When Did We Stop Having Fun Together? Marriage After Kids
One of the things couples sometimes notice after having kids is not that they are fighting all the time or that something terrible has happened between them. It is that somewhere along the way, they stopped having as much fun together. I think this can be surprisingly difficult to admit because compared with everything else parents are dealing with, fun can seem pretty unimportant. There are children to raise, jobs to do, meals to make, appointments to remember, practices to get to, bills to pay, and a home that somehow requires constant attention. Whether you and your partner laughed together this week probably does not feel urgent.
Until you realize that you miss it.
Maybe you used to be silly together. Maybe you had inside jokes that made absolutely no sense to anyone else, or you would decide at the last minute to go somewhere because it sounded fun. Maybe you stayed up too late watching something together or sat in the car after getting home because neither of you was quite finished talking. Then life got increasingly responsible, and somewhere along the way, so did the two of you.
How Couples Become So Serious
Parenthood asks a tremendous amount of couples. In the beginning, you are responsible for another human being who needs you for almost everything, and although that changes as children grow, the responsibilities do not exactly disappear. Bottles become lunches. Diaper bags become backpacks. Pediatrician appointments become dentist appointments, school meetings, sports physicals, birthday parties, carpools, practices, projects, and calendars that require an impressive amount of coordination.
Even the time couples do manage to get together can become practical. You finally sit down after the kids are in bed, and one person says, “Okay, what are we doing this weekend?” Twenty minutes later, you have successfully coordinated soccer, a birthday party, a grocery run, somebody’s school project, and the fact that the dog apparently needs something. It is productive and probably necessary. It just is not especially fun.
Research suggests that this shift is not simply something couples imagine. Claxton and Perry-Jenkins (2008) followed 147 dual-earner couples across the transition to parenthood and found an initial decline in leisure after couples became parents, followed by some increase after mothers returned to work. They also found connections between patterns of leisure and aspects of marital quality. That does not mean leisure is some magic ingredient that guarantees a happy relationship, but it does suggest that the parts of a relationship that seem optional may matter more than we sometimes realize. (Claxton & Perry-Jenkins, 2008)
Fun Gets Treated Like an Extra
One of the things that happens in family life is that anything that is not absolutely necessary can start sliding toward the bottom of the list. That makes sense. When you are exhausted and there are twelve things that genuinely need to happen, you are probably not stopping to ask, “How can we bring more playfulness into our relationship today?” You are trying to figure out what everyone is eating and whether somebody remembered to move the laundry.
The problem is that losing fun does not create an obvious crisis. If you forget to pick your child up from school, you know immediately. If you forget to pay a bill, someone will eventually remind you. If you and your partner do not laugh together for three weeks, no alarm goes off. Life keeps moving, which makes it very easy to postpone the things that once made being together enjoyable.
After a while, couples can become exceptionally good at taking care of life together without spending much time simply enjoying one another. This does not necessarily mean they have fallen out of love or that their relationship is in serious trouble. Sometimes they have simply been operating in responsible mode for such a long time that there has not been much room for anything else.
Sometimes What We Miss Is Lightness
When couples tell me they want to feel closer, it is easy to assume that what they need is a serious conversation. Sometimes they do. There are absolutely times when couples need to talk about hurt, conflict, sex, resentment, communication, or what is happening underneath the distance between them. Those conversations are important, and avoiding them does not usually make the problem go away.
But sometimes what people are longing for is something different. They miss lightness. They miss laughing with the person who used to make them laugh, having conversations that go nowhere, and doing things together that do not improve the house, benefit the children, solve a problem, or accomplish a task. They miss simply enjoying each other.
I think that distinction matters because “we need to work on our relationship” can become another serious assignment. For parents who already feel as though they are failing to keep up with everything they are supposed to be doing, turning connection into more homework is not particularly appealing. Your relationship certainly needs attention, but attention does not always have to look like work.
Your Relationship Is Allowed to Be Unproductive
There is something wonderfully inefficient about fun. You do not need to accomplish anything, there does not have to be an outcome, and nobody needs to become a better person because of it. You can simply enjoy yourself. That can feel strangely unfamiliar when so much of adult family life is organized around productivity and responsibility.
What that looks like is going to be different for every couple. Maybe it is watching something ridiculous together, sending your partner something during the day because you know exactly how hard they will laugh, playing a game after the kids go to bed, or dancing badly in the kitchen. Maybe it is stopping somewhere on the way home simply because you both feel like it. The point is not the activity itself. It is that, for a little while, you are doing something together that does not need to justify the time it takes.
Sometimes that requires giving yourself permission not to be productive. There will almost always be something useful you could be doing instead. There will be laundry, emails, dishes, yard work, or something that needs to be ordered for school tomorrow. There will almost always be something more productive you could be doing. That is part of the problem.
Doing Something Different Can Help
There is also interesting research suggesting that doing something new together can affect how partners experience their relationship. Aron and colleagues (2000) conducted a series of experiments in which couples participated together in activities that were either novel and exciting or more mundane. Couples in the novel and exciting conditions experienced greater increases in relationship quality immediately afterward. (Aron et al., 2000)
This does not mean you need to start rock climbing together every weekend or book some elaborate adventure. Novelty can be much more ordinary than that. Try somewhere new for lunch. Take a different walk. Play a game neither of you has played before, visit the strange little store you always drive past, cook something neither of you knows how to make, or put on music from a completely different period of your lives.
Sometimes doing something slightly different interrupts the feeling that your relationship has become as predictable as the rest of the routine. There are still things you have not experienced together, even after years of knowing each other. You are also both still changing, which means there are new versions of each other to know.
The Humor That Belongs to the Two of You
Humor is another part of this that I think most couples recognize immediately. Long-term relationships tend to develop their own language: the terrible impressions, the recurring joke that stopped being funny fifteen years ago but somehow remains funny to the two of you, the look across the room when you both know exactly what the other person is thinking. Those moments become part of the private world a couple builds together.
Research cannot tell us that laughing together causes a happy relationship, and I would not want to oversimplify it that way. But a meta-analysis by Hall (2017), which combined 43 samples from 39 studies and included more than 15,000 participants, found that positive forms of humor were associated with greater relationship satisfaction, while many negative forms of humor were associated with lower satisfaction. (Hall, 2017)
Butzer and Kuiper (2008) also examined how romantic partners used humor in both pleasant and conflict situations. Their findings suggested that people reporting greater relationship satisfaction tended to report more positive forms of humor with their partners and less negative or avoidant humor. Again, that does not mean humor fixes serious relationship problems. It does reinforce the idea that how couples experience one another in ordinary interactions matters. (Butzer & Kuiper, 2008)
This Is Not Another Date-Night Assignment
I am a fan of date nights, but I am also realistic about what getting out of the house can involve once you have children. You may need childcare, a night when everyone is available, money to spend, a reservation, and enough energy left at the end of the day to actually go. Then you finally sit down across from each other and spend the first half of dinner discussing the children anyway.
Getting that time together can absolutely be worthwhile. But I do not want couples to believe that if regular date nights are hard to make happen, they have no way to bring fun back into their relationship. You do not need three uninterrupted hours and a babysitter to have a moment that feels different. Sometimes it is ten minutes in the kitchen, staying in the car for another song, sitting outside instead of immediately cleaning up, or deciding that tonight you are going to watch something that makes both of you laugh.
The goal is not to manufacture fun or create another expectation that you are somehow supposed to fulfill perfectly. It is simply to notice the opportunities for lightness that are already there and perhaps stop dismissing all of them because something more productive could be happening.
What Was Fun for You?
If this part of your relationship has faded, I would not start by searching the internet for a list of “fun things couples should do.” Start with the two of you. Think about what actually made you laugh together, what you enjoyed doing before everything became so scheduled, and which pieces of that still fit the lives you have now.
It is also worth asking what fun looks like for the people you are today. Maybe the couple who once wanted to stay out until midnight now genuinely thinks ordering takeout and watching something funny sounds fantastic. Maybe an afternoon wandering through a bookstore sounds better than anything the two of you would have considered fun ten years ago. That counts.
The point is not to recreate the relationship you had before children. You have both changed, and your life has changed. It is about making sure the relationship you have now still has room for something besides responsibility.
A Few Questions to Think About
When was the last time we really laughed together?
What kinds of things used to feel fun for us?
What feels fun now, at this stage of our lives?
Do most of our conversations have a task or problem attached to them?
What do we enjoy doing together that accomplishes absolutely nothing?
Is there something small or different we could do simply because it sounds enjoyable?
You do not need to sit your partner down and turn these into a formal relationship meeting. In fact, that might defeat the purpose. They are simply questions to help you notice what may have been missing and what might still be there.
Maybe Your Relationship Does Not Need More Work
Parents hear a lot about working on their relationships. Communicate better. Schedule time together. Learn each other’s needs. Have the difficult conversations. Divide the responsibilities more fairly. All of those things can matter, and there are certainly seasons when a relationship needs intentional work.
But relationships are not built only through work. They are also built through pleasure, humor, play, curiosity, and those completely ordinary moments when you remember, Oh yeah. I really like this person. That part matters too.
Sometimes what a relationship needs is not another serious conversation. Sometimes it needs somewhere for the seriousness to go away for a little while. So instead of asking what you and your partner should be doing for your relationship this week, you might try asking a simpler question: What would be fun? Not impressive, productive, good for the children, or something you can cross off a list. Just fun.
And then see what happens.
Watch the Video
When Did We Stop Having Fun Together? Marriage After Kids
If you and your partner are realizing that the issue feels bigger than simply missing some fun, you may also want to watch How to Reconnect With Your Partner After Kids (When You Feel Distant & Exhausted).
You can also watch Feeling Like Roommates After Kids? Why It Happens, the first video in this series.
If You Want Support
Sometimes losing some of the playfulness in your relationship is simply part of an intensely demanding season. Other times, it helps you recognize that the two of you have been feeling disconnected for longer than you realized. Either way, you do not have to wait until your relationship is in crisis to give it some attention.
I work with couples in Sacramento and throughout California via telehealth who still care about each other but feel as though parenting and everyday life have taken over their relationship. Couples therapy can create room to understand what has changed, strengthen the way you communicate and connect, and make space again for the relationship underneath all of the responsibilities.
I offer free consultations if you would like to see whether working together might be a good fit.
References
Aron, A., Norman, C. C., Aron, E. N., McKenna, C., & Heyman, R. E. (2000). Couples’ shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 273–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.2.273
Butzer, B., & Kuiper, N. A. (2008). Humor use in romantic relationships: The effects of relationship satisfaction and pleasant versus conflict situations. The Journal of Psychology, 142(3), 245–260. https://doi.org/10.3200/JRLP.142.3.245-260
Claxton, A., & Perry-Jenkins, M. (2008). No fun anymore: Leisure and marital quality across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(1), 28–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00459.x
Hall, J. A. (2017). Humor in romantic relationships: A meta-analysis. Personal Relationships, 24(2), 306–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12183
About Catherine O’Brien
Catherine O’Brien is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Sacramento, California, and the author of Happy With Baby: Essential Relationship Advice When Partners Become Parents. She specializes in helping couples and parents navigate the relationship changes that come with raising a family and works with clients in Sacramento and throughout California via telehealth.
Learn more or schedule a free consultation at HappyWithBaby.com.