Parenting: a radical relationship adjustment

There is nothing more transformative than becoming a parent, than feeling that all encompassing, heart shattering awe when receiving a child into your arms, and then embarking on the every-day journey to care for them & respond to their every need. For parents, a deep biological & experiential bond grows between child, mother and father. Becoming a parent is a beautiful, all encompassing and sacred gift.

Yet what is not always openly talked about is how this radical life adjustment can challenge a relationship, creating different forms of disconnection & struggle. Even with parenting books on hand or ‘being warned’ by friends, it is hard to grasp these shifts in your relationship until you are actually in the midst of them.  I know many resilient couples who navigate the juggles of parenting children with much strength and grace. And I also know many couples who weren't able to survive the first year because the challenges brought up a lot of personal ‘shit’ to deal with. For many couples (especially those in newer relationships), communication weaknesses become accentuated and conflict increases. The reasons for this are multi-faceted. 

For women, the grief of the transition out of maidenhood can be intense, as they try integrate the feeling of their whole body being in service to another human being 24-7. She is naturally primed with a plethora of hormones attune & respond to her baby’s every need (physically & physiologically), and they fall deeply in love. In this all-encompassing role, a mother’s whole biorhythm adapts to that of the child. She becomes anchored in the inner world of family, tending to the details of a care-giving role, and she may have a hard time in maintaining a sense of self, or simply coming to terms with this new version of herself. On top of this identity shift, many women experience some level of physical depletion and feel imbalanced from the hormonal shifts, with affects her sexuality.

For women who have the blessing of support from family or nannies, there is more space for her to tend to her own practices, work, engagements. Yet even still, she might find her pleasure is quite different from pre-birth, her energy levels are different. 

This is a lot for men to adjust to too. Love blossoms yet he often is not receiving that same level of adoration & physical attention as before child. As he adjusts to his new father role and the new dynamic of 3 in relationship, he also goes through a challenging transition. In the book “Why Dads Leave” (M. Callander) it is been said that for men who didn’t have parenting modelled in a positive way, & him taking on the role of ‘father’ might re-stimulate some of his own childhood wounding (*attachment based wounding where he didn't receive the nurturing he needed). As the child becomes the centre of attention, he may be vulnerable to feeling left out and may be left longing for deeper connection from their partners. This is also often related to a shift of erotic energy in a relationship.

While there are many reasons this is ‘normal’, many couples find it a sticky topic to unpack and therefore it doesn’t get spoken about openly. 

What then are some of the important “keys” for a couple to thrive in parenting? I would say these are: Communication, Support and Keeping the spark of erotic energy alive. 

Artful communication brings us into more connection, even when conflict arises. Yet so many couples have not learnt good tools for communication, & we bring with us the bad habits we have picked up from all our years in relationship from our parents and previous partners. Sometimes it takes re-learning & re-patterning so as to openly engage in discussions & disagreements with respect. Key qualities here are reflective listening, mutual awareness, interest affection, appreciation, validation, and responsiveness. Unfortunately conflict brings pain and often stimulates bad habits of reactivity, contempt or hostility. If these habits continue in a relationship…. 

Often times tension build when partners have not made the space to simply hold each other. This could mean ‘holding’ them emotionally by really leaning in to listen (creating experiences of closeness) or actually ‘holding’ physically in the sense of cuddling, which creates an important attunement to one another & a co-regulation of the nervous system.  

Every relationship thrives on a sense of the ‘erotic’, which is more a sense of energy vitality and aliveness than just about sex. Esther Perel talks about the inherent contradiction of parents needing to become steady & stable for care-giving (& perhaps the mother takes on this role more), and then the erotic needing a sense of mystery & novelty to ‘breath’. Its a paradox. And for both men and women it requires an awareness of self to actively start to bring back a sense of the erotic vitality in our lives in a way of sensual engagement with the world and cultivating life force energy, and finding inspiration in purpose & passion. Somatic, spiritual & nature-based practices can be resources here. 

As a couple the erotic can also be tended to simply by loving & authentic presence, by engaging in experiences together, by trying new things together (creative or otherwise) and by being active (hiking, dancing, singing are all ways to invigorate the energy system).

I wouldn’t consider myself an expert in either parenting or intimacy - yet I bring my own experiences from my own transition into parenting, from my relationship of the last 12 years and from the wisdom of motherhood. I’ve experienced many communication fails, hard lessons in loving another, deep reflections & continual integration. And I’ve enjoyed all the study and training I’ve been doing over the last year in this field. But most of all I love with working with clients who are navigating the challenges of love and relationship, doing the work so they can show up for their partners (or partners-to-be) and for their children (or children-to-be) in a good way. Relationships thrive with the support of community, & with the support of education/coaching in communication and intimacy.

Relationship requires loving work, and we do this work for our children so we can nurture them to feel emotionally supported and loved. Parental conflict impacts the emotional development of children in significant ways. So even if a couple chooses to breakup, they will inevitably be in relationship through the lifetime of their child/children. So we do this work to model to our children how to be in relationship with others, even when difficult things arise, even when things are not ‘comfortable’. How humans build connection, deepen them and repair them are essential life skills that we could all use some So in this way we are all learning about ‘emotional intelligence’ together.