We are hear more and more, and everywhere, about being a parent and a lover at the same time; the relationship crisis that goes hand in hand with the arrival of a child within the couple.
If the arrival of a first child disrupts your daily life as a couple, having a discussion together in advance about your expectations will allow you to be clear about the type of family you want to create with your partner.
This corresponds to a period where there is no longer any quality of bond or dialogue between parents. The link is cut; it is replaced by reproaches, withdrawal into oneself, resentment…
There are as many different situations as there are in relationships, but the pattern that is frequently found among heterosexual couples is the following: the mother merges with her baby, and the father can feel excluded from this new life, either because the mother does not trust him enough to give him a role with the baby, or because he is not the type of parents that can handle or take care of a baby as the mother would like.
This creates lots of frustrations and disappointments, and if they are not expressed functionally, resentment builds insidiously from month to month. Each person wants more and more from the other, which creates a vicious circle.
How long does it last?
The duration of this crisis is completely variable, depending on what the couple does with it. It lasts until the couple takes matters into their own hands and looks for a solution. If this is not the case, this crisis can unfortunately lead to a breakup.
What do you think are the main causes?
The first step is have a good and harmless conversation about it before the arrival of the baby.
In any case, when a baby arrives, the couples attention for each other may be reduced, and a new attention is recreated. The mental load, the tasks, etc. are not necessarily distributed perfectly 50/50. It’s OK if communication is fluid if everyone takes responsibility for their needs and expresses them. Without real communication, however, in this new way of living after the arrival the child, these new constraints can insidiously create resentment on one side or the other, or even both.
The reasons for this crisis are therefore partly internal to the couple, starting with poor communication :
- Too much expectations
- Little or no real listening
- Fear of one or the other to say what they feel
Finally, external factors “add another layer”: the current pressure to be perfect parents, 100% dedicated to their baby, to the lack of time spent alone or together to rekindle their love.
In your opinion, what can the couple put in place before the birth, or even conception, to best prepare for the arrival of a child and preserve their relationship?
Beforehand, it is important to take real discussion time as a couple. For example, you can discuss the following questions:
How do you see yourself in your role as a parents?
What family lifestyle would you like to create?
How do you see yourself individually, as a person, into this new life?
What are your values (individual and as a couple)?
Which ones do you want to pass on?
A good discussion can also be to make agreements before the birth, such as:
Dedicate a romantic evening to you every two weeks,
Have an agreed time of personal time each (for sports, seeing friends, etc.) each week.
It will of course be necessary to readjust these agreements, but having fixed them in advance allows you to stay on course and preserve the bond between you two.
