All the signs were there. Late nights out with new friends, avoidable work trips abroad, a questionable new secrecy around his mobile phone. The end of Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury’s relationship, just over a year after the birth of their first child, in many ways mirrored mine. But while they managed to hold on for 18 months, I was a single mum by eight weeks postpartum.
A 2021 study by the University of Born found that a staggering 20 percent of couples break up within the first year of a child’s life. To be honest, I’m not surprised. My relationship with my ex was unrecognisable almost from the moment I’d given birth. While my life became a cycle of breastfeeding, nappy changing and napping, with a sprinkling of colic for fun, his largely remained the same: he still went to work, played football, went out drinking and hung out with friends. We slept in separate rooms, and in many ways, I felt like I was treading on eggshells around him, because I was keenly aware that he wasn’t happy with this new way of life.
When he announced he didn’t love me anymore, it was still a shock, but also a confirmation of something that I already knew deep down. I often wonder if we’d just persevered through those tricky first few months if things might have been different.
It is one of life’s great ironies that children, the physical embodiment of a couple’s love for each other, can be what ultimately drives them apart. Society has instilled in us that life with a newborn should be bliss – the happiest time in our lives. But what happens if your experience doesn’t look like that? It’s no wonder it leads some to question their relationship with their partner – like it did for my ex – and whether or not they should stay together.
We need to be more transparent about what having children can do to a relationship. Life with a newborn is incredibly difficult for the vast majority of parents – especially when it is your first. It’s like a bomb going off in your old life. Of course, everyone has told you about the sleepless nights, but the reality of severe sleep deprivation can be quite different to how you imagine it. You’re aware that your impromptu after-work drinks might be drying up for a few years. But for many women, the real sticking point is that it feels like, while for them, life is completely different, for their partners, it’s not.
‘Between 4-9 months with my firstborn was one of the hardest times in my life,’ says Jess, 36. ‘I just resented that my partner could go to work for the day but I was stuck in the Groundhog Day of childcare.’
‘I think I felt resentment towards my partner because he was able to do all the normal things I couldn’t, it felt like externally his life didn’t really change that much,’ shares Sarah, a mum of twin girls. ‘He didn’t wake up to help in the night because of his job, he was able to go out for his haircut and have a shower, see his friends. And it just felt like there was a lot all on me. I actually loved being a new mum, and loved spending time with my babies, but it was quite isolating, and the balance between me and my partner felt completely out of whack. I tell lots of my friends now if they’re expecting, “word of warning, you’ll probably hate your partner before you like them...”’
Riding the rollercoaster of hormonal fluctuations relating to the fourth trimester can also be trying for new mums, leading some to lash out at their partners. ‘For the first two weeks postpartum even his breathing made me angry,’ shares mother-of-one, Imogen. ‘I broke down crying because he made himself a snack and didn’t ask me if I wanted any. The hormones and trying to adapt to our new roles and expectations as parents was an explosive combination.’
‘It’s the most critical and visible time that men shine or flop,’ says mother-of-two, Charlie. ‘It feels like it should be so easy for them to get right, but with hormones raging and needing them more than ever, it can be impossible for them to satisfy you.’
Another issue that often arises for couples is a fundamental difference in parenting styles, and in particular, gender roles. In scenes aired in the Netflix reality show, At Home With The Furys, Tommy’s family made it clear that for them, women should stay at home and raise children. Who knows if Tommy feels the same. But would Molly-Mae,the most successful Love Island contestant ever, be satisfied with playing that role?
‘I think it's bad for our generation of mothers because we're supposedly, finally, the ones who really can have it all, but that is absolute bollocks because gender equality in parenting still doesn't exist and we can only “have it all” if we're run ragged trying to keep it all up,’ says mum-of-one, Cassy. ‘Whenever my son has to be off nursery, guess who has to miss work? There’s always a reason why my husband can’t do it – it’s always expected that I can.’
For many women, sex can be the last thing on their minds postpartum, particularly if they are unhappy with their changing bodies, traumatised by birth, or touched-out from breastfeeding. According to a 2000 study by the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 64 percent of women experience sexual problems within the first six months after delivery, with 38 percent saying their sex life hadn’t recovered to its pre-pregnancy state. Molly-Mae had been candid about this herself, revealing she had Tommy hadn’t had sex in 11 months.
Because of social media, it can often feel as if everyone else is having a better time than you, particularly when it comes to new motherhood. For our parents' generation, there was far less naivety around it, because it wasn’t idealised in the same way, and anyway, it was all going on behind closed doors – not performatively for the camera. Looking back on Molly-Mae’s social media posts from the past year things certainly looked rosy.
‘Social media does not help at all because obviously everyone shares what looks like shiny happy relationships and no one speaks about hating their partner/wanting to kill/divorce/hit them because that's not fun or shiny,' says Cassy. 'So it can feel like this isolating thing where you wonder if actually your relationship is really shit and broken when everyone else looks so happy. But the truth is we are pretty much all in the same boat and you only realise that if you're lucky enough to have friends that you can be really honest with who are at the same stage.'
'I don’t think it’s spoken about that much. There’s a lot of people wanting to pretend they have the perfect husband and the perfect family,' agrees Jess. 'And also, for me, when someone announces they’re pregnant and they’re so excited about future motherhood I just don’t want to shatter the illusion as there’s no way back…'
More and more celebrities and influencers have started to be more candid around the strain that relationships are put under during the first few years of parenthood. 'Someone once said that having a child is the hardest thing you’ll ever do,' wrote radio presenter, podcast host and Big Brother 3 winner, Kate Lawler on Instagram earlier this summer. 'I actually think keeping your relationship alive once you’ve had a child is just as difficult, if not harder. Parenting is a joy but it’s also exhausting and when you put your children first, your relationship often gets put to the bottom of the priority pile.'
When presenter and author Chessie King revealed that she almost ended her marriage after the birth of her daughter Rae, she was met with an outpouring of support. 'It’s clearly a topic that needs more airtime because so many of you have connected with it,' she wrote. 'As much as this is very personal & we could keep it between us two, we have realised how many couples are going through this wanting/needing to hear how to flip ‘this is the end’ to ‘let’s take it back to the beginning."'
Kintsugi is a Japanese art form that involves repairing broken pottery by glueing the pieces back together with gold to highlight the cracks. In many ways, it’s the perfect metaphor for a relationship post-children: it can explode apart, but be put back together.
'Surviving marriage the first two years after the baby arrives has been an everyday challenge… it either breaks the couple or makes it stronger,' shares 30-year-old Becky. 'We are now in a good place but I cannot deny that it’s been a rollercoaster. I am happy we stuck together, we’ve been rewarded with a happy family.'