What Happened to My Marriage?!
I was recently talking to a mom friend of mine who shared that after she had her first baby, she went to all her friends who already had kids and had thrown her a baby shower and coached her on what to add to her registry and said, “Why didn’t you tell me what this would do to my marriage?!” She felt blindsided by the seismic shifts in her marriage and felt helpless as she focused on caring for her newborn while losing the connection with her partner. This feeling is very common postpartum; in fact, the Gottman Institute has found that 67% of couples feel a decrease in marriage satisfaction in the first three years postpartum. I share that statistic not to be gloomy, but to highlight the importance of leaving room for focusing on our partner relationship before and after we have kids.
Before we have kids, we spend countless hours preparing for our birth and picking out color schemes for the nursery. We read books about what to expect in our baby’s development, learn what a sleep regression is, and practice wrapping dolls in swaddles so we can hopefully soothe our baby. All of those things are wonderful and important to prepare for, but they are also relatively temporary needs. The largest and most permanent shift will take place within your relationship, yet we so rarely talk about the palpable changes in our marriage or partnership. For most couples, this is their first and largest group project in their relationship. You are no longer just supporting each other in the pursuit of your careers and hobbies; you are both sleep-deprived and trying to care for a brand new member of the team who is great at letting you know they have a need, but still working on clearly communicating their feedback to you about how to meet that need. This can leave partners feeling disconnected and worried about the long-term health of their relationship.
So what do we do with this information? Is there a way to experience what the 33% of other couples who don’t lose satisfaction feel? Absolutely! The wonderful thing about the Gottman Institute is that they have studied thousands of couples over the years and identified key aspects that strengthen relationships after having kids. This isn’t to say that your relationship won’t experience some strain postpartum - this period of time is a life-changing shift, and it will take time to find your equilibrium again, but don’t lose heart! Utilizing these habits will help you weather the season and feel stronger on the other side.
Remember that it’s not a competition: It can be easy to get in the habit of “difficulty canceling.” We feel that, for our partner to truly understand how hard our experience has been, we have to deny what they are experiencing. Everyone is experiencing a transition and will be affected in different ways. Instead, leave room in conversation to acknowledge what the other person is dealing with while sharing and receiving support for your experience, too. If you are both on empty and struggling, it’s time to press the easy button wherever possible. Can you order out? Hire a house cleaner? Shift plans to accommodate the needs? Working together to tackle the collective and individual hard moments will help you feel united rather than divided.
Be mindful of gatekeeping: Oftentimes, one parent feels more informed about the schedule, how to do certain things, and how to soothe the baby (often times it’s the mom in heterosexual couples). This can often lead to the informed parent holding all the information and then managing the other partner’s experience. This is exhausting and defeating on both ends! One helpful step my sister-in-law smartly took was to ask my brother to look things up, so it didn't fall to her every time. Not sure what tummy-time should look like? Ask your partner to look it up and share it with you. The other part of this is to allow your partner to do things their own way. This will take a lot of self-control (maybe even leaving the room!), but it will increase your partner’s confidence and sense of ownership, rather than defaulting to the other parent on every decision. When you both feel you can handle caring for the baby, everyone will be better off. Studies also show that the more involved dads are in caring for babies, the better the health outcomes for the whole family!
Put the problem on the other side of the table: In the early days of parenting, everything can feel overwhelming and chaotic as you get to know your baby. In those moments of helplessness, it can be easy to take out our frustration on our partners because they are the most tangible target in the swirl of uncontrollable feelings. Our middle-of-the-night feedings can leave us feeling resentful when we wake up to our partner excitedly saying they slept so well and think the baby did, too. Instead of giving them the tongue-lashing of the year, try presenting the problem and staying on the same side of the metaphorical table across from the problem instead of across from your partner. When you approach your partner to help you solve the problem instead of fixing something they are doing wrong, you are much more likely to come to a solution. With the sleep example, this would look like saying something like, “The middle-of-the-night feeds are really dragging me down. Can we try to find a way to make that period of time a little less stressful/less lonely for me?” This invites your partner to join in solution-finding and feeling helpful, rather than feeling attacked.
This transition is big and will take time to adjust to. These things can help, but also know that even while it’s hard, it doesn’t mean it will be like that for the rest of your marriage. If you are feeling disconnected and lost in your relationship after having kids, you can also seek couples counseling to give it some focus. I think marriage counseling is one of the smartest things we can do to bolster our relationship, and it is by no means only for crisis periods. If you are interested in couples counseling for your marriage or partnership, reach out through a consult call! Your marriage deserves attention just like your child does.