my marriage post-baby

my marriage.. is a bit of a wreck, right now.

not that it hasn't been kinda our theme, from the beginning.. but anyway, the fallout post-baby has been pretty full on.
just all the usual stuff, you know; there's way too much work to do, between the million housework things, the constant breastfeeding, the fussing baby, the frequent vomiting, endless nights of broken and shortened sleep.
lots of tears and recriminations and resentments, lots of "you don't do enough" coupled with "i'm already doing all i can" going both ways. both partners feeling unappreciated and overworked, a terrible combination.

i remember particularly one long afternoon, when i was tearing my hair out with the baby and feeling like i just couldn't take it another minute more (unusual for a new mother, no?), and calling andrew in tears to beg him to come home already. and when i got him on the phone, hearing the background noise.. he was at a shopping centre! at 4 in the afternoon, he had left work early. i screamed at him for not coming home instead and saving me, for having the freedom to go to the shops when i was completely unable to and felt so trapped.
he came home right away, but it turned out that he had gone with the intention of buying me something nice for a treat, because i'd been going through so much.
it still makes me die inside.

anyway there's an endless list of moments like this. until finally, now... we've sorted out the division of all the roles, parenting and household included. we get along well, no more fights or snipes or bitter resentments. but.. it's so cold and empty. we have no relationship apart from co-parenting/cohabitation.
we have no relationship, it seems. we talk about our day and parenting and the related inner goings on, but we never talk about us. there's such a distance, a chasm. i can't even imagine starting to talk about our relationship, it would almost feel so weird and uncomfortable, because of the gap of politeness that now sits between us.

anyway this is by means of a long intro to a funny moment we had earlier.
we were hugging cos he was headed out the door with dandan for a long give-mummy-a-break walk. dandan spots us, and yells in protest, eyes wide and alarmed, and slowly backs away toward the door, all the while staring and protesting.
what's going on inside his little head?
is it because he doesn't see us hug all that much? is it because he's left out, and is normally the focus and centre of all hugging activity? is it because he's worried that if we keep hugging, a person will appear who threatens his very survival and way of life? (he's right on the last count though, ie siblings)

what's kinda funny, kinda sad, and kinda i-feel-bad-even-saying-it, is that.. well, dandan is the love of my life. i love him with a consuming intensity and such a great joy..
it's the kind of love and feeling i'd been looking for my whole life and always yearned to find. and that i always wish i had in my marriage. but there you go.
sometimes i wonder if andrew looks at his wife and child, and sees us locked in this mutual obsessive love, and feels sad.