Relationship and parenting: finding the balance together

’Our parenthood demands all the attention and we miss our relationship. How to combine parenthood with the partnership? How do we keep the partnership strong as well?’ Recurring questions from the practice room.

The partner as project manager of the household, as journalist Jancee Dunn describes in her book“Love in Times of Diapers. ‘We just ramble on and on.’ Within a well-oiled shift system. How do you still feel like partners again and how do you get back together?

Different relationships and roles

With attention and regular reflection, the partner role and parenthood can be connected. For that, we go back to basics. And that foundation is ourselves. Me and you become partners, and over time, a baby is added: parenthood arises. With new relationships in them, too, reacting to each other in their own way and sometimes causing friction.

To begin with, there is the partner relationship, which revolves around desire and love for each other. In fact, the basics of parenthood. With the birth of a child comes the role of caregiver. In the transition to that new phase, tension may increase in the partner relationship, due to different expectations or desires, for example.

Meeting each other again

It is important then to know what is on your partner’s mind. Consider the following questions. What do I do and what do you do in parenting? Where are the differences? Can you talk about that from time to time, sharing your concerns?

But also, what do I want? And what do we want as a couple, as parents? It can be scary to think about that and express that. Yet when you show your vulnerability, new connection also comes. Thus, the two “shelves” can come closer together. Actually, it revolves around the question: can we find a middle ground, in being parents and partners?

If you can’t work it out together, feel free to contact us for questions or an appointment.

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