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Real Relationships
With Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott
"When Husband and Wife Become Mom and Dad"
 If ever there was a husband and wife ready to become mom and dad it was Kevin and Judy. With their first baby on the way, their excitement was palpable. They prepared the nursery right down to a neatly ordered stack of diapers, signed up for Lamaze courses, and were reading all the What to Expect books.
Late at night they would lie in bed and talk about their future with a baby. What they didn’t realize is that they were not only giving birth to a new human, they were giving birth to a new marriage. Ready or not, they were about to be sucked into a huge force that would propel them through a passage where they would emerge changed. Every new mom and dad go through it.
When you have a child, you are still yourself, but now, as a mother or father, you are some new version of yourself. And you are standing in the middle of some new version of your marriage. Make no mistake about it, the birth of each child signals a serious and permanent alteration in your marriage. The alteration is, of course, deeply enriching if not miraculous, but for the majority of couples it is also somewhat confusing if not down right challenging.
In fact, shortly after the birth of our first child, a friend warned us - with a huge smile - of the changes ahead. He literally gave us a list of ways to know the next few years would not be what we were used to. Here are a few of our favorites:
- You both fall asleep by 9:00 in the evening after watching the beginning credits of the video you rented for after the baby’s asleep.
- You’re late to an appointment because you’ve spent twenty minutes looking for your baby’s binky.
- You put on your best black suite for an important engagement and you have to change before getting to the door because your left shoulder is wearing the baby’s formula.
- You measure your sleep in minutes instead of hours.
- You realize your CD player isn’t broken, your toddler has simply placed a few pennies in the slot where the CDs go.
- You ask your wife about making love and she just chuckles.
- You ask your husband about going out for a romantic dinner and he asks, “Which bill would you like to not pay this month?”
- An exciting Friday evening is standing in the family room and watching your baby try to role over.
We know all too well that these descriptors are not just tongue-in-cheek. As I (Les) write these words it is late in the evening - very late. Our five-year-old son is sound asleep and so is Leslie. And the house could not be more quiet and still. But not for long. Why? Because we have a new little baby, just nine months old, who’s not quite sleeping through the night and I know that somewhere around 2:30 this morning he’s going to wake up crying. So I’m taking the late shift and getting some writing in before the alarm sounds. It’s all part of the package when husband and wife become mom and dad.
When Baby Makes Three
Studies show that when baby makes three, conflicts increase eightfold; marriage takes a back seat; women feel overburdened and men feel shoved aside. By the baby’s first birthday, most mothers are less happy about their marriage and some are wondering whether their marriage will even make it.
Baby-induced marital meltdowns are not uncommon. With the help of researchers like Dr. John Gottman at the University of Washington, here’s what we know for sure. In the year after the first baby arrives, 70 percent of wives experience a precipitous plummet in their marital satisfaction. For the husband, the dissatisfaction usually kicks in later, as a reaction to his wife’s unhappiness. It has little to do with whether a couple’s baby is colicky or a good sleeper, whether she is nursing or bottle-feeding, working or staying at home. It simply has to do with how a little addition shifts the whole dynamic within a household.
How can something as good as a little baby turn a marriage so bad? We could point to a wide range of reasons: lack of sleep, feeling overwhelmed and unappreciated, the awesome responsibility of caring for such a helpless little creature, juggling chores and other economic stress, and lack of time to oneself, among other things.
The root reason, however, is no big mystery. In plain language, children take time and attention away from a marriage. They suck all the hours out of the day and fill up every spare cell in your brain. Being a parent is wonderful, only somehow, it’s made being a spouse... different.
“Before kids, I was thrilled to hear my husband’s voice on the phone,” said Judy, a few years into motherhood. “Now after a day of meetings and phone calls and carpools and wet swimsuits, I sometimes wonder who is this guy who seems to want food, an audience, and — he’s got to be joking — sex?”
Isn’t it romantic?
Of course not. But a lack of romance and connection isn’t inevitable during this phase of marriage. The fact is these are the good times, and that guy leafing through his mail oblivious to the baby’s cries is your partner. That woman who used to give you back rubs and is now busy cleaning peanut butter off door handles is your soul mate. Someday you’re going to look back on this period fondly — but only if both of you can keep this good thing from turning bad.
Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott are co-directors of the Center for Relationship Development at Seattle Pacific University. Their books include Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, When Bad Things Happen to Good Marriages, Becoming Soul Mates, and The Love List. Click on www.realrelationships.com to learn more.
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