How A Baby Can Change Your Relationship

By Ronald Mccarthy

Being with a partner is one of the enthralling yet complex experiences of your life as this journey is interspersed with romance, affection and an intimate feeling of togetherness. There is just the two of you, living blissfully with the one you love the most. This is probably the most uniquely satisfying periods of your life, however, everything in this world is suspect to change and the relationship between two partners cannot stand differently.

Having a baby is a consciously natural outcome of being together as a couple and welcoming this new bundle of joy would not just be an immensely exciting event of your life, but this will also mark a drastic overhaul in your relationship and how your roles stand redefined towards the baby and then towards each other.

Most new parents are often stuck so much in taking care of their hapless newborn, who now is dependent upon them for every single thing related to his/her existence for the next couple of years that they let their relationship take a backseat, which shouldn’t ever be the case. Getting a baby definitely marks a change in your relationship, but that doesn’t mean that you need to downplay your own emotions. Fizzling out your spark will lead you nowhere. Your relationship certainly will undergo some huge changes after you have a baby and is characterised by certain interesting and trying periods, which you need to go through together as a couple, here are some of the most imminent changes from among those:

You both will be depleted of passionate energy:

One of the first things that happen in a relationship after a baby is born is that both the partners are now investing a large chunk of their time in taking care of the baby’s constant needs. You both will experience long sleepless nights and become embroiled in your efforts to maintain the baby’s health in a perfect way.

However, this means that you get very little time for your relationship and whenever you even do get some time, you both are so depleted of energy that the passion fails to reignite, leading to a loosening of the overall romantic bond over a period of time.

To tackle this problem, you need to make sure that there is some time in the day when you are not knocked out, that you can give to your spouse or partner just like you did before the baby came. Maybe go for a romantic drive in the morning or even share an intimately passionate moment together in the evening, but do make sure that you keep investing yourself in this relationship to save it from going bad.

You both will not agree on certain things about parenting leading to conflict:

In any relationship, one of the partners is dominating while the other remains subdued but these simple character traits can trigger conflicts when it comes to issues like parenting decisions. One partner may try to pass off as the expert, sidelining the other partner as a novice or an amateur.

The best way, not to go through this sort of a situation is to develop a joint approach towards all issues related to parenting. Nothing is better than listening to what your partner has to say and it will help in keeping conflict away from your relationship.

Adopting to the family life:

Most partners believe that having a baby will deprive them of enjoying their sex life or restrict them from being more procreative with each other, however, the biggest change that comes, and probably the most important one, is in the changed and additional roles that you now occupy. Previously, you might have been Sally, girlfriend/wife/partner of Mark, but now you are also Mother Sally and simultaneously, he is also Father Mark from now onwards.

The structure of a family differs increasingly from that of a partner-based relationship, along with your ideas and thoughts on how to have fun and how to act more responsibly among others. For e.g. previously, you might have thought that going for a movie date with your partner would be a great idea to spend your Saturday night but now, you might be prompted to go out on a camping trip along with your baby to give him/her the “Family Feels”. From now onwards, you would have to act as a more stronger person because you have your young one with a sense of security and safety in a wide variety of areas whether it’s comforting him/her during Shots or teaching them to ride the bicycle for the first time.

These changed roles contribute largely to your relationship and if people don’t accept them as they are, the relationship is bound to suffer. The child is now a contentious issue and any partner’s inappropriate behavior towards it might anger the other partner in a bad way. It’s best that you accept these roles as part of a more wholesome life and start giving your partner respect on doing it too.

Being happy is the ultimate goal of any relationship and the relationship between your partner is no different. If you are happy with your partner, then you will also end up being good for your child as well. For a relationship to work, it should always be about “You” and “I” and now with a new “Him/Her” onboard. You should start keeping your ego aside and open up with compassion to embrace the joys that this beautiful change in your life will keep bringing to you forever.