Credit where credit is due: when I asked two relationship experts how to keep the spark alive when you have children, they didn’t respond by laughing in my face. It would have been understandable if they had, because having children is the greatest thing in the world but trying to do anything else – working, keeping fit or maintaining a normal relationship with your partner – is the hardest thing in the world. As such, many parents find their relationship suffers during the early years. “When you’ve got small kids, you invest a lot into them,” says Jo Hemmings, a psychologist. “There’s work, childcare – you forget a little bit about yourselves. You realise that your time together has gone to the bottom of the priority list.”
That is natural. When they are young, children depend on you absolutely. To be in a relationship when you have children is to know that you are probably the person in your family your partner would save last in a house fire.
