Richard Hogan: Rearing children is a consuming activity, but what will be left when they leave?

The busyness of life, responsibilities, chores and regular banal routine is famous for killing desire

Richard Hogan: You can have a deeper intimacy with your partner that isn’t primarily based on physical intimacy, but it requires intention. Picture: Moya Nolan

Ah, those early moments of new romance. Living by your vagaries, the excitement to see each other, the utter pain of separation by night or distance. The joy in the shared complicity of dreams about the future, not to mention the excitement of getting to know each other physically. It’s like an undiscovered territory, and you’re an eager tourist. Finding it almost impossible to keep your hands off each other. Remember? Oh God, I think I might sound like Yeats, looking at youth and declaring, “That is no country for old men, the young in one another’s arms”. I certainly recite those lines as I walk through St Stephens Green surrounded by kids in the first throws of romantic dalliance. Yes, those early days of a fledging relationship can be remarkable and sustain us long after the initial excitement and physical desire for each other passes.

I meet couples in my work and I often hear the same narrative being described; they started out passionate for each other and their love brought children into the world, but then the busyness of life, responsibilities, chores and regular banal routine did what it is famous for, killing desire, and the couple barely sees one another anymore. They are, the proverbial, ships passing in the night.

Those early romantic endeavours have waned and now they have transmuted into a numbing sibling relationship. It’s like what John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans”. We are all susceptible to falling into this mid-life trap that is waiting for us. As I have written many times, 47.2 is our most unhappy time in life as a human.

One of the main factors for this is the nature of our relationship with the person we decided to build a life with. Relationships are not always easy, it is incredibly challenging to launch into that endeavour successfully, there is so much compromise and stress along that sinuous route. But if we manage our relationship in a more intentional way, our mid-forties doesn’t have to be such a challenging time and nadir in our happiness as a couple.

I sit with couples and I hear the sadness being described as one member of the couple outlines how they have lost their way together. Intimacy has diminished completely and now they are stuck in a relationship that is based on fulfilling duties and chores, and generally one member might not be exactly living up to their side of the bargain.

This causes conflict, or worse, muted tension in the way of unspoken resentment. Of course, we cannot really be as physically desirable to our partner as we were in those early days. That’s normal. There are many things that can get in the way of that physical life, natural shifts in libido, menopause, tiredness, stress, to mention a few. So, it is normal to have a low ebb in our sexual life.

I say this because couples often feel like there is something terribly wrong with them because they are not as sexually active as they were when they were younger. It’s normal to have a dip like this in libido, but we can do a few things to ensure it is only a dip and not a prolonged absence of intimacy in our relational life. Happiness comes from our connection with others, therefore if our relationship with the most important person in our life is out of balance it will cause a significant amount of distress in our lives.

I had a client tell me recently, “Please don’t tell me that I should go out and buy sexy lingerie!” This was the intervention offered by her previous therapist. And it didn’t work. But it caused a moment of great levity in an otherwise heavy session. “Yes”, her husband said picking up on my reaction, “I’d rather an early night than unclipping complicated underwear.” Of course, he was joking, but they had lost contact with each other, and being intimate felt forced and awkward, so they had started to live this parallel life, separately together.

This happens to so many people, and with a few tweaks it can be avoided. The first thing I ask couples who are living like this is to paint a picture of life after the children leave. Here is the good and bad news, your children will leave your house, now for the bad news, it won’t be until they are approximately 25 years old. But they will leave, and what then? If you have lost your relationship through the busyness of rearing kids and you haven’t attended to your relationship, what has it all been for? And what will be left?

You can have a deeper intimacy with your partner that isn’t primarily based on physical intimacy, but it requires intention. It is important to connect physically with each other, while also understanding that those early days of mad passion dwindle and fade. But you should always make time during the week to connect with each other and share time together. Rearing children is a consuming activity, and time passes quickly, what will be left when the children leave?

That is something you should consider, and work to make to ensure that when your children leave you are not re-introducing yourself to your partner, because you have been together all along the way.