How to Ensure that the Blessing of Children is also a Blessing to your Marriage
Research by The Gottman Institute (TGI)—the leading scientific authority on marriage and relationships—shows a 67% decrease in relationship satisfaction once a baby is added to the home. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this is not inevitable. There are practices and principles that can help you maintain the good feeling you had before kids, even as your tribe grows. (Words appearing in bold below indicate specific terminology or concepts identified by The Gottman Institute.)
My wife and I are leaders for TGI’s Bringing Baby Home® program. It normalizes the effects of parenthood on marriage and articulates research-verified practices by which mom and dad can maintain a healthy relationship even as they strive to raise healthy children. Among the findings are these:
A philosophical shift. Becoming a parent changes one’s self-concept, behaviors, and interactions with others, including one’s spouse. Regardless of a couple’s philosophy prior to having children, once little ones arrive, research shows that gender roles tend to skew in a traditional direction. Allow for this natural shift for yourself, for your partner, and for your partnership. We don’t know anything until we’ve experienced it; our philosophical ideas about life, meaning, identity, purpose and roles can’t but be affected by this profound experience of parenthood. Be willing to challenge or even change ideas in light of this new experience.
Relationship changes. Mismatched priorities, misunderstandings and conflicts increase, sex and intimacy decline perhaps for a year, and conversations between partners become more stressful, therefore tapering off in frequency. Expect this and improve healthy communication skills to mitigate them. Prioritize each other and the relationship, like you used to. Increase patience, grace, kindness, helpfulness, respect and tangible ways of being there for each other, even more than you used to.
Fathers withdrawal. Often, fathers withdrawal from their wife, from the baby, from both, and perhaps from the home. This may be because they feel superfluous, or that their efforts to help are rejected, overridden, or corrected; they give up. They may retreat to work or otherwise busy themselves elsewhere to reduce conflict, leading to resentment on the part of both partners—he feeling cast out and she feeling left to parent alone. Give each other grace in this experience that is new to both of you. Maintain a sense of humor at your wobbly efforts to parent. Instead of criticizing or attacking each other for doing things differently, come together against what you’re both striving to figure out. Give each other the benefit of the doubt that you’re each doing your best. Affirm good intent and voice appreciation whenever you can. Positive encouragement and affirmation are the best change agents.
Physical and psychological changes. Sleep deprivation leads to exhaustion and situational depression, if not postpartum depression. Moms may feel overly-touched and have less desire for physical touch with their partner. There is a tendency for relational distance, or inversely, an increased neediness for help and closeness. You’re not going crazy; you’ve become parents. Take care of each other. Kindly let each other know what you need for self-care; expect and accept that those needs may be different—even contradictory. Yield to each other’s needs. Show appreciation for the other’s efforts and let each other know what has helped. Keep updated as needs evolve. And don’t neglect the third “person” that exists among you, which is the marriage. A living being itself, needing time, attention, space, and nurture, like the baby.
The above changes may not have been anticipated and may not be welcome, but understand that they are normal. You’re not doing it wrong. You aren’t bad parents or bad spouses. And, as noted, the good news is there are some ways of managing these stressors in order that the blessing of a child also be a blessing to your marriage.
How do we do this?
Think back again to how people tend to engage when trying to attract one another—attending to each other’s feelings, perspective, needs, and different ways of doing things (seen positively)—these all came naturally as we strove to be there for the other, and therefore we spoke and acted in a way that was attractive. We were curious, interested and protective. Such attending to one's spouse requires margin - time, focus, and attention. Before the arrival of baby, that took resolve and personal prioritization; after baby it takes even more resolve and prioritization. It takes saying, “No" to certain time-consuming things that characterized childless life—and with regularity some of the myriad things that accompany life-with-children. Resolve means prioritizing time, attention, affection, help, and romance for the most important person in your immediate family—the one with whom you created your family; the one without whom there will not be a family.
The life you knew when you were single is over; you are now prioritizing more meaningful things. Yet, the relationship lives on. And it can be even stronger as you take the oneness you formed while dating and childless and apply that united force to something even more meaningful—creating and protecting the incubator that is your genealogical legacy. You already know how to do it; you did it in support of each other’s education, occupational pursuits, career shifts and developments. Now, the opportunity is to continue to give to one another the same time, consideration, tenderness, affection, help, teamwork, and adoration as you did before. It was attractive then; it will still be attractive now. It is these that brought your romance to life; it is these that will keep your marital romance alive and growing. The focus has just shifted from things primarily outside the home to things primarily inside the home.
When a baby arrives, the relational needs of each spouse will differ. This can be a matter of temperament, career demands, gender, abilities, temporal circumstances, or other things. Children—whether newborn or older—can be overwhelming and exhausting. A woman who has undergone the marathon of childbirth, and is now riding the roller-coaster that is postpartum hormonal adjustments, needs rest. Whatever her Love Language® before baby, Acts of Service will rise to the top. She needs her husband to be her teammate against the relentless chores required to keep the house from falling apart while the children are kept alive and happy. In the 21st century, tasks know no gender divide except that decided by the couple—ideally based on skill, schedule, preference and mutual deference. Who changes the baby, who makes dinner, who does bath time, reads bedtime stories, mows the lawn, washes or folds laundry, does the grocery shopping, runs to the hardware store, etc., is best decided by both spouses’ eagerness to help and relieve the other. Again, what a refreshing contest—to “outdo one another in love.”
On the other side of the gender divide, men have needs that are also challenged by pregnancy and a new baby. In terms of Dr. Gary Chapman’s Love Languages® men often need physical touch and words of affirmation to feel loved. Their girlfriend and new bride used to give those a lot before pregnancy and giving birth. Afterward, baby is receiving all the holding and by the time evening rolls around, mom may be “touched out.” And those words of affirmation he used to get from his chief cheerleader may have turned to choruses of criticism for his apparent ineptitude at infant care.
One of the ways in which gender roles skew in a traditional direction once baby arrives is that mothers tend to become… well… maternal. Women buy and read more books than do men and they’re eager to apply all they’ve read to raise their babies. Mama bears are real, and not just in Yosemite. The protective and nurturing instinct of a mother toward the child she’s carried for nine months is different from the protective provider impulses of a man. Complementary, but different. The problem with different is that different can be regarded as wrong. Sometimes it is wrong. We once had a babysitter tape our daughter’s diaper to her skin. Wrong! But often, differences are just manifestations of gender, or maybe temperament, or background, or the fact that we’re both just doing our best—differently—as we try to figure things out. The risk is that the en vivo parenting course in which a couple has suddenly found themselves enrolled can threaten to disrupt their friendship. Parenting can elicit a run on the Love Bank if bad-feeling withdrawals are allowed to outnumber good-feeling deposits.
The Love Bank
The Love Bank concept comes from from Dr. Gottman’s observational research. When couples spent twenty-four hours at his University of Seattle “love lab,” the ratio of positive to negative interactions between spouses is calculated. That is, their micro-interactions were being counted and then categorized as either “good feeling” or “bad feeling” interactions. Analogizing the "feel good" moments to deposits and the “feel bad” moments to withdraws, he compared the marriage to a bank account whose love balance increased or decreased accordingly. With disaster couples (who persistently practiced the six toxic, destructive patterns identified by Dr. Gottman’ research) had very low ratios. The master couples, who more often practiced the antidotes, and the seven principles that make marriage work had ratios in the 20:1 neighborhood (deposits to withdraws). This is great news for young families struggling to maintain the good feelings they enjoyed with one another before the stressors of parenthood. It makes for easy math.
The opportunities for such withdrawals skyrockets with the introduction of children, as differing ideas of how best to take care of the baby, nurture, play, and eventually discipline children (a child under a year old is not to be punished, but calmly and consistently redirected), are fueled by a woman’s often more-informed approach, leaving a man to feel he’s “doing it wrong.” Depending on his wife’s reaction to his efforts, he may feel schooled, criticized, pushed aside, or overruled by his wife. The Love Bank is threatened even before parenthood by the natural conflict between a man’s need for his wife’s confidence (that he is intelligent, capable and competent to handle the family’s challenges), and a woman’s need for input and influence (to be heard as she offers intuitive insight and caring help). That is, a man can misinterpret his wife’s questions and other attempts to draw close and approach things as a team, as questioning his knowledge or competence, and as an attempt to seize control. And a woman can misinterpret her husband’s resistance to her ideas and help as dismissive or rejecting. He misinterprets her words as critical and controlling, and she misinterprets his independence as unloving and shutting her out. Thus, neither gender has their needs met. There were enough opportunities for Love Bank withdrawals before kids; as lovers also become parents, these mismatched needs and misunderstandings can constitute a bank run.
The good news is that these all-too-common problems have a solution. Once we recognize these differing gender needs, other-centered love can set out to meet those needs. Yes, gender needs have morphed as lifestyles have evolved, and those evolved and evolving roles of men and of women have changed us—some more than others—depending on one’s context, experiences, activities, and career field. We will need to check in with each other in order to learn what each other needs to feel loved, accepted, respected, nurtured and protected in their current context. Therein lies the opportunity to count—literally count— what feels good to our spouse, so that we can keep account of whether our spouse feels good around us far more often than she or he feels bad.
The question we can then ask ourselves is whether what we are about to do, or the words and tone we are about to use are going to be a deposit into the loving feeling between us, or a withdrawal from it. And if a withdrawal, then we get to ask ourself, “Why would I intentionally lower the balance in our love bank? Why would I do that to one I purport to love? Would I want my child’s spouse to treat him or her that way?” At that point—or even proactively beforehand—we can pause, collect ourselves, and challenge ourselves to say or do something better. We can ask ourselves, “What can I say or do that would be a deposit? What would I say or do if I were trying to attract this person, if they weren't already my spouse?” Creative ideas for deposits quickly follow such questions. We may think of ways to make the other smile or laugh. We may come up with creative ideas to bless them with a special gift, or to kiss or hug them for no reason. We may postpone something on our to do list just to sit down next to them, or take their hand. If we can manage our checking account by tending to the ratio of deposits and withdrawals, then we can manage the loving feeling in our relationship.
Because our needs won’t be the same, Dr. Gottman advises keeping up-to-date a well developed Love Map of one another… a deep knowledge of what makes the other feel loved. This is the basis of friendship, and step one in overcoming most of the marital challenges introduced by a baby. The second part of the solution is to focus on the positive. As couples navigate together the uncharted territory of parenting, both husband and wife need extra measures of encouragement, complements, and affirmations . Spouses would do well to do what parents do well with children—“catch them being good.” That is, whenever possible, affirm, thank, and show appreciation for whatever you can. Affirm far more often than you criticize. Don’t take the other’s contributions for granted. Desired behavior is not motivated by criticism or punitive judgment, but by positive reinforcement.
Embracing our New Shared Meaning
Every stage of marriage invites renegotiated Shared Meaning. In TGI terminology, shared meaning is something tangible or intangible that is so highly valued by both partners that it binds the couple together. It manifests in shared goals and a shared direction on a mutual path. It doesn’t mean we’re walking the same way; it means we're on the same path, walking in the same direction. This shared meaning dictates much of a day’s activity, and to a large extent the expenditure of time and money. No matter what constituted a couple’s shared meaning before children, from the moment the pregnancy test shows positive, being parents is the new top priority giving meaning to their shared lives. Exhaustion may deplete our desire for recreation; at the same time, we need restoration. Shared meaning is where we sift through what used to restore each person individually and the two of us together, and see what will stick under new management. We may defend for each other a change of scenery, time with friends, cardio, and games we enjoy individually or together. We will find that recreation at this stage need not disappear; it simply grows wheels and front packs. Jogging and hiking are transformed into walks behind strollers and backpacks with legs. Cultural outings are swapped for child development classes, friends’ baby showers, preschool birthday parties and, of course—the chief recreation of all—enjoying our children together. Golf, tennis, rugby, movies, plays, concerts, video games and frisbee golf need not be abandoned altogether, they simply become luxuries instead of staples. They give way to the primary needs of our children and of our spouse. The best way to make these adjustments is not to argue for our own rights to maintain this or that, but to argue for and defend the needs of the other. As we’ve seen, in this way both spouses get their needs met without a divisive air of competition that leaves one spouse feeling like they lost. Because, if one spouse loses, the marriage loses.
Nurturing a Positive Sentiment as You Learn to Parent
Positive Sentiment Override (PSO) is a kissing cousin of the TGI principle of Nurturing Fondness and Admiration. If practiced, they have the power to keep a Love Bank solvent or even re-balance an overdrawn account. A positive sentiment toward our spouse, granting the benefit of the doubt, and remembering what we love and like about them, even when they packed the baby formula, but not the bottle, removes the minus sign before the effort and replaces it with a plus sign. What could have been withdrawals become deposits in a couple’s Love Bank. Positive Sentiment Override, put simply, is having a sentiment toward our spouse that is over-ridden with positivity. It is "seeing the best,” and presuming that our spouse gave a well-intentioned effort; it’s feeding or nurturing a fondness toward and admiration of our spouse despite the glitch. PSO considers our spouse’s perspective, mentality, methodology, and circumstances and registers their actions as “different” from our own, not necessarily “wrong” (where abuse is not occurring).
It is helpful if moms and dads go into parenting expecting to have different ideas of what is “normal.” Naming something as normative or abnormal means that it has been run through filters—probably subconsciously—based on family of origin, caste, childhood experiences, temperament, gender, media influence, research, and more. Every one of these is likely to differ between mom and dad. Among those differences to be expected is one of the most typical differences between partners, and responsible for many misunderstandings and conflicts.
I call it a left-brain, right-brain difference. Others may regard it as a male/female difference, . Whatever terminology is used, it manifests as one parent leading with and valuing emotions as primary, with the measure of success being the closeness and security of the parent-child bond. The other parent leads with cognition, valuing thoughts as primary, with the measure of success being a child’s readiness for the world in terms of mental toughness and know-how. The first parent will be about comforting and nurturing; the second parent will be about confronting and toughening. You can hear the conflicts, already, can’t you? It starts with sleeping, feeding, crying, playing, and potty-training, and steadily morphs into parenting battles over cleanliness, manners, chores, language, schoolwork, sports, and on and on…. The battles seem numerous, but it is actually one fight with countless takes. It is a battle over which is primary… emotions or cognitions, and what is the basis on which to measure parenting success… relationship security or knowledge and skill mastery. It is a manifestation of the truth that opposites do indeed attract, and as Dr. John Gray concludes, “Opposites attract, then attack.”
Graduates of TGI’s Bringing Baby Home® program demonstrate the ability to look at these differences as complementary, seeing the benefit of both. They allow for mom and dad to be different people with different perspectives, values, skills, and methodologies, while coming to enough agreement that the child can expect consistency of rules and routines.
Is the Doctor in?
One way to navigate this and other inevitable parenting differences is to turn to parenting experts. This does not mean wholesale adoption of an expert’s advice. Rather, the value of turning to an expert is not only to learn something, but also to be able to react to a third party rather than against each other. Mom and dad can form their parenting style together as they entertain the ideas of a third party and decide what to incorporate into their parenting pattern.
In this regard, authors I personally recommend include: Dr. T. Berry Brazelton (Touchpoints), Dr. Karyn Purvis (Empowered to Connect), Dan Siegel (The Whole Brained Child), Becky Bailey (Conscious Discipline), and Drs. Cline and Faye (Parenting with Love and Logic) (for children beyond the infancy and toddler stage). Parents as Teachers, if available in your community, is also a tremendous educational resource and source of personal support for new parents.
So, back to the question: “How do you ensure that the blessing of children is also a blessing to your marriage?” Answer: Continue to feed and nurture your first child—your relationship. Give it attention. Give it tenderness and affection. Help it. Protect it. Listen to understand each other so that you can support what you’ve come to understand. Help and comfort each other, coming to each other’s aid against the stressors. Accept your differences; and not only accept them, but regard them in the best possible light. Choose to like how your spouse is different from you. Treat your spouse the way you’d want your child’s spouse to treat them. Respectfully ask for the treatment you’d like to receive, voicing the request positively, acknowledging when you receive it, and showing appreciation. Finally, be thankful daily for your children, for your spouse, and for your marriage, as you protect and serve all three.