Jaime Primak Sullivan: How I Saved My Marriage

The 'Jersey Belle' star says parenthood nearly drove her and Michael apart.

By Jocelyn Vena Nov 4, 2014, 10:37 AM ET

Jersey Belle star Jaime Primak Sullivan admits that being a parent doesn't always make marriage easy. Or at least it didn't for her. As for her husband, Michael, well...he transitioned into fatherhood a little bit easier.

In a revealing new post on Yahoo, Jaime is opening up about how her marriage nearly fell apart—and how she and husband Michael put it back together.

"Michael dove right into parenthood," she writes. "He took to the kids quickly, mastering tasks like burping, diaper changing, and swaddling like a pro. I’ll be the first to admit he was the perfect father (and no one around us would let me forget it, either). Our marriage, meanwhile, took a backseat. I would go to bed alone at night while he rocked babies to sleep or stayed awake for the last feed, and then I would wake up alone while he watched the sun rise with Olivia. I appreciated the sleep, but couldn’t help but notice that our bed, like our relationship, felt so empty."

The twosome have three children—Max, Olivia and Charlie—within three years of one another. And it was when she welcomed her first child, Olivia, that she realized that the couple would have to work to keep their marriage afloat. It happened one night when Michael came home excited to see Olivia, and not Jaime.

"I couldn’t have predicted my strong reaction to his running to the baby over me," she recalls. "After all, just three years before, Michael and I had met with a pre-marriage counselor, and when he cautioned us that it was imperative to the family unit that we continue to put each other first—always, no exceptions—I had been the one to ask, 'Even over the children?' And the counselor’s answer—'especially over the children'—had astounded me. He had explained that children were wise and could master the divide-and-conquer technique between parents quickly, and that our children would benefit from always seeing a united front. But still, as that counselor spoke, I could only wonder what kind of mother would actually put a man, even her husband, before her children. Not me, I thought. Not ever."

While Jaime recently shared with The Dish that there may be "good news on the baby front" in the coming months, she notes on Yahoo that those early days of parenthood were nothing like she expected them to be.

"The babies came fast—I found out I was pregnant with our son, Max, when Olivia was 10 weeks old, and 22 months later, we had Charlie," she shares. "We had three children in less than three years and, as for most new parents, day-to-day life became a blur, with Michael and I two ships passing in the sleepless night. Our sex life had slowed to a trickle, and every conversation we had seemed to revolve around the kids. And while everyone I spoke to tried to convince me it was normal, all part of my new parent reality, my heart knew there was more to it."

[Source: Yahoo]