get to change the patterns they’ve fallen into? The grooves they’ve worn in their relationships, their work, their own sense of themselves?
That’s what I get in 2019:
I get to change the habits of half a lifetime.
I get to live more than the half-life I was living.

The truth is that I’ve been blinkered and buried and stifled and stumbling. Now I get to look up and see clearly again, with new eyes. Or at least slightly cleaner glasses. Now I get another chance.
Oh, I didn’t want it – I had to be exploded out of the old life, and there were some injuries. Some of them serious.
But there it is.
The last present of Christmas. A new future…

I get to carve out time to write, and paint, and run, and read, and dance, and LEARN again. All the things that make me feel like me. All the things I compromised. All the things I abandoned in survival mode. I get to be the mother I want to be. I get to be silly when I want and sad when I want. I get to have the art I want on the walls, and the cushions on the sofa, and to let the books get out of control again. I get to go to bed when I want. I get to pick up the strings of my career. I get to pursue the friendships I neglected, and the ones I have since forged in grief and relief. I get to have the sort of sex I always wanted but was too tired for – or assumed was just for other people. I get to fall for someone again. I get to have the flipping stomach, and the butterflies, and the giddy HEAVINESS of it.
And in all of that, through all of that, I get to fall for ME again.
I get… POSSIBILITIES.

Now all I have to do is make the most of them.

Happy New Year.

*(Some days).

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Dating translations – what he says and what that means in REAL life

Being on the dating scene later in life usually means you’ll be meeting people who’ve been around the relationship block a few times. That’s inevitable, and actually GOOD news, because it means people are capable of forming committed relationships. Probably.

On the other hand, it turns out there are A LOT more frogs than princes out there…

WHO KNEW???

One of the red flags for me is how people talk about their previous relationships, break-ups and partners.

So based on a couple of months internet dating, here’s my quick guide to what he says, and what that ACTUALLY means in, you know, real life.

He says: “It had been over for ages”
He means: I was still going through all the motions (including sex) but had an eye on the horizon and was waiting for something better to come along and/or for her to chuck me out.

He says: “There was a lack of intimacy in the relationship”
He means: I didn’t get sex as often as I wanted because she was always knackered from work/childcare/washing/cleaning – most of which I didn’t help with.

He says: “I am/am not the sort of person who does xxx”
He means: I’m exactly the opposite of that sort of person, but hope that by reiterating it constantly either you or I will start to believe it.

He says: “I was staying for the kids”
He means: I was too lazy/cowardly to leave but I think this makes me look like a bit of a noble hero and might get me into your pants.

He says: “She didn’t support my career”
He means: She baulked at yet another golf day/night out with the team/late night at the office/work trip/cancelled arrangement.

He says: “She didn’t understand me”
He means: She disagreed with some of the things I said/did.

He says: “She’s a psycho”
He means: She got upset and called me out when I behaved badly and/or she had basic human emotions – and I found those really uncomfortable and inconvenient to have to deal with.

He says: “She neglected our relationship”
He means: Yeah, not enough sex again. It’s like I wasn’t constantly the centre of her attention.

Look – at this point if you find out he left when a kid was still under, say, 3, RUN FOR THE DAMN HILLS.

In fact, I’m willing to guess no woman over 30 or with her own kids is actually falling for this gubbins.

And if you are, you’ve now got a working translation to help you avoid the idiots!

Good luck out there daters.

Let’s talk about sex

So, let’s talk about sex, baby!

Let’s talk about all the good things, all the bad things, that, well, make me… ME.

The advice I’ve had from many different places, on breaking up with my partner of 20 years, has been to rebuild me, spend time on me, learn who I am again, be on my own for a bit – that I don’t need a man to make me happy.

Etc.

I struggle with advice.

Mostly because I want to take ALL of it, because I’ve learned over a number of years that I’m wrong and stupid and unstable, and should therefore cede to a higher authority.

But advice is like new clothes. You have to hold it up to a mirror to see if it suits you, maybe try it on, but be careful not to remove the tags and commit to buying it (or into it) until you’re sure it’s really for you.

And this advice just didn’t… sit quite right across the shoulders.

One of the things that most upset me about the split, was the overwhelming fear that it meant that part of my life was over. For good. That I wouldn’t get that chance again – of love, of connection.. of SEX.

Some part of me knew this was catastrophising. But it FELT real.

The plain fact is that being a c40 year old mum is very different to being a c40 year old dad. Parenthood simply does not take the same toll on the body, mind or day-to-day life of men as it does on women. It just doesn’t. It can’t.

And I genuinely thought that no one would ever want what was left of me after all that – the saggy, empty bits. The mad, angsty bits. The scarred, broken bits.

The unfairness and loss of that was part of the black hole that at one point threatened to suck those broken bits in for good.

But it turns out that part of my life isn’t over, after all.

And what I’ve come to realise is that sex is one of the things I needed to help stick the broken bits back together.

Sensuality and physicality are part of my GLUE. They’re part of what makes me feel like ME. A part that had been missing for a long, long time.

My relationship with sex has been – let’s go with screwed – but not in the good way. Look, if you need connection to have sex, and that connection erodes, what you end up with is… wrong. Really wrong. And that’s gonna mess with your head. (And other parts of your anatomy).

Putting that right again is an important – and ongoing – part of healing. Or at least it is for me.

The fact is I DON’T need a man/partner to validate me. I DO need to learn how to re-establish boundaries so I don’t get eroded again.

But I also need to be me.

And sex is part of me FEELING like me.

(Or at least – now that instinct has resurfaced – of feeling like a teenage boy with ZERO CONTROL over his libido. One of the two).

At the end of the day, it’s about balance. Or rebalancing. Picking up ALL of the threads that made and make me myself, and weaving them back into something whole.

A rag rug, by the hearth.
Scraps of memory, beauty, and colour.
Tied tight again.
Glued at the edges for good measure.

An online dating UPDATE

I have now officially been online dating for 5 days.

So far I have ensnared a series of 50+ gentleman who appear from their very best mug shots to be serial axe murderers, several slightly younger men who call me ‘babes’ a lot and can’t use punctuation (apparently an aphrodisiac for me – who knew?) and a Turkish sex therapist who wants to broaden my orificial (possibly not a word) horizons.

One man I very mildly flirted with then actually LEFT THE INTERNET.

I still got it, ladies.

AND I HAVEN’T HAD THIS MUCH FUN IN YEARS.

I’ll keep you posted on progress..

Hinder

After my husband left at the end of October, things were basically as dry as a desert down below for at least 6 months. Probably dryer.

In fact you could package that sort of dryness up and put it in little paper sachets at the bottom of new handbags.

(Now I come to think of it, we’ve actually got no idea what’s REALLY in those packets, or how it’s harvested… Just saying).

More recently, however, I have begun to feel the first stirrings of my dormant libido.

Female sexual desire is something that’s still a bit taboo, isn’t it?

I mean we’re all supposed to be porn stars in the bedroom (plus perfect housewives, dedicated mothers and successful career women, obvs), but we’re not actually supposed to talk about it, advertise it, or actually enjoy ourselves too much.

And we should never, EVER mention all of the squelchy wet bits.

Personally I do not consider this a good example to set.

Sex isn’t when a mummy and daddy love each other very much. People do it because it feels GOOD.

Or at least it should…

A bit more honesty about that (and around safety, and consent and respect) should be part of decent sex education.

I’ve been in a relationship for nigh on 20 years, and despite brief high-risk pregnancy/small baby pauses, my body is basically used to having sex pretty regularly – at least a couple of times a month (or suffer the epic sulks). And after that sort of training, it’s definitely now suffering withdrawal symptoms.

I can of course see to this manually or electronically. But the bits I’ve always really liked about sex are the fleshy, sweaty, squelchy wet bits. So it’s not really the same thing.

Trouble is, I’m not sure I’m ready.

Or if I ever will be.

I generally don’t go around getting a wet-on for a lot of people. I’m obsessive compulsive, have a thing about germs, and I mostly don’t really like to be touched by strangers. (Or you know – people I actually know).

I’ve never done casual sex. I wouldn’t have clue how to go about it, frankly, and it all seems a bit icky, sordid and unhygienic.

I’m socially anxious, and a billion times more entertaining online/in text than in person – so I don’t rate my chances of reeling somebody in particularly highly.

Plus I’ve slept with just one person for a really long time and for all I know, I MIGHT BE DOING IT WRONG.

Then I’ve had 2 kids. My body was never great (ditto my face) – and it’s even less so now. There’s sag. There’s stretch marks. There’s loose skin. There’s full-on FURROWS. Plus I can’t really be bothered to get it all dressed up or have to shave all the hairy bits into submission (body not face – but it’s probably only a matter of time).

AND, I’m really not into any of the fancy stuff. I’m too damn tired for tantric. I don’t want semen in my hair/face. I may never have actually given birth but the two pregnancies/c-sections were enough to pulverise the pelvic floor and more importantly hammer the hemorrhoids – so there will never, ever be any back door action. Ever.

Finally – and probably most importantly – I don’t think I actually want a relationship. I am still reeling from the last one.

I was not supposed to be here.

I was supposed to grow into my aging body with someone who would love every battle scar and wrinkle and know their stories. I’m still so broken after that. And so eroded by the awfulness that came before… I’m not sure there’s enough of me left to stand upright in a couple – and I don’t want to bring yet another person into my kids’ lives. It’s not fair.

So basically what I want is a nice, clean, single man, who I actually fancy, who isn’t overly promiscuous (or indeed terribly fussy), who doesn’t have a MILF fetish or cougar fantasies I can’t live up to, likes early nights, neurosis and slightly used breasts heading south, and is up for no-strings, largely monogamous, casual-but-not-too-casual, basic missionary or doggy style quickie-sex, on an every other weekend basis.

IS THAT REALLY TOO MUCH TO ASK?

I think I’ve just invented really crap middle-aged/single-parent Tinder.

I shall call it Hinder, create an anti-logo with a snuffed out candle instead of a flame, and clearly MAKE MY FORTUNE!!!!

If you are interested in Hinder’s services, or know someone who would be, please let me know below.

Let’s see if I can put together a viable business case for NatWest…

Either that or I’ll just have to screw my courage to the sticking place, try and take a picture in which I don’t look like a wrecked husk of womanhood, join Tinder and see what happens.

Wish me luck.

Mumonthenetheredge
Xx

Contemplating my toes

On nights when I don’t have the kids, I get to have Me Time. I’m very out of practice at Me Time (about 6 years rusty – the age of a Big Small) and basically I suck at it.

Tonight I tried for Self Care 101, and decided to cut my toe nails. This was overdue.

And I realised I am still wearing the nail polish I was wearing the last time I had sex with my husband.

I don’t know whether this is a sign of how fast he moved on, how woefully neglected my grooming regime is, or just how toe-curlingly awful the toe-covering months have been.

Definitely though, it felt like a sign.

I think when I applied it that I thought I was ‘making an effort’. I didn’t know it was already too late.

And so I have spent a long time this evening doing nothing productive, staring at my toes.

And thinking.

I could of course break out the nail polish remover and scrub off every last vestige of chipped red.

I could pick out a new bright and shiny colour to replace it. Hot pink, perhaps. Maybe add a layer of glitter?

But I can’t quite bring myself to do it. And I don’t really know why.

I suppose the truth is that I’m not ready.

I don’t want my feet, or any other bit of me, to look attractive for anyone.

What I want is the reminder.

My new reality is still so painful and the future is so very unknown. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever have sex again. If l’ll ever want to. If anyone will ever want me. Want us. I don’t know where I’m going to live, where the Smalls will live, what school they will go to, what our lives will look like or who will still be in them. I don’t know much.

It’s like I still need an anchor, a connection with the past – which whatever else it lacked was at least consistent.

And it’s there, right at the end of my toes, in a thin smear of old scarlet.

So I’m leaving it. The last half centimetre of my old life. To grow slowly out, to be snipped off bit by bit over the next few weeks, in appropriately grotesque curls (why ARE nails so much more offensive when removed from the body?)

It’s not long left to wallow.

And when it is gone it will be nearly summer and surely everything will look better and sunnier.

And maybe then I will be ready for pink and sparkly.

(Or at the very least be forced by the prospect of sandals into better podiatry maintenance).

Finding love in the little things

A year ago, I wrote an alternative love letter to Dad-then-on-the-nether-edge.

In summary, I told him I loved him more than a soiled Bristol loo.

Ok, it did go somewhat deeper that that, and was rather more romantic (I thought) than the loo thing implies! Here it is.

Basically, it was a blog about being with someone for a really long time, and wearing grooves into each other’s souls.

It was a blog about the sheer and unrelenting monotony and exhaustion of life with small children.

It was a blog about the hidden beauty and love in all of that – in knowing someone so well, and in the awful/awesome details of family life.

It was also about not taking all of that for granted.

The verdict from Dad-now-off-the-netheredge was that it was a ‘bit depressing, actually.’

At the time his response hurt, but it did not open my eyes to how differently we viewed things.

In hindsight, I don’t think I wanted to see.

The truth is, where I saw beauty, he just –
didn’t.

He wasn’t looking anymore.

Or maybe he never saw it at all.

Or maybe it was me. Maybe I was blocking or spoiling his view.

It really doesn’t matter, anymore, does it?

I thought I was investing – in small, everyday deposits – into our life together. I was banking those beautiful details like they were precious. He had already checked out of the account.

It is always hard to be the person who falls out of love last. It is always hard to see the other person move on SO swiftly. It is always hard to be the last to know.

This Valentine’s Day, I am on my own. I imagine I will be on my own for a long time.

But I still believe, so strongly, that beauty and love IS in the little things, the ordinary things, even the mundane things.

One of my favourite poets put it better than I ever could – ‘Glory be to God for dappled things.’

Because speckled sunshine through the leaves, a baby’s belly laugh, a family game, the sweep of lashes on a cheek, the mutual comfort of the post-bedtime slump on the sofa – they can add up to something greater than the sum of their parts.

You just have to agree what the little things are – for you and your Valentine and your family.

And then you just have to keep looking for them.

And while that isn’t always easy, even from my new vantage point in spurned ex-wife world – I still believe it is always worth it.

So to old lovers – and new ones – Happy Valentine’s Day.

Xxx

The Summer Luvvin’ Guide for DADS

If you are the father of small children and still getting your rocks off with their mother willy, er, nilly, then hurrah for you, stud muffin! This article is not for you.

Neither is it for you if you and/or your partner and/or your relationship don’t conform to any sort of stereotype. Excellent work – go read something else.

However, I’m **pretty** sure there are many men out there who are are to a greater or lesser degree lamenting the loss of their pre-kid love life, bemoaning the hoo-hoo halt, or mourning the curtailment of their tail action. If this is you, please read on!

I feel your pain, boys, I really do. (Or at least I think that’s what’s digging into my hip).

The stark truth is that if you have a mum-on-the edge in your life – it doesn’t mean she’s going to push back harder. She may even be pushing you away harder instead.

There. I’ve said it.

For most of us, post-kid sex is not the same as pre-kid sex, and it’s high time we talked about it. In a grand sweeping generalisation, men need sex to feel love, and women need love to feel like having sex. There is nothing as upsetting to this delicate balance than the horror/magic of childbirth, followed by magic/horror of child-rearing.

So I’m going to attempt to help get us going (ooo, er missus) with a step-by-step hump-guide for Dads. Here’s how to get it ON this summer, when frankly she’s rather gone OFF the whole canoodling caboodle…

 

1. Give it some time

Here’s the thing – brace yourselves. Your favourite squelchy love tunnel will never be quite the same again. Fact. It may return to something approaching what you (and your best trouser pal) remember, but it will take some time. (Having witnessed it pop out a human being you may not feel the same way about IT for some time, too.)

And it isn’t necessarily just the physical stuff. Yes there’s tearing and stitches, and prolapses etc. (Hell I didn’t even use my lady bits to expel my small people, and it still hurt like a womble-flommer when I used it again – FOR MONTHS. Something about swelling, and muscles, and the downward pressure of pregnancy, yada yada).

Any hoo, sometimes it takes the lady folk a little while to feel the same way about the ol’ vag, too, once it’s had a baby-battering. It is no longer the shiny pink playground it was before – physically or metaphorically. Be patient.

And wank.

 

2. Give it a rest

Pestering, or continually pointing out how long it’s been seen you last got some, is not sexy. Letting her know you’re counting the days, weeks or months since you last danced the filthy fandango is going to do nothing but pile the pressure on and stop any and all juices flowing.

Never, ever, EVER mention your ‘needs’.

This will result in injury; followed by more abstinence.

 

3. Lower your expectations

I have heard of women high on the oxytocin of birth and bonding getting the horn, but I’m going to go out on another limb here and tell you that it’s an exception rather than a hard and fast rule. No hard and fast for you. Down boy.

Basically after you’ve been expecting, you’re best off not expecting anything about your sex life.

You may have to settle for a nice cuddle.

When things do get back up and running, you’ll pretty likely have to settle for perfunctory missionary that gets everyone’s rocks off without the trouble of getting their socks off. Wham, bam, thank you Mam(ma).

If you were once into kamasutra marathons and tantric sexathons, forget it. If you once prided yourself on your stamina, get over it. No one has the time and energy for that kind of b*llocks, now. I don’t care if you ARE both floating sky high on the lurve hormones, the fancy stuff is going to have to wait until everyone is a little less exhausted and the smallest of the people learn how to actually sleep for several fricking hours in a row.

Get each other off and get to bloody sleep.

 

4. Beware of boobs

These may no longer be your personal fun bags, fellas. Sorry. They may be sore, bleeding, blocked; she may be sick of everyone constantly hanging off them, she may mutter darkly about ‘interfering with supply’, and she’s probably going to view them more as udders than erogenous zones – at least at first.

Even if the boobies in your life have not been called into active service for your new small people, don’t assume they’re still fair game. Ask. This is generally good advice in most situations. Yes you’ve known each other’s intimate territory intimately and possibly for some time – but this is a brand new, brave new world. Explore it carefully. (Not least because they may squirt you in the fact once the oxytocin DOES start flowing. Be warned).

 

5. Foreplay has changed

Yip, it is no longer enough to just point at the front of your trousers and waggle your eyebrows. You’re going to have to raise your game, lads!

Remember though, foreplay no longer involves things like massages, snogging, dry humping and oral exploration. Basically it now involves doing the washing up.

Look, you’ve got to cut through all the other crap going on in her head (and life) to get sexy time moved up (or onto) the agenda.

If she’s thinking about getting the tea sorted, remembering to add nappies to the shopping list, steralising the next set of bottles, sticking the muslins in the washing machine, pondering whether she ought to be taking the baby to the Doctors for that cough, wondering if she ought to take the beef out of the freezer, if the homework’s all been done, getting more of the dried food the cat likes, ordering that repeat prescription, mentally composing that work email, thinking about texting her mum back later, trying to recall whether it’s another non-uniform day at school, what time playgroup is on, whether anyone has any clean pants for the next day, etc etc etc etc, she’s not thinking about sex.  

Yes, all of this stuff is going through her mind. Yes, at all times.

If you help cut down this To Do list, you’re in with a far, far better chance of getting down and dirty.

Strap on those marigolds, cowboy, and put a bit of bleach down the toilets while you’re at it. (Nothing sexier than a clean bowl).

 

6. Empathise

The true key to a better sex life this summer is empathy. Suck it up, and you might even get sucked off. It might not even be your birthday!!!!  It’s gotta be worth a try, right?

You’re going to have to listen to some of that crap running through her head. And most crucially, you’re going to have to resist giving her solutions. Yes, yes, I know you don’t get it. Just trust me on this. Go with sympathetic validation of her feelings unless SPECIFICALLY asked to express an opinion.

Nope.

Nuh uh.

Not even then.

Just do it. Your boom stick (and more importantly your spouse) will thank you for it.

 

7. Get inventive

It is likely that your pre-partum sex timetable has been significantly disrupted by the baby’s schedule. Lazy morning sex is out, and by the time you actually get to bed no one feels like it anymore. That’s why nap times are now your new best friend! Think outside the box to get into the box!

This goes for the where as well as the when. You may have small interlopers in your actual bed, where it was traditionally sort of convenient to get horizontal. Time to repurpose the sofa/change table/cot the baby never actually bloody sleeps in anyway.

 

8. Romance has changed

She doesn’t want flowers and for you tell her how pretty her dress is. She wants a tumble dryer, and for you to tell her the body she no longer recognises – with one with the jelly belly and stretch marks that hasn’t been out of a dressing gown for three months – isn’t completely repulsive to you.

Don’t tell her she’s sexy – tell her she’s doing an amazing job of parenting your children. Don’t tell her she’s gorgeous – tell her that you’re proud of her. That you don’t know how she does it. Tell her you love how she loves your babies. That she’s the best mum you’ve ever seen. That she made and nurtured something so ridiculously beautiful and perfect. That seeing her with your children in her arms hurts your heart and makes you love her bigger and deeper than you knew you could. Tell her that motherhood has made her more beautiful to you than ever.

That sh*t is bound to get you into her mat-pants.

Good luck out there Dads!

You can do it.

And her. 😉

 

Mumonthenetheredge

Valentine’s Day

The last Valentine’s day I remember pre-children was spent working, on my own, staying overnight at a hotel in Bristol. This involved an evening meal as the only solo diner in a room full of couples, food poisoning, the realisation at God-awful-o’clock that someone else had already had a personal explosion in my hotel room toilet WHICH HAD NOT BEEN CLEANED, and a 5am start.

Post-children, it’s basically all gone down hill from there.

Dadonthenetheredge and I have now been together for something like 17 years. I am fast approaching a time of life when I will have been with him longer than I was ever without him.

I’m not saying the romance is dead, but it’s definitely in some sort of medically-induced coma. Either that or it’s gone for a really, really long nap.

(Both of which, by the way, are totally unfair, as napping is now basically all I desire in life – and if there are strong horse tranquilisers involved, I FUCKING WANT SOME).

The fact is that love after children does not look quite the same as it did before.

Love now is much less about dressing up, dining out, gazing into each other’s eyes, exchanging gifts, and dancing the night away before getting in some inventive shagging.

It’s more about dressing gowns, take-aways, gazing at the telly, giving each other an early night, and possibly (if Dadonthenetheredge is extremely lucky) getting each other off as quickly as possible before sleeping the night away – or as much of it is left when you have small, restless, early-rising children.

Because sometimes love isn’t an expensive gift – it’s a crappy handmade card from a playgroup.

Sometimes love isn’t sleeping in each other’s arms – it’s sleeping at opposite sides of the bed and NOT BEING TOUCHED FOR A FEW HOURS.

Sometimes love isn’t bringing home expensive Belgian chocolates – it’s bringing home emergency Cadbury’s buttons after a shitty day stuck inside with the kids.

Sometimes love isn’t candlelight and handholding – it’s sitting at two ends of the sofa bathed in the soft light of your separate iphones.

Sometimes love isn’t sex – it’s an exhausted cuddle (often with interlopers).

Sometimes love isn’t a compliment on your outfit – it’s a compliment on your parenting.

Sometimes love isn’t Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 – it’s Julia Donaldson’s ‘Stick Man’. (Again).

Sometimes love isn’t a love letter – it’s a text to say the baby is nearly asleep so you can start the tea.

Sometimes love isn’t holding in a fart – it’s facilitating a private poo so it can be enjoyed without mini spectators.

Sometimes love isn’t a sparkly piece of jewellery – it’s a sparkly bathroom, CLEANED WITHOUT NAGGING.

Sometimes love isn’t a bunch of flowers to be arranged – it’s a bunch of socks to be sorted.

Sometimes love is just doing the washing-up together, even if you’ve cooked, even if it’s not your turn.

Sometimes love is a nap.

Sometimes love is packing the kids off to Grandma’s so you can both spend an evening looking through pictures of them.

Sometimes love is admitting that perhaps the other person IS more tired than you are.

And sometimes, all of that is OKAY.

Love, like everything else in life, changes. Perhaps one day it will go back to being violins and poetry, instead of recorders and nursery rhymes. But perhaps it won’t.

When we looked at the swollen squishy face of the Big Small after her arrival, Dadonthenetherege and I realised simultaneously that we no longer loved each other above all else; and that we also loved each other more than ever.

We realised we hadn’t really known love at all, until that very moment. And that love was very different to what we’d thought it was. (Very likely, Dadonthenetherege and I were the victims of the traitorous hormones that accompany children into the world –  presumably to prevent their parents from immediate infanticide).

Quite clearly, though, since that moment of oxytocin-fuelled revelation, we’ve not always got it right.

Because while all of this stuff is okay, SOMETIMES, sometimes, it isn’t.

Sometimes, Dadonthenetheredge and I get so caught up in loving the children – and in living the draining, debilitating, deforming work/life/guilt/repeat reality of parenthood – that we forget to love each other.

Certainly we’ve found this happily-ever-after shit a great deal harder than the fairy tales, rom coms and Valentine’s cards would have us believe.

Because an awful lot happens after the ‘The End’, after the ever-after, in this ‘middle bit’ of life. And it happens without the adventure and wonder and momentum and PLOT that began our love story. That begins everyone’s love story.

There is a relatively fine line between giving up on the false ‘valentines’ trappings of love and giving up on each other.

Between being comfortable and being complacent.

Between growing together and growing apart.

Between being tired, and getting tired of each other.

Between keeping the peace, and keeping resentments bottled up.

Between focussing so much on your part you forget to appreciate you partner’s.

Between love being blind, and forgetting to see each other any more.

Between pouring all of yourself into the kids, work, friends and family, and leaving nothing but the dregs for your other half.

Between finding your way through this parenting lark, and losing each other in the process.

Between holding it together and holding back.

Between getting on, and getting through – getting by.

And all parents of my acquaintance – if they’re honest – have walked this line at some point in their relationship.

Some people will fall off. Some will fall apart. And some will fall back in love, all at once or bit by bit.

We are led to believe that love is the easiest and simplest thing in the world; that it will trump all else. We are being lied to. It’s hard. It’s about remembering, and trying, and working, and forgiving, and forgetting, and renewing and getting up each day and doing it all again and again and again.

Life, and love, and living, is a FUCKING SLOG.

So this year, I would like to say to Dadonthenetheredge, that after 17 years, I’d still rather spend 14 February with you than over a pre-soiled Bristol loo. (See? Maybe the romance isn’t dead after all!)

This Valentine’s Day, I promise that I’ll keep slogging away at it if you will.  (I can’t make any promises about the fucking. It’s not your damn birthday).

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone doing the middle bit of life. The hard bit. Keep walking the line.

Mumonthenetheredge

xx