When you become a parent, you can sometimes forget about being a spouse. In the very beginning you have a little tiny human being that depends on you guys 24/7! You’re lacking sleep, constantly taking care of the little one, barely eating, and showering when lucky. Whether you’ve just become a parent, have been a parent for a couple months or a couple years making sure your marriage is a priority during this change is essential to your marriage survival.

It’s not the grand gestures that create and maintain the much-needed connection in a marriage, but it’s on those small moments where you can make or break your connection. Even in those early days of parenting, taking fifteen minutes a day to sit together, face each other, and connect, is absolutely crucial. Yes, your baby will need you. You will jump when they cry, as you are their only source of survival, but make sure not to miss your spouses cries for connection and love either.

Traditionally, husbands are the ones who often feel neglected after child-birth. They miss their wife, the romance, the sex, the emotional connection that they used to get. Now, the wife is giving the attention to the child and the husbands can feel neglected and even forgotten. Most couples end up drowning during the post child-birth stage, but check out my 9 Secrets to Keep the Spark Alive After Baby Arrives!
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Life Transitions Can Equal Rocky Roads…

It’s no surprise that big life transitions heightened a couple’s risk for infidelity or divorce. To combat the risks, making sure you have a “parent” mode and a “spouse” mode is important. I mean that if you are cooking for your child and your partner is in the kitchen cleaning that is not “spouse mode” that is “parent mode” and doesn’t fill up the desire for love. If your child is asleep and you initiate sex with your partner, that is spouse mode. If you bring them a glass of wine and a good book and cuddle together and read it, that is spouse time.

Couples don’t often distinguish these modes and thus can be left feeling empty when one spouse is thinking that you’ve spent the entire day together and nothing is wrong. This is where communication comes in. If you as a couple cannot communicate, the relationship will begin to break down and before you know it resentment, distrust, and a sexless relationship is in your horizon. Don’t Be That Couple!

When I talk with my coaching clients, we often talk about the many roles we play through out our lives. We are daughters, mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, friends, students, etc. Look at your own life and see the different hats you wear, and make sure that when you are looking at that parent and spouse hat that you can distinguish the two.

Coaching Moment 101: As your coach, an exercise I’d give you is to write out all the things you count as “spouse time” in one column and write out all the things you count as “parent time” in the other, and once you and your partner have done that exercise, trade the lists and talk about them as there are likely going to be different things on each of your lists. With this exercise you both gain clarity into what you see as each mode, and you see what your partner thinks, and you each get to hear the “why’s” behind those items on the lists and you both can adjust where needed. If you do end up doing the exercise, comment below on how the exercise went for you! 🙂

If you are currently struggling with trust, communication, and sexual intimacy I have a coaching program, “Relationship Evolution” for exactly those couples! Through this program you will gain the skills to have stellar communication, have a deep sense of trust, and an amazing emotional and sexual connection! You can set up a strategy session with me where we can see if we are a good fit to work together!