Parenting

It is not uncommon for a new parent to express some or all of the following:

• "There’s no time for us."
• "Our sex life is dead."
• "You don’t care about me anymore."
• "Our lives as we knew them are over."

It's impossible for any one person to be totally prepared when becoming a parent. The impact a new child has on your relationship, the changes in your lifestyle you will need to make, the new responsibilities you will take on, the love, the pain, the tears, and the joy are simply too random to predict. In essence, you don’t know what you don’t know until you know!

And yet, ironically, it’s taboo to complain about being a parent:

"If I say I'm unhappy that means I'm a bad mother. People are going to judge and criticize me."

"If I tell my partner I still need her attention and love, I'm going to be perceived as selfish or childish."

The rationalizations for not talking about your new role as a parent are endless. However, the responsibilities of parenthood are tremendous and can at times be overwhelming. As a consequence, the relationships between two parents often gets put on the back burner. And as time slips away the stage becomes set for distance, withdrawal, and resentment in response to the frustration and disappointment at the loss of "what once was." This can happen in so many ways and to many different degrees.

And yet, there is so much you can do to help prevent or deal with what comes up in your experiences. Being parents and being a couple are not mutually exclusive. Sure, it's necessary to change, adapt, and sacrifice certain things, however, parents need to protect their relationship and cherish what they have if they are to give their best to their children.

Choosing to focus on your relationship and coming for therapy is a way of reclaiming the couple.

I offer individual, couple, and/or group therapy to help parents deal with challenges specific to parenting, as well as issues that come up in new parents' relationships. Don’t put it on the back burner any longer. Call or email to arrange for an initial consultation.