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From Partners to Parents
Tips for a Smooth Transition
By Jacqueline Rupp
When it is only you and your significant other, it's hard to imagine what life will be like when Baby enters the picture. Realizing your lives are about to dramatically change can prompt thoughts about how this change will affect your relationship. Learning to work as a team and to share the struggles and joys of parenthood can actually become an awesome bonding experience. The trick is to learn to grow together, not apart, and still save time and a bit of you to be partners, not just parents.
"There are many sources of anxiety," says Patricia Schell Kuhlman, who along with her husband, Dr. Gregory Kuhlman, operate the Marriage Success Training Program, which educates engaged and newly married couples on everything from communication skills to dealing with life's transition. "Latent feelings about preparedness for parenthood, financial pressures, family and in-law issues, among many others, can be brought to the forefront as the due date draws closer."
Dr. Kuhlman says partners can recognize symptoms of pre-baby stress by looking for irritability and an increase in fighting or withdrawal. She recommends dealing with these problems by communicating. "Schedule your planning, preparation and talking so that it occurs at a time when both partners are emotionally available, well rested, not stressed," she says. "Use communication approaches like time-outs, if one partner tends to get overloaded. Recognize that differences are normal."
When you are expecting, expectations can become a big part of life. Imagining the perfect family will not get you any closer to having one, however. But, by being proactive and taking steps to make a positive transition you can turn some of your expectations into reality.
Dr. Pamela Jordan, founder and president of the Becoming Parents Program Inc., a comprehensive educational program designed to teach relationship and parenting skills to couples, advises parents-to-be to have concrete discussions about perceptions of the future. "Talk with your partner about your expectations of how life will be as a family and who will do what ... change diapers, get up with the baby at night, provide the financial support for the family, be primary caregiver for the baby, shop, cook, clean, take out the garbage, pay the bills, take care of the car, take care of the yard, etc," she says. "We all have a 'future biography' in our heads, and with any two people these two biographies are rarely in line." Blending these two futures together is something that doesn't happen just by chance.
Communication and compromise are your best tools for a satisfying family future. "Expect that you and your partner will do things differently with the baby," says Dr. Jordan. "That doesn't mean that you are right and your partner is wrong. It means there are many ways to do things. When you do things differently, your baby benefits."
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