Dear Dáithí: I feel strangely distant from my husband, how can we reconnect?

September always feels like a fresh start, but I’m scared that this distance has become the new normal.

Dear Dáithí,

So, the kids are finally back at school after a long summer, but instead of relief, I’m feeling weird and unsettled.

My husband and I barely had a minute to ourselves over the past two months. Between ferrying kids to camps, holidays, play dates, and family visits, it feels like we’ve been more like project managers than partners.

Now that the house is quieter, I’m realising just how distant we’ve become. We didn’t fight exactly, but we also didn’t laugh much, or talk properly, or share the easy affection we once had.

It’s as if we’ve been running parallel lives under the same roof.

September always feels like a fresh start, but I’m scared that this distance has become the new normal.

I feel lonely, but silly for feeling like this, as it’s a busy house!

How do we reconnect after a hectic summer? I don’t want to wake up one day and realise the children are gone and there’s nothing left between us.

We are all delighted when children go back to school, it’s like having another job when they’re off because for some reason we think they have to be busy doing different things every day and the fact that they can’t drive themselves means that we are part of this busyness too.

With that said, I think a lot of people will see their own relationship in this letter, so in one sense you’re not alone and in another way you totally are.

I get it, you and your husband are like ships in the night, and because life is just so busy, you now feel like there is a distance there, and there might well be. You’re more like project managers than partners, as you say, but that is ok too for a while; that’s the practical part of being a parent, and it has to be done. If that’s not being done, there are bigger problems on the way. Your whole relationship is just missing that spark, and I’d imagine with a few small changes, you all could be back on track soon.

For me, this comes down to time management and prioritising what you really want.

We all love our children, but sometimes they come in the way because we spend so much time making sure that they have everything, so we forget about ourselves and our partners, so this needs to change.

There is no point in having children who have everything except a happy mom and dad. Actually, if they just had a happy mom and dad, they would have everything! I always say part of being a good dad is being a good husband and vice versa, too, otherwise the whole thing can fall apart.

There are a few reasons why we try to give our children everything, and one is that we didn’t have as much when we were growing up, and we often overcompensate. Also, because people now have one or two kids, we want to know everything they are doing and are worried all the time. There were five of us growing up, and my mother didn’t have the time to be checking up on us all the time, and what she didn’t know didn’t bother her.

This is where the time management comes in, and you should start planning for the next school holidays now, knock most of the playdates and ferrying jobs on the head. 

Make time for yourself and for both of you, too. Prioritise your time together.

Speak to your partner and tell him how you feel; if you’re feeling it, I bet you, he is too. Most men will just plough on without saying anything about this and will think it’s the norm, and in one sense it is.

The reality here is that you both have busy lives, you work hard and try to have the children do everything you can, and you should get a well done for that alone.

I think the emotions that are showing here are coming from you being lonely.

I know you have a busy house, but that doesn’t matter sometimes. It’s like when people who live in a city say they are lonely when they have all those people around them, just like in your house, people are coming and going and not really communicating properly.

The good thing here is that first, you have caught this on time, and secondly, you want to do something about it. I get from your letter too that you haven’t been intimate a lot lately. Now is a very good time to act on this. I’m going to come straight out and say it, give him the ride of his life, rock his world.

I think this is a great starting point. We have all had that euphoric feeling after this type of ‘activity’ and no matter what has happened before it, everything now is ok. When you’ve finally put your clothes back on, go over to the computer and book a nice weekend away without the children.

This will give you something to look forward to. The kids will love it too, a weekend away from mom and dad, everyone wins.

This is one way to make sure that when the children are off to college, you and your partner aren’t looking across the room, saying ‘Who’s that person?’ You are being proactive here, and that’s all that is needed here. There has been more of a lull than anything else in your relationship, and that has happened to us all. It will all be back to normal by Christmas.

Well done for writing in to me, I know lots of people would let this slide, and the problem gets bigger, and communication gets a lot smaller, and then you are looking across at a stranger in your own sitting room!