Gemma Atkinson says she struggled to see her fiancé Gorka Márquez ‘enjoying himself on tour’ while she was stuck at home with their baby.
The 36-year-old actress and her 30-year-old Strictly Come Dancing professional performer husband-to-be are proud parents to two-year-old daughter Mia.
Gemma says she struggled when Gorka left home to work on a dance tour with some of his Strictly co-stars – leaving her at home alone with their baby.
But she didn’t realise that he too was struggling while being away from their home in Chester as he wanted to return to their nest to bond with his little girl.
Speaking on the Twist and Shout Podcast with Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara, Gemma explained: “The biggest compromise [while being in a relationship], for me, was accepting Gorka’s job does and will take him on the road. It will take him away.
“It just so happened that when Mia was three days old, that was his tour. I’ll never want to stop him working, especially if that work is a passion of his, which is dancing, and it’s something he loves to do.
“But at the same time I was like, ‘Hang on a minute, we’ve been through this journey, I’ve had this beautiful baby via quite a traumatic birth, and now you’re off on the road and I’m seeing videos and he’s having fun?’ Which is totally what I wanted him to do.
“But when you’re at home with a baby, your hormones are everywhere and you;re on your own, I was thinking ‘Oh my god! What am I doing?’”
Gemma went on to realise Gorka was feeling similarly about his work keeping him from home.
She said: “He was calling me and my mum in the evening saying, ‘I don’t want to be on tour. I want to be at home because I’m not bonding with my baby.’
“So we both wanted to be in each other’s situation, but because we didn’t communicate it at the start, that’s where we got each other’s feelings mixed up.”
Gemma went on to explain how an honest discussion led them to realise they were on the same page and advises other couples to ensure they keep open conversations and discussions to ensure they don’t suffer similar scenarios of crossed wires.
She said: “I didn’t want to tell him how I was feeling because I didn’t want to stop him working. And he didn’t want to tell me how he was feeling because he didn’t want to appear like ‘I’m putting everything on you and it’s not fair.’
“So we just kind of went like that for a little bit. It was only when we sat and spoke about it that we were like ‘Oh! We both felt that way? Why didn’t we just tell each other in the first place?’”
Baby Mia arrived in July 2019 and, as Gemma said, the birth was far from smooth.
Opening up about the day Mia arrived via a C-section, Gemma said in March last year that she was left “completely floored” after doctors cut her open and pulled her baby out.
Opening up to Women’s Health at the time, Gemma said she was in such agony following the surgery that she couldn’t even brush her hair as the pain was so great while she recovered.
