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NEW LIFE IS always a time of great joy and wonder.
The sheer miracle that is life never fails to leave me almost speechless. It is something we must never take for granted.
Most couples long for a child. But when it arrives and the new family goes home, couples can often face new challenges in their relationships.
Preconceived ideas about family
Most couples feel they can avoid these challenges by judicious planning. Some couples choose to have a baby to celebrate their stability or to strengthen their relationship.
They think that a baby will bring them closer together, and that life after childbirth will be a time of tenderness, intimacy and maturity.
These sentiments are echoed very often in our pre-marriage course questionnaires.
However, having a baby is a stressful experience that challenges even the best of relationships.
Most of us haven’t the faintest clue how challenging bringing a new baby into our home can be.
We, of course, get lots of advice from a wide range of sources but at 3am, when the baby is still awake, who can help?
Feeling alone
It is at these times new parents, especially, feel so alone. Even the most solid relationships come under the most severe pressure at this time.
A combination of utter exhaustion, worry and frustration can cause tempers to fray.
The majority feel overwhelmed at the amount of work that is involved in looking after their child. Many women report not feeling supported or understood by their partners.
Of course, there are those reading this piece that never experienced any great problem and things progressed very well, and if that is the case I congratulate you most sincerely.
But for those who currently are going through these issues take heart, you are not alone, and you are not doing anything wrong.
Exhaustion
Many new parents, especially mothers, will often report they feel they are going “mad”. This is just sheer tiredness and exhaustion.
The ongoing slog, dispersed with moments of heart-rending joy, can cause a distance to establish itself with the couple.
Many couples will report mood swings and times of intense frustration.
A 2010 report from the ESRI and UCD found that up to 30% of couples were likely to part after the birth of their first child.
Relationship frustrations, including sexual frustration, can boil over, leading to communication between the couple virtually ceasing.
Many men feel sidelined when a baby arrives, and struggle to cope with what they see as rejection both emotional and sexual.
All too often this feeling of rejection ends in some kind of sexual betrayal – physical or electronic/digital. By the time this happens it can be too late.
Expectations
Couple expectations in this area need to be teased out. We think we know what our partner expects of us in this area but we are sadly mistaken.
Couples need to be helped and advised about the range of emotional changes that can happen to both parties after the birth of a baby.
New parents need to be reassured their feelings are normal.
From my experience, many couples try to keep up a “good face” to their family and friends while they are struggling, financially, physically and emotionally.
Distancing ourselves from our partners at this time is counter productive. It is at this time we need to keep connected at any cost.
Small loving gestures mean everything at this time.
Our world may be turned upside down by the arrival of the baby, but with compassion and understanding on both sides our world will be turned the right way up in the not too distant future.
Tony Moore is a counsellor for Relationships Ireland, a not-for-profit organisation that offers confidential relationship counselling services based on ability to pay. For more information or to book a consultation you can contact 1890 380 380, email info@relationshipsireland.com or visit www.relationshipsireland.com.
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Sure nobody is to be going outside so it’s fine.
Stay in, watch some tv, read a book, stay warm.
The English is ur opening paragraph is really poor.
@Gina Carroll: People in glasshouses……
@Gina Carroll: I can’t see anything wrong with the English in the opening paragraph.
And by the way, you should really spell check your comments before you send them. Especially when criticising other people.
You have a great day now.
@Karl Lyons: In the heading there is no full stop after days.
In the first paragraph the first 3 words are all capitalised.
@Gina Carroll: It’s in English! Maybe you meant to say the grammar? Oh and it’s your not “UR” text talk makes me batty, the phones have predictive text, it couldn’t be simpler
@Melina Roberts: people are so picky on here!
@Melina Roberts: people are so picky on here!
@Gina Carroll: I tink its all spelt just fine
@Karl Lyons: I would have grave concerns over the use of the word “Especially” at the beginning of a sentence. It is certainly not acceptable in formal or academic writing. There should also be no space before a comma. The only ending punctuation mark that sometimes needs to be preceded by a space is a dash.
@David Connell: A heading doesn’t need a full stop as it’s a heading.
And the capitalisation at the start of a paragraph is to emphasise or signal the beginning of an article for the reader.
@Gina Carroll: lol! The irony.
@Kevin Arnold: You should look bit closer and you’ll see that there is no space before the comma. It just seems that way because of the letter y.
Hands up to my grammatical error with the word especially.
@David Connell: It’s a heading and fullstops don’t tend to be used in headings. The capitalization of the first 3 words tends to be a standard in many newspaper articles and book chapters if you ever pick them up.
@Gina Carroll: ur englush noot grate eithur.
@Melina Roberts: F All else to do !
@Gina Carroll: I agwee
Any chance the weathermen could give us some sun? What did we do to them?
I saw a UFO for 10 seconds this morning somebody said it was the Sun
Dublin got its fair share of rain this morning all the same.
have your say