The kids finally went down around nine. Not asleep, really. Just down. Door closed. House quiet enough that I can hear the refrigerator humming from here. I'm sitting on the couch. He's three feet away. Same couch. Different planets.
We became parents. That's what we wanted. That's what we planned for. But somewhere in the middle of diapers and doctor appointments and figuring out who sleeps when, we stopped being us. I don't know exactly when. It wasn't a fight. No big moment. Just... slowly... the touching stopped. The reaching across the couch. The hand on my knee while we watched something stupid. The way he'd look at me from across a room. Gone. Not all at once. Like a leak you don't notice until the floor is already wet.
I remember how it was before. Not perfect. Nothing's perfect. But we had this thing. This pull. I'd catch him looking at me when I was just standing in the kitchen doing nothing. He'd come up behind me while I cooked and just... stay there. Not helping. Just touching my waist. Breathing against my neck. I'd lean back into it. Didn't even think about it. It was just there. The wanting. From both sides.
Now I make dinner and he sets the table and we talk about what the oldest needs for school tomorrow and whether the baby is getting enough iron and we don't touch. Not on purpose. Not angry. Just... no contact. Like we both forgot how. Or like something broke and neither of us said anything so we just kept walking around it.
The weight came on during the first pregnancy. Everyone said it would happen. Everyone said it was normal. Thirty pounds. Then forty. Then I stopped counting because what was the point. The baby needed me to eat. So I ate. And then the second kid and another twenty that never left. I tell myself it's not that much. It's not dramatic. I'm not obese on a medical chart. But I don't recognize myself. That's the thing. I walk past mirrors and it's like seeing a relative. Someone I know but don't feel connected to. I avoid photos now. When someone pulls out a phone at a birthday party I find a reason to be in the background. Bending down to tie a shoe. Checking something in the kitchen. I don't want to see proof of what I look like now. Don't want to remember that this is what he sees every day.
I don't feel attractive after having a baby. That's the simple truth. I say it to myself in the shower sometimes. Testing how it sounds. It sounds pathetic. But it's real. I used to wear things. Now I wear whatever fits and doesn't show too much. I used to care about whether he thought I looked good. Now I assume he doesn't. Why would he? I don't.
The casual stuff dried up first. The passing touches in hallways. The kiss that wasn't just hello or goodbye but just because. The sex became... I don't know. Scheduled? Rare? The kind of thing where you both know it's been too long so you do it because you should, not because you can't keep your hands off each other. I stopped initiating because getting turned down hurts too much. He stopped initiating and I told myself it was because he's tired. Because the kids exhaust us both. Because that's what happens. But there's this voice that says it's because after having kids husband not attracted to me. The voice is loud at 11 PM when he's asleep and I'm still awake running through everything I said wrong today.
Partner stopped touching me after having kids. I can say that now. It took me two years to admit it was a pattern and not just a phase. Two years of making excuses. He's stressed. I'm stressed. We're both just surviving. But surviving isn't the same as living. And surviving together isn't the same as being together.
this kind of quiet distance builds slowly in relationships without people noticing it at first. You tell yourself it's temporary. That when the kids are older. When work calms down. When you get more sleep. But the distance keeps building. Brick by brick. Silent and steady. You wake up one day and realize you're sharing a house with someone who feels like a stranger who knows all your habits. He knows I take my coffee black now because I stopped having time for the good stuff. Knows I shower at night because mornings are chaos. Knows everything about my routine and nothing about what I'm thinking.
I didn't even realize how much things had changed until I came across something that put it into words better than I could. I was up at night, couldn't sleep, scrolling through nothing, and found this piece about how weight gain affects a relationship. Not in a magazine way. Not advice. Just someone saying the quiet parts out loud. About the body you don't recognize and the partner who doesn't reach for you anymore and how those things tangle together until you can't pull them apart. I sat there reading it and kept thinking yes. Yes. That's the thing I couldn't name.
The emotional eating started somewhere in month six of the first kid's life. Up every two hours. Crying that wouldn't stop. Me crying that wouldn't stop. I'd put her down finally, finally asleep, and I'd stand in the kitchen and eat whatever was there. Not hungry. Just... filling something. Numbing something. The exhaustion made it worse. Still makes it worse. I'm too tired to cook properly so I eat whatever's fast. Too tired to exercise so I don't. The gym is a fantasy. Who has that time? Who has that energy? The kids need me. The house needs me. Work needs me. There's nothing left for squats or meal prep or any of the things you're supposed to do to fix yourself.
I didn't have time to fix everything. I just needed something small that didn't require changing my whole life. That's when I found Metolyn. I was skeptical. Everything sounds like a scam at 1 AM when you're desperate. But I read about it being simple. Not a overhaul. Not a lifestyle transformation. Just... something that worked with the reality I was already living. I started it three months ago. I don't talk about it because I don't want to jinx it. Don't want to explain it. But something's shifting. Slowly. The kind of slowly you almost don't trust because you've been disappointed before.
Body changes and self-image can quietly affect intimacy more than people realize. I read that somewhere and it stuck in my head like a splinter. Because it's not just the weight. It's the not-recognizing-yourself. It's the avoiding your own reflection. It's the assumption that if you don't want to see yourself, why would anyone else want to touch you? The logic is broken. I know it's broken. But it lives in me anyway. Grew roots while I was busy keeping small humans alive.
I overthink everything he does now. He didn't kiss me goodbye this morning. Is that meaningful? He went to bed early three nights this week. Is he avoiding me? He said I looked "fine" when I asked about this shirt. Fine. What does fine mean? I used to know what we meant to each other without translation. Now I analyze every word like there's a hidden test inside it. Like I'm trying to pass a class I didn't sign up for.
Losing my identity after becoming mom. That's the phrase that makes me want to cry and also makes me angry. I wanted this. I love them. The kids are everything and also I don't know who I am without them. I used to have a name that meant something at work. Used to have friends who knew me for things other than my parenting choices. Used to have a body that felt like mine. Used to have a marriage that felt like a marriage and not a parenting partnership with benefits that expired somewhere around kid number two.
We're still in the same house. Same bed, even. Though there's always a kid in it by morning. Same partner. Same me, supposedly. But something feels different. I can't say what. Can't name it yet. Maybe I'm changing. Maybe the Metolyn is working and I'm feeling something like hope and that makes everything else look different by comparison. Maybe he's noticing. Maybe he isn't. Maybe it doesn't matter if he notices as long as I feel like myself again. Or like someone I could get to know.
I sit here at night after they're asleep and I think about what changed. The list is long and also short. We had kids. I gained weight. He stopped touching me. I stopped feeling like someone worth touching. The distance grew. I found something that might help the weight part. The rest is still open. Still uncertain. Still sitting on this couch three feet from someone I used to know in the dark.
I don't have answers. That's the thing I keep coming back to. I don't know if we'll find our way back to each other. Don't know if I want to. Don't know if he wants to. Don't know if this is just how it is now or if there's something else on the other side of this tired, heavy season. I'm still here. Still thinking. Still in the same house with the same partner and the same body that doesn't feel like mine. But something feels different. I'm not sure what. Not sure if it's good or bad or just... change. I'm still unsure. Still thinking. Still awake at night while the refrigerator hums and he breathes in the bedroom and I try to remember what it felt like to be want
ed and wonder if I'll feel it again.