Dear Husband,
I miss you. You’re lying next to me, but I miss you. Or rather, I miss us. I miss our relationship, our intimacy.
You see, we have small children, and they take up so much of our energy, particularly my sexual energy, that I don’t have a lot left to give at the end of the day.
I want you to know that I still love you, want you, need you (and not just to empty the bins and co-parent the children). I still find you attractive. I look at you, and when you have that twinkle in your eye that’s reserved just for me, it still makes me melt and reminds me of the first day we kissed.
I see the young man I knew, and I don’t notice you getting older, you’re still the same to me.
We make a great team ― whether we’re just silent in each other’s company, or laughing together at a joke only we know the punchline to, or we’re tag teaming a crying child, or changing a poonami nappy, the movements are fluid and coordinated (most of the time).
Yes, sometimes we shout pointlessly at each other, I scream “Where are the trousers?” at you several times, even though I know you don’t know, and you tell me off for not hoovering instead of noticing what I have done. These are little things that don’t matter.
Sometimes I lie awake at night, whether I’m with the toddler or just can’t get back to sleep, I am comforted with your presence. The sound of your snoring drives me crackers at times, but it does reassure me you’re alive.
I long for the days when we can lie in bed watching Saturday Kitchen, taking turns to make each other breakfast in bed. On Sundays we’d make love and eat bacon sandwiches together. To go out to a market and just wander around at our leisure, before picking out an entirely un-child friendly cafe or pub to have lunch in. We’d get drunk over lunch and decide to do something silly, or check into a hotel together. We’d watch what we like on TV, then have some food, have more sex and then pass out. No one would wake us up in the night or early in the morning.
I miss being really present with you, talking and laughing together, rather than delegating tasks to you and offloading at you when you walk in the door. I try and get interested in your work, and I am, really, I just have such depleted energy levels from the general Mummy-ness of my life and the trio of demands on me, that I don’t have a lot left to give at the end of it.
I miss being touched not by children, that intimacy that comes from someone knowing your body almost better than you know it yourself. The easy way we can switch between friends, lovers and partners.
So this Valentine’s day, let’s make time for each other, even if it’s just one evening, to really connect again so that I won’t miss us so much.
Love,
Your Wife x
Find more on Midwife and Life, a UK Parenting and Lifestyle Blog. Written by Jenny, author and owner of Midwife and Life.