When kids start to communicate, it gets so much better. Mine are 7 and 4 now and so we are over that hump (and only have three bedrooms and) permanently, but babies are frustrating AF, and that frustration rubs off on everything. My daughter, I can sit and really talk with her and find out about her day and her needs and her desires. My son is still a buffoon but I get glimpses of an actual person in there, and I love it.

Things are definitely harder when your kids are younger. They don’t communicate, you get frustrated, your partner is obviously frustrated as well, and it unfortunately carries into your relationship. My wife and I write letters to each other as the year goes along and plop them in a box. I do my best to not make it this rosy depiction of a wonderful life. I unload how some times can be difficult. It helps me remember that shit ain’t always perfect, and that’s that. It helps me let go of some negative feelings, and remember that some issues are acute for any number of reasons.

I always joke with people that I didn’t form this immediate bond with my children. I’m not sure it’s even a joke, but I make it a joke now, because my bond with them is immense now. The joke now is that I love them both so much more than their mom, and my wife understands it completely. And it’s not because of some love lost over the last 11+ years I’ve been with my wife, but that this relationship with my kids has just grown to a level I didn’t quite understand before.

So I dunno, I try to compartmentalize some of the bad times. They sure have existed. I try to remember that there’s always some rationale for intolerable behavior, and that sometimes you can’t just wish that trigger away, and that we need to just eat shit for a bit. And so that letter to my wife frequently helped me communicate about those times I was a less than ideal partner, as well as the times she was. And surely it was a vent for the times our kids could be little monsters.