How hard was a baby on your marriage?

[honey987]

After reading some posts on the nest and talking to several friend IRL, I'm starting to get really worried about how hard having a baby is going to be on my marriage. DH and I have been married for almost 4 years. We are going to start TTC in May. We have a great relationship now. I cannot remember the last time we had a real fight. We have disagreements over silly things like leftovers or tv shows we want to watch, but that's about it. I'm so worried about that changing since I love what we have right now so much.

The first year we were married certainly wasn't horrible, but it wasn't a walk in the park either. We didn't live together before marriage or share finances so we had to adjust to that and then I learned a lot more about DH's crazy family and how bad they really are with finances. They are always asking DH for money and expect a lot from him since he doesn't have mounds of CC debt. DH's brother (who I love) also messed up in college near us due to his family losing their house, asking him for money and his other brother having a drug problem.

The last thing BIL wanted and DH and I wanted was for BIL to move back home. DH really wanted to get him away so that he could have a better life. So we agreed he could move in with us for the summer, work at getting back into school, get a job.

That turned out not so great. DH's family expected for us to take in BIL for free and feed him/finance him like he was our child. Which was not something we could afford or where prepared to do. We charged him 200/month, just to cover the food he was eating and the higher energy bills. He also helped DH around the house since we were renovating. BIL turned out to be way lazier than I had expected and since DH hadn't lived with BIL ever (half brother), he was not expecting this either. However DH loved having BIL around for help and video games etc. I am an only child and have had roommates before, but BIL didn't act like a roommate, he complained that we never had food (we did, but you had to actually cook/make something) and he would only eat when I would make him something and hand it to him.

Sorry, this ended up way to long, but in the end the BIL moved back home and our relationship has been amazing ever since. And it wasn't bad when BIL was here, but I remember fighting more and felt like we had a child that I didn't want or agree to instead of a roommate. So all in all, I'm worried about us having issues with a baby and it changing our relationship a good bit. Has this happened to anyone?