Babies are always more difficult than you thought—and more wonderful.
—CHARLES OSGOOD
THIS CHAPTER DISCUSSES how a baby will affect your relationship with your wife, and what to expect as she makes the transition to being a mom. Your marriage can survive a newborn!
We had been married almost four years when three simple words, “It’s a boy!” changed our lives. Overnight, our date nights were history—at least that’s how I felt at the time. As new parents, we were overwhelmed, exhausted, and insecure. We kept waiting for life to return to normal, but it never did.
After two more kids, life began to spin out of control.
Our ultimate romantic fantasy was eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I’m not kidding.
A strong desire for sleep, not romance, is what David and Claudia Arp recalled about their first baby. The Arps are counselors who have written about having a good marriage—in spite of having a baby. Their experience is universal. Most new parents feel like they’ve been blindsided by their baby.
David and Claudia have boiled down their advice to seven healthy habits. Take a look and see how you’re doing.
1. Be deliberate in sharing responsibilities: Every family is different, but it’s important to make sure one parent, usually the mother, is not the new baby’s sole caretaker. If she is bearing the brunt of it, a wise man offers to shop, cook, and clean around the house.
2. Develop healthy sleep habits: Without proper rest, parents grow edgy and irritable. They don’t think clearly. Try to establish a routine that will allow each parent to get some uninterrupted rest. Granted the first few weeks will be tough, but things should soon even out.
3. Find time for each other: One of my biggest mistakes was assuming I was done with dating my wife. Ironically, there is probably no better time to be deliberate about dating your spouse than after a new baby arrives. Plan ahead. Get a babysitter, even if it’s for an hour’s walk around the neighborhood.
4. Talk and listen effectively: This advice applies to any married couple, but it’s especially important when Junior arrives. Don’t assume your spouse can read your mind, and don’t assume you can do the same. Ask questions—and listen to her answers!
5. Make your love life a priority: Romance didn’t rank high on my list those first weeks with a new baby—and you can be sure my wife was interested even less. But it’s important to carve out time. Be creative and spontaneous. Perhaps a friend can watch the baby at their house—and instead of going out, the two of you can stay in.
6. Grow together spiritually: It’s easy to let Scripture study and prayer time together slide when you’re exhausted and trying to find your way as a new father. But as with dating, this is a time when you need the Lord’s wisdom most. Even if you read only a passage or two, keep reading your Bible. Pray simple prayers together. Pray for each other—and pray for this wonderful new life!
7. Nurture your relationship: Do you remember why you fell in love with your spouse? Maybe it’s time to write her a letter and remind her. (Perhaps you’ll benefit from the recollection too.) Don’t forget that it’s often the little things, like bringing her coffee in bed or bringing home flowers for no reason, that make the biggest impression.
Consider Chris and Jessica. Chris is a successful video producer who has abundant energy, and Jessica is a graphic designer. They’re a fun couple to be around. They married in their mid-thirties and soon had a child. Now two and a half, that little bundle named Ethan affected their marriage in several ways.
There was certainly a physical impact. Jessica is petite, and carrying her preborn child was a significant strain on her tiny body. After Ethan’s arrival, her postpartum weight loss came easily, although Jessica’s energy levels took longer to recover. In fact, these days she’s pretty tired. Lately Ethan tends to get up a couple of times per night, and that’s cut into Chris and Jessica’s sleep. They’re big coffee lovers now, depending on the caffeine to keep them going throughout the day. They don’t remember the last time they had a good night’s sleep.
Chris and Jessica’s sexual relationship has been altered by their general lack of physical stamina, this interrupted sleep schedule, and Ethan’s other ongoing needs. These days, going to bed at 8 p.m. seems like a good idea—and that’s so they can sleep … nothing more.
The kind of romance they enjoyed regularly has been relegated to special occasions. Despite their desires to resume that part of their life, it’s just not happening. This is just a season, they tell themselves, and they both look forward to when they’ll be getting more sleep and have the sexual intimacy they once enjoyed.
Emotionally, Jessica and Chris will tell you they’re doing okay. They’re settling into their parental roles, adjusting to the demands of parenting. Chris gets encouragement in his fathering from the guys at work, and several of them are in a similar season. He still has time to play football on weekends.
Jessica is developing a new graphics business out of their home, and is often caught up in the busyness of that. Still, she makes time for her friends and gets a gals’ night out every few weeks. So they feel like they’re getting some quality time to keep sane.
Truthfully, though, some struggles are going on below the surface. Jessica is consumed by Ethan’s needs, and seems unavailable for Chris when he comes home in the evenings. They used to have some great talk time, but now that’s gone. Jessica is usually less interested in what happened in Chris’s day, and much more interested in what Ethan did, or how he is feeling.
And Chris is starting to resent that.
Practically, while Ethan needs diapers and baby food, there hasn’t yet been a huge financial hit. Around the house, certainly they’ve had to baby-proof the place, but it’s been a pretty natural adjustment for them. Besides, it is kind of fun to have this bundle of joy and energy … these days he’s always exploring and is learning so much!
One area of life they’re having a bit of trouble with is “together time.” While they pursue their separate interests and hobbies, Chris and Jessica aren’t doing as much together as they used to. It’s hard, because Ethan is at a particularly demanding stage. As a toddler, he tends to get into things around the house, makes messes, and needs a lot of supervision. His bedtime is so early, Chris and Jessica can’t get out for dates—and besides, who can they trust to take care of the baby? They’re concerned with his safety and well-being, so finding a trustworthy babysitter seems impossible.
Does this sound familiar? It will.
Chris and Jessica’s story may be yours.
They’re the poster couple for a simple truth: Your marital relationship will change significantly when your baby comes.
For many couples, getting married is fun, exciting, and relatively easy compared to the shift to being parents. The changes from dating to engaged took several months and didn’t require too much energy. Then came the steps to becoming husband and wife, another rather natural progression. The journey together led to wonderful conversations and a shared sense of oneness. So it is a surprise when couples find themselves angry, tired, and retreating into their own worlds when Junior is born.
At the risk of stating the obvious, maintaining that marital bond while adjusting to caring for a baby is usually fairly difficult. Numerous issues arise, from emotional to physical. The key to doing well as a husband and as a dad is expecting things to be hard—and dealing well with the conflicts and challenges.
Be prepared for a shift in thinking. When you take on that parental title and its attendant responsibilities, a mental change takes place. Once you were husband and wife; now you’re husband-and-wife and dad-and-mom. You used to fully devote your relational attention to each other; now you have a third party in the family who will demand a lot.
The shift to being a mom and dad is huge, and it requires some serious juggling. What was once a “100 percent you and me” perspective is now less clean and simple. Is it a “50 percent for you and 50 percent for the baby” relationship? Maybe. It’s dangerous and arbitrary to try to quantify relationships by percentages. For some, a 50 percent statistic would be welcome. I guess most men feel they have 20 percent access to their wife’s time and energy.
Most women have a superstrong nurturing instinct that kicks in when baby arrives, and it becomes foremost in their minds. The urge to invest fully in that child is overwhelming! It doesn’t mean she wants to neglect you, her dear husband, it’s just that the baby needs her.
The more you understand this, the easier it will be for you to manage the changes.
One excellent way to better prepare for or deal with the reality of divided loyalties is to work on your communication. Make sure you and your wife talk often. Plan on that weekly date night, so the two of you can have some good, uninterrupted conversation. And talk about more than just the baby! Try to reserve those talks for another time. Your date time should be all about the two of you, with some fun and some memory-making.
(We can’t leave the baby with someone yet.)
Sharing babysitting duties with friends who also have a newborn is a great and economical way to manage these early days of parenting. This is something we learned when we had our fourth, and I wished we had done this much sooner.
We eventually got into a great routine of having regular talk times. Every Friday was date night—one week for us, the next for the other couple. When it was our turn to get away, Joan would come to our place so the kids could have their regular foods and beds. We’d go out for the evening confident that an experienced, caring mom we really trusted was in control of our children. No worries! The next week Dena would go to their place (while I managed our kids at our house), and James and Joan would head off for dinner or a hike.
When you trade babysitting responsibilities with like-minded friends, you receive something even more valuable than safe and affordable child care. You’ll enjoy the company and perspective of other parents who are going through the same season of life. You’ve heard “there’s safety in numbers”? There’s comfort too.
Most of our discussion in this chapter has dealt with the practical side of managing the arrival of a new child. Having experienced this six times, I can confidently declare this:
If handled deliberately and carefully, the arrival of a child into your marriage will indeed forever change your union—but only for the better. Looking back on life without children, I can honestly say our lives have improved by nearly every measure.
Life is more fun, and it has more meaning. Having been forced to reckon with my selfish proclivities, I’ve grown as a man. My walk with the Lord has become more steady. In my wife’s mothering, I see God’s goodness. And in our children, I see His wonder and majesty.
Yes, a baby will affect your marriage, because a baby will change you in miraculous and mighty ways.
5 Tips
to Help Your Marriage Survive a New Baby
1. Stay connected with your wife. Make room in your schedule for daily talk times and weekly dates. Do things together as a family. Hang out at the park with parents who also have young kids. Develop routines like Thursday night pizza or Sunday afternoons. Take family hikes or bike rides.
2. Remember that your wife is not your enemy. She is the love of your life, and you need to treat her as your shining jewel. So don’t get angry with her. Don’t blow up when she is exhausted and really needs you to help out. Extend lots of grace. Follow the scriptural admonition to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).
3. Remember that this child is not your enemy. You love this little baby, really you do! So don’t for a minute think she is an enemy to your marriage. Yes, she will demand a lot of you, and she will extract a lot of your wife’s energies and attentions. But she’s your child, and you have a tremendous responsibility to raise her well. It’s your job to allow her needs to dictate a lot of your and your wife’s choices and activities—for now. And that will impact your marriage.
4. Share the load. Now is the time to show your wife you love her by sacrificing your pride—or your stubbornness—and really stepping up the contribution you make to her life. Clean the kitchen or her car. Empty the trash. Change that baby’s diaper. Make dinner. Those domestic duties need to be shared, as she is pretty tired from being a mom. Come alongside her and help. Look around, find practical things that need to be done, and get to work. Your wife will notice, even if she doesn’t say anything right now.
5. Get some sleep. Take turns wearing earplugs. Seriously. Buy some Mack’s Silicone Earplugs and learn to love ’em! I didn’t want to consider earplugs, but Dena started using them and it became apparent she was sleeping well—while I didn’t, because our son kept waking me during the night. When you are desperate for sleep, wear earplugs. Alternate turns, so at least one of you gets a good night of rest, every night.
Your Marriage Can Survive a Newborn, by Glenn and Natalie Williams (B&H).
Becoming Parents: How to Strengthen Your Marriage as Your Family Grows, by Pamela Jordan, Scott Stanley, Howard Markman (John Wiley & Sons).
Now What? The Chapman Guide to Marriage after the Children Arrive, by Gary Chapman (Tyndale House).