You feel like roommates now

Why it happens

• Every unit of energy is allocated. What used to go into each other now goes into a baby, and there isn't a surplus.
• Conversation becomes admin. Feeds, nappies, appointments, who's doing the bins. Weeks pass without a single non-logistical exchange.
• Touch gets used up. She may be touched-out from a day of being climbed on; you may read the withdrawal as rejection. Both readings are wrong and both are common.
• Resentment accumulates quietly. Usually about the invisible load — who remembers the appointments, who notices the nappies are low — rather than about the visible tasks.
• Sex changes. Physically after birth, hormonally while breastfeeding, and practically when you're both wrecked. Six weeks is a medical clearance, not a schedule.

What actually reverses it

1. Ask about something that isn't the baby. One question a day. It sounds trivial and it's the most consistently reported turning point.
2. Take the mental load, not just the tasks. Own a domain end to end — you notice the nappies are low, you order them, you don't ask where they are. Being managed is the exhausting part.
3. Non-sexual affection, deliberately. Hand on the back, a hug that lasts longer than a second, with nothing expected next. It rebuilds the touch that everything else sits on.
4. Say thank you for invisible things. "You've done every night feed this week and I've noticed" is worth more than flowers.
5. Protect twenty minutes. Not a date night — those need a babysitter and energy you don't have. Twenty minutes after the baby's down, with the TV off.
6. Talk about the sex thing out loud, without pressure. The silence around it does more damage than the absence of it.

The conversation to have

Once a week, ten minutes, ideally not at bedtime: what worked this week, what didn't, and what does each of you need next week. Concrete requests only — "I need one lie-in" rather than "I need more support". Couples who do a version of this consistently report it as the thing that stopped the drift.

When to get help

If contempt has crept in, if you're not speaking beyond logistics for weeks at a time, if one of you has checked out, or if either of you may be depressed — see a couples therapist or your GP. Doing it at month six rather than year three is the entire difference, and going early is not an admission that it's serious.