What will happen to your relationship with your partner when you add a child to your family?
A new child is such an exciting and joyous time, filled with love, excitement, fears, anxieties, and self-doubts. It is likely that relationship issues are the last thing on your mind, but that shouldn’t be the case! Whatever your level of romance and chemistry with your partner, adding a child will drastically affect it, and it’s essential you tackle this head on, enabling you to forge a deep family bond by striving to strengthen your relationship.
So what should you expect?
To ensure a strong, enduring relationship between you and your loved one, here are some helpful insights on making the transition from being a couple to being a parent.
It Must Be Each Parents’ Obligation To Get Involved
To create an ultimate partnership between parents, it must be a team effort, and this can only be done through both parents’ participation. Share the responsibility of preparing bottles, changing nappies, and supporting your partner’s nursing right from the start. In addition to helping your partner while she is recovering in hospital, this will also help you to feel more involved at home.
It’s encouraged you to seek help if you need it. Always ask your partner for help if he or she seems afraid to pull through at that moment in time – there’s a difference between helping and interfering.
If you’re a new parent, your partner may feel unsure about what to do and when, and this is particularly true if you’re breastfeeding since your partner may feel helpless. As a mother, you are responsible for letting dad know when he can help.
Please be kind to your partner. You will only drive them away by belittling them, which will prompt your other half to be unwilling to cooperate with this particular task in due course.
Don’t be afraid to call their attention to their mistakes and show understanding, even if they have completely missed the mark. This goes such a long way and will only make your relationship stronger!
Be Aware That Accountability Is Shared
There are so many responsibilities that come with parenting, but then there’s the nitty-gritty of being able to provide those basic needs like; doing the housework, food shopping, preparing meals, errands, and so forth.
It may come natural for both parents to assume parental roles, as the responsibility for the family falls upon them. It may not come intuitively to some couples to share the responsibilities ‘fairly’, and with all the obligations that come with such traditional roles, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
In many cases, mothers remain home by themselves for the most part, meaning they are obliged to bear the burden while their partner is absent. This could cause toxicity.
Your partner and child’s connection will be enriched, as well as your relationship as a couple, by sharing the load with them when they are home to provide assistance. Conflict, hostility and even bitterness can emerge when one half assumes they’re pulling more weight than the other.
A Healthy Relationship Demands Effort
Being the best parent you can be can make it easy to forget that being a couple is something you should enjoy, and your lifestyle and relationship have no doubt changed dramatically. That spare wardrobe you have, at one point filled with your ‘going out’ attire, is now cluttered with toys and educational supplies! Being a parent means that your relationship as a couple will require so much more time and energy, and you really have to dig deep for this.
It is vital you take time to take action to maintain your relationship. Every parent’s life revolves around their children, but one day our children will grow up and start their own adventure, and all that’s left is ensuring our partners are still by our sides when we grow older. Schedule time to spend together as much as you can.
A great way to achieve this is to make use of child care and venture out – for example, a date night or even an hour of training together at the gym. This can be so refreshing for the both of you, and provides a gentle reminder of how far you have come as a couple.
This should be the most important piece of advice you take from this article. Communicate effectively. It is so easy to lose touch with someone, so make sure that you keep channels of correspondence open at all times. You’re frustrated, upset and worn out, but you should remain open about your problems, and lay it all out on the table.
Not only will you feel more comfortable about your emotions as a parent, but your other half will learn so much about where your stress stems from, and hopefully make a continuous effort for you to avoid these emotions.
The tips in this article will hopefully assist you in adjusting to the change in routine that comes with becoming a parent.
The best way to balance parenthood and a healthy relationship is to remember that there are no set rules, and simply consider these factors when you are making parenting decisions and what is best for you and your family.
Don’t rush life, and you will find that spark doesn’t just ‘go’ with your other half!
