Nothing can truly prepare you for becoming a parent and the life changes that come with it. Sleep becomes a thing of the past and there never seem enough hours in the day to complete everything you had planned to. You have a whole new sense of love and responsibility for this precious new family member and your own needs (and often the needs of your partner) may take a back seat. So many parents want the best for their children when it comes to their mental, emotional and physical development. They will move mountains to give them the best start in life, yet they neglect one of the most vital factors which influences their kids: Their relationship wellbeing.
As parents, we should be as invested in the satisfaction of our relationship with our partner as we are in the development of our children. This is a major element in how we function as parents and the quality of this relationship has a direct impact on the relationship we have with our children and how we nurture our parental behaviour.
The overall health of this relationship is the foundation for family cohesion and quality of life.
Often, when couples have relationship therapy, they can track back to when the problem started, which is usually around the birth of their first child.
Without properly navigating this family life cycle, resentments and hurts are left to build up over time, causing them to drift apart.
If this key relationship is an unhappy or unsatisfactory one, it can have a ripple effect on all other areas of life, such as parenting, mental health, wellbeing and even work productivity.
When a couple goes from being able to focus their attention on each other, to adding a child or two to the family, the dynamic changes significantly and they are required to adapt and stretch to make way for their additional family members. This can be extremely challenging as they work through these changes in focus.
Some of the challenges that might arise include having to negotiate their shared household and parenting tasks, learning how to communicate their hurts and concerns and proactively spending time together as a family, as well as figuring out their new identities as parents.
A high number of couples report a dip in relationship satisfaction post children, but researchers have identified some “protective factors” that seem to help couples through these challenging times. They include:
- Behavioural factors such as showing one another affection, supporting each other, making times for one another, establishing couple and individual identities and the expressing of emotions.
- Expressing positive cognition such as realistic beliefs and expectations, knowing and understanding your partner, equality, consensus and positive attribution bias.
