This month’s post is the last of a three part series discussing how to cope with typical problems.

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Last month we looked at three common sources of stress and conflict in marriage—Money, Sex, & Housework. This month we have some tips for perhaps the biggest culprit of stress in a marriage—children. The first child, for most couples, can especially be a source of great stress, anxiety, and exhaustion. Most parents learn to adapt to the shock of infant invasion so that subsequent additions are not quite so overwhelming. However, adding more children to the mix presents its own challenges—especially when the parents become outnumbered. I hope these tips help you in your adventure. For a more complete look at these areas, read Dr. Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

And Baby Makes Three…or Four…or Five…

The task: Expanding your sense of “we-ness” to include your children
A baby sets off  seismic changes in a marriage. Unfortunately, most of the time those changes are for the worse. In the year after the first baby arrives, 70% of wives experience a sharp decline in their marital satisfaction. (For the husband, the dissatisfaction usually kicks in later, as a reaction to his wife’s unhappiness.) There are various reasons for this unhappiness—lack of sleep, feeling overwhelmed and unappreciated, the awesome responsibility of caring for such a helpless little creature, juggling motherhood with a job, economic stress, and lack of time to oneself, for starters. Why do two-thirds of mothers feel so miserable, but the other one-third just seem to sail through the transition to motherhood unscathed? It has everything to do with whether a husband experiences the transformation to parenthood along with his wife or gets left behind.

Solution: How can a couple ensure that the husband is transformed along with his wife? The important thing is that they are in it together. To the extent that both husband and wife make this philosophical shift, the parent-child relationship and the marriage thrive. Here are some brief tips to help couples stay connected as they evolve into parents

Focus on your friendship. Get to know your respective worlds intimately. The more of a team you are, the easier the transition will be.

Don’t exclude Dad from baby care. Sometimes, in her exuberance, a new mother comes off as a know-it-all to her husband. While she may say they should share the baby’s care, she takes on a supervisory role, constantly directing—if not ordering—the new father and even chastising him if he doesn’t do things exactly her way. The result is that some husbands are more than happy to withdraw and accept their own incompetence. The sad result is that they do less and less and therefore become less and less accomplished and confident in caring for their own child. Inevitably they begin to feel more excluded. The solution is simple. The mother needs to back off and realize there’s more than one way to burp a baby. The baby is his child too.

Let Dad be baby’s playmate. Many men don’t feel a connection with their baby until the child gets older and can walk, talk, and play. Unfortunately, by then their distance from family life has created cracks in their marriage. The reason it takes longer for men to bond with their baby is women tend to nurture, while men are more playful. Men assume you can’t play with an infant, but Dads who spend time with their infants will discover that they are not “blobs” who can do nothing but cry, nurse, and poop. The father who gets to know his baby by bathing, diapering, and feeding them will inevitably find that they love to play with him and that he has a special role in their lives.

Carve out time for the two of you. Part of the transition to parenthood entails placing a priority on the marriage itself. Two words. Baby-sitter. Or is that one word?

Be sensitive to Dads needs. Even if he is a good team player and is making the philosophical shift toward parenthood along with his wife, the man can still feel somewhat deprived due to the seemingly endless attention the baby requires from the mom. Let’s face it, you have both given up things for parenthood. If the wife acknowledges what the husband has given up, he will know how central he still is to her.

Give Mom a break. For all the daily wonders a mother experiences during the newborn stage, she is also likely to be exhausted. It will help the marriage if her husband is sensitive to this and gives her time to herself. Maybe she wants to go to a movie with friends, or read a book, or just get some sleep!

Couples who follow this advice will discover that parenthood doesn’t drag down their relationship but elevates it to a new level of closeness, understanding, and love for each other. Having children are a gift from God. Enjoy that gift together!