My youngest is 6 my oldest is 9 and it is true woman do change a lot with kids. My wife (swiss) used to be happy go lucky and fun to be with now she seems to be a completely different person, sex seems to have no emotion. i put this down to a few thing..

• The kids, her family, her friends..which she all has readily available are the centre of her life, i am the simple breadwinner.
• The man has a lot to lose in a marriage , the non-working woman can quickly get 5-6000chf a month and every second weekend free to do what she likes without me....in affect after breeding im not needed anymore,the wife has all she needs with family, kids, friends, my money is all she needs and she can get this without me..
• In Switzerland i am an outsider and i am really made to feel this way at family parties , swiss parties etc etc...there seems to be a "we are the best fascists" attitude simply because my swiss german is not good..this puts additional pressure on our relationship.
• The fact is that over the last years she has turned cold..no hugs etc, after a while anybody would need a spontaneous touch, a hug it does get to me ..i am not a rock..
• I luv the kids id do anything for them..but my littlest has never said she luvs me, has never uttered more than 4 words in english together to me (always swiss german)...I get the feeling that as young as the little one is she has been turned against me ....

Oh well rant over , you can all groan now but , im a slave too bills, find it expensive with the kids..and money and the current climate does make things dfficult... especially considering she wants her 5 days off a week, earns a pittance but wont work in Zurich as its too far..Im hoping for better days and i hope they come but i contemplating a one way tiket to ecuador..

I sense that the answers above come from personal experience from the past and people take lots of caution before stepping into another relationship while taking stance of being more realistic about their future.

It never hurts to be extra careful and try not to repeat the same mistake again. Myself have been in few long term relationships, engaged once before and personally learnt that either broken hearts will never mend because of some silly or serious mistakes made "xyz" or two personalities simply cannot coexist with each other no matter how hard you try. It can even last months or years, drain you immensily, but at the end of the day if you do not feel comfortable with the person you call partner you only bullshit yourself that the things will only get better as you grow into it. Eventually the **** is gonna hit the fan and time to say goodbye will inevitably come. It's difficult to find answer and recipe for succesful relationship.

As for divorces, I believe that nowadays it is easier to conclude the marriage then it used to be in olden days (our parents and grand parents time I mean). In some countries and societies there is still proverbial believe that "what God has joined together let no man put asounder" and people force themselves to stay together until the end not necessarily being happy with each other. They just simply do it either for material reasons, comfort or because of the children bond or pressure coming from outside environment. Nowadays there is more flexibility in making personal life decisions whereas church does not have so much influence on society anymore. We also are surrounded by people walking in the same shoes with similar marital problems and therefore we are not perceived as society outcasts anymore. There are more options offered in form of prenups, civil marriages, concubine, unisex relationships and so on and so forth. Although modern marriages seem to lose their charm and spiritual meaning, but at the same time they prevent you from falling into trap so called "no surrender no retreat"...

Coming from split family and being brought up partially by grandparents from mother's side, my concept of ideal family sometimes gets tarnished and other priorities take precedence. Had it been different story, I might have already been raising my own kids and enjoying spending time with other like minded parents. I still believe though that the right time will come one day and I will be ready to openly admit that I want to start a family. Up until now there's only two of us and we still enjoy our active life before the mindset about the whole thing will change.

Here are some good quotes:

The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.

Marriage has driven more than one person to sex.

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

Love a temporary insanity cured by marriage.

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.

Marriage is always popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

Never tell a loved one about an infidelity....Although one dislikes being deceived, one likes even less to be undeceived...

You may not think money doesn't matter, but if the woman earns more than the man, for example, you'll see how it really does. Hence my comment asking about the gender difference. There's nothing romantic about being skint, for either party. Money doesn't buy happiness but it does buy freedom. Good luck.

Anyone who says money or looks don't play a part in the strength and duration of any relationship is fooling themselves to some extent methinks.

And if I may add to what UM has written, what you find acceptable financially when you are young changes also with age.

OT- Money does matter, and it is rarely reallyspoken about before marriage. There are so many on this board saying pre-nups are an invitation to divorce. No, they are not; they are like health insurance that you hopefully will never use.

Does anyone ever go into marriage with their eyes wide open?

I know exactly how you feel. Don't blame your wife its one of the unfortunate things that happens to women after they have children, you have to feel sorry for them. All that drive to have children leaves them drained of emotion toward anything other than their children afterwards.

i agree with all your points - and see it from the womans side:

• your body is not what it used to be pre pregnancy and you feel less attractive, hence sex is harder (excuse the pun)
• you get lots of hugs from the kids all day, its hard to also hug the man - but you still must remember to do so
• you feel like the unpaid slave/cook/cleaner (man feels like breadwinner)
• man is away so much of the day with workmates, where all you see is "those 4 walls" and have to make all your own entertainment, whereas in the olden days the boss told you what to do and even praised you for good work - seldom done nowerdays

We are in a similar place, though I have not even considered the marriage being over (ok, sometimes I get grumpy when he comes home late (after all the "hard work" has been done) after being at the gym after work - when I would love to have gone to the gym myself)

Re. What Tim said about kids exhausting you - yes, but you/she have/has to make the effort. Both sides. You tell her that you still find her attractive (she will probably list all the things that she no longer likes about her body - you may get more/better sex) and that you need hugs too - not just the kids. Hopefully you can both work on it?

If the "Swiss friends" aren't enough for you, try and make some other friends?

Meet up with some of the people here? There are lots with kids. If she complains, tell her you need it? She should understand that?

Re kids not speaking to you in English.. don't take that too personally - its easier as we are living in CH. Try reading to them in English? (Yes, even the 9 year old)
(My father used to pretend he didn't understand when I didn't talk to him in "his" language..)

Yeah, but not "how much money you have" but how much you *think* you have (ie: "enough" or "not enough") Same with looks.

If you always hang out with firm-butted, botox injecting, breast uplifted, SUV driving, holiday-in-Spain-ing people, and watch a lot of tv containing *perfect people*.. you may get a complex.

Maybe I'm easily satisfied (good thing no-one I ever worked with is reading this or I'd hear howls of protest!) but I think sometimes the tiniest things help to make a woman (or perhaps it works the other way round too if the woman is the breadwinner) feel less like an unpaid slave etc.

When Mr L was arranging for us to go out for a wedding anniversary meal when our children were small, he asked me about it, I said that what I would REALLY appreciate, was that he should also arrange the babysitter.

Absolutely stupid, as we had a intercom installed to the neighbours in the flat above and all that had to be done was to ask them to listen in, and switch our end on. However, it meant a lot to me at that time. Mr L went upstairs and arranged it.

And I still remember and appreciate this sort of thing which happened a thousand times in the course of our marriage. Maybe it is just taking each other's needs seriously. I dunno.

I think the real answer to this question is:

When you find John Terry parked in a nearby disabled bay when you're leaving the house.

yup!

la de da da dum (msg 2 short)

Why would anyone groan your experience? Efers aren't that bad are they?

I wasn't going to post, but something Rangatiranui said really resonated, so I wanted to share a small piece or experience relating to this:

I've been brought up around multilingual families (was in one myself) and know a lot of friends who have children who speak many languages (who doesn't in the EF, eh!?). What I've seen is that children will talk in their prefered language (often the mother's if she is the primary caregiver) but will usually understand parents in either language. It takes several years for this to develop until they speak both languages - I know of examples where the children were aged 6-8 years.

Keep communicating with your child.

What I don't understand is that you've been with your wife for at least 9 years and that she hasn't helped you improve your German... or is it not that simple?

My Swiss ex-fiancee refused to speak German to me - ever. I suspect it was a power thing... never got to find out for sure.

Number7's wife sounds very similar to her in many ways. There but for the grace of God, and all that...

Maybe because some are happy and content without baggage and don't see any advantage in having their own kids and the associated responsibility? I only see disadvantages and the advantages just are not appealing enough to us. Also not interested in concept of my genes carrying on after my death. Some of us just don't give a toss about what happens after we die. You like kids so have plenty. I would never tell anyone not to have them but please understand that similarly some just don't want them by choice. Live and let live.

My wife does that all the time so no need for me to add little noisy rats in to the mix

Money- Money is not or never has been important to my marriage but yes it is very important to lot of marriages by the looks of it. It all depends on your mindset. We got married when we had big fat 0 in the bank. Recipe for disaster for a new marriage according to experts. Well the experts are divorced and we are still happily married and have saved up plenty for rainy day. In fact such a start made our marriage extremely strong. My theory is that lack of money brings out a person's true personality out. Lack of money is just a catalyst that exposes the cracks that were always present in the relationship but just covered over by bundles of cash.

Well said.

I've seen with my own eyes how obscene wealth screws up marriages. It's just unhealthy, and ultimately makes everyone miserable.

So long as people have enough money to feed every passing whim and desire, so long as they are rich enough to give their selves everything they want, they will have no understanding of sacrifice, of the importance of giving up a part of one's self for the love of another human being.

I wouldn't fool myself thinking that money does not matter whereas it seriously does. I managed to find out it on several occasions and I think that the worst case scenario is if you find yourself in a relationship with the woman who has more means than a man. Although initially it might not play important role (what I have been told) but there will always be perception hunting you which comes from stereotype in form of "man is a head of the family". Add the a mixture of woman with money and bossy career type equals you are asking for hell. I think the chances for relationships to survive are better when the man is main provider (sponsor) or at least two people are playing in the same financial league. Although known as a joke, but there is always some element of truth in mathematic proof that women are evil:

I do.
My understanding of bluesky's post what why would anyone want kids. For me it is very well understandable that some people want kids. Other doesn't want kids, and that is fine as well. Absolutely agree on live and let live.

For the money side, I'm happy to hear your side.
Of course no one wants to be broke, that was not my point. But it looks like for some girls, the first question to a boy is 'how much do you earn?'. Thankfully we are not all like that. It is not that important IMO. But that's just me...

For once I don't agree. It may turn out like that sometimes, but 'it ain't necessarily so'.

The richest people I ever met (and they are RICH - you'd recognise the name) have the money, but in some peculiar way, although we could have got a lot of bicycles in their garage (Mr L's description of their home!), it didn't rule their lives or affect their relationship with each other.

To me, they seemed as caring and thoughtful of each other's needs as any other couple I know.

For a marriage to be successful, the couple has to be happy with the whole thing.

He has to be happy with the whole and she has to be happy with the thing.

So true! 20 years ago my idea of a great holiday was to shove everything into a backpack and travel around Europe not knowing where I was going to sleep each night - I was pleased not to need money and pleased not to spend it.

Today, OMG! such a holiday would fill me with horror and disgust.

I think it's true about almost anything, I've worked hard to get to a comfortable standard of living and I still have a lot of ambition and drive to do more and earn more. Many people classify money as a "hygiene factor" when choosing a job or career. Not me, I put "money" number 1 on my list of important factors for choosing a job almost 15 years ago and it's still number 1.

Moreover, my partner's lack of ambition and lack of interest in earning money for the family was a BIG factor in deciding to end the relationship.