My husband is also tired. Even writing those words, depending on my mood, induces a sense of frustration.
Let me start by saying that I am tired. Being a mother makes you feel tired. Being a mother and being pregnant makes you feel even more tired. Being a mother and then giving birth to that new baby makes you feel especially tired. Being a mother, recovering from the birth and caring for this new baby, and your previous baby, makes you feel more tired than you ever thought possible. So, just to clarify, I'm fairly tired.
My husband is also tired. Even writing those words, depending on my mood, induces a sense of frustration. Frustration because how, and I mean this literally, how could he possibly feel tired? His body is his own, he's not breastfeeding throughout the night and he has the daily commute, his lunch break and several solo toilet trips to rest-up and recharge his batteries throughout the day. How dare he say that he is tired.
Or at least that is how I was feeling until recently. You see, I've had a bit of an epiphany and it's helped me bow down and gracefully leave the "who is more tired?" olympics in favour of feeling happy within my marriage. I saw an Instagram post during the week. For context purposes I'll mention that I found this post at around four am when I was up feeding the baby because did I mention that I have a baby and nightfeeds make you tired? Tiredness aside - the post was by Emma O' Leary (who I'm sure you are all following, but if not she is brilliant for all things play/craft/education/speech and language) and it resonated with me deeply.
The post, which you can see above, was about her husband. They have three small boys and both work so I'm sure a lot of people wonder how they can maintain and nurture a great relationship together in the midst of "life with tiny humans". And this is the part that really resonated with me. While talking about the fact that she and her husband Michael are "better friends than ever" she credits the fact that they have decided to
ditch the one-upmanship and join forces and tag-team instead
According to Emma "me with you trumps me vs you everytime". And just just like that I saw things differently. I wanted to wake my husband up (because, did I mention he was asleep? He does that at nighttime) and tell him that as it turns out it is totally OK for him to be tired and that actually I was sorry for ever resenting him for it.
He's tired. I'm tired. It's tiring. This is the world we are submerged in. A world we've created together. We are tired for completely different reasons but the reality is that we are both bringing to the table important pieces of the family puzzle. He's doing his thing and I am doing my thing. But together we are doing our thing.
It's not a competition as to who is feeling the most exhausted (he wouldn't stand a chance at winning to be fair...) or who did more today but rather an exercise in team work and compassion. The days are long, the years are short and it's important to remember that before the kids came along it was just us.
But just to clarify, for the record, I'm definitely definitely more tired than him.
