Prefer to listen? Us Too!
As exciting as welcoming a new baby into your family is, it is a HUGE change to your lifestyle and relationship dynamic. The new lack of freedom can easily lead to fights because you are often left bartering over time, chores, and tasks. These micro (or macro!) confrontations can leave you each feeling depleted of energy and full of resentment.
“Anything that requires an excess amount of your resources can plant the seeds for conflict,” says relationship expert, Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, who defines resources as your “time, energy, attention and money.”
On top of that, there are big conversations about parenting styles. In fact, research shows that most couples become less satisfied with their relationship after having kids.
“Some of the insecurities that we have: conflict management, boundaries, all of those are highlighted after you have children,” Dr. Nasserzadeh says. “There’s nothing like raising a child to create conflict for couples.”
There can still sometimes be a stigma around going to couples counseling or feeling like it’s only worth your time to go once there’s a big source of conflict. But the reality is that couples counseling can be valuable for parents at all stages of their relationship and parenthood. Below are 5 ways couples therapy for parents is beneficial…
Skip Ahead
Benefits of Couples Counseling For Parents: An Expert Perspective
You know as a Peacock Parent, I’m all about hiring expert help. Whether that’s a sleep expert or a travel agent, there’s so much value in hiring someone who brings expertise and knowledge to an area. A couples counselor brings this type of savvy to your relationship and role as parents.
“Having a third party who is informed and objective and can hear them out and weigh decisions with the couple can help bring new insight to them,” says Dr. Nasserzadeh.
Therapists see dozens of couples with similar situations, and Dr. Nasserzadeh says sometimes couples are stressed about an issue that they think is unique to them, but is actually quite common.
“I can confidently tell them, ‘Hey, it's not only you. All of my couples in this moment are struggling with this.’ Or, ‘what your child is manifesting is something that is developmentally appropriate for a four-year-old,’ for example,” she says. “Hearing that is like cool water on the fire for them.”
Couples counselors also have insight and tried and true methods for dealing with all sorts of relationship areas and common concerns that emerge, whether it’s addressing conflict or developing intimacy after having a baby (we’ll dive more into those two below).
Benefits of Couples Counseling For Parents: Conflict Resolution
This is perhaps the most obvious reason couples may choose to go to couples therapy — and it’s an important one.
Dr. Nasserzadeh says relationship experts can act as facilitators for tough conversations and ensure that no one person is dominating the conversation and that everyone is communicating in a healthy way. By acting as an outside party, a therapist can help couples reach a resolution that both partners are comfortable with. For example, during the pandemic, Dr. Nasserzadeh says she had numerous couples come to her in disagreement over whether or not to vaccinate their kids.
“I would help them think through the concerns, plow through the research that was available at the time, and help the couple come up with a mutual understanding around the decision that they can actually live with either way,” Dr. Nasserzadeh says. She says sometimes this involves giving the couple follow-up assignments like talking to their pediatrician together.
Conflict in relationships can actually be good and ultimately strengthen your bond. But, marriage and family therapist Dr. Stan Tatkin says couples often don’t know how to fight, and he frequently provides guidance on how to do so in a way that’s productive and doesn’t damage the relationship.
“If there is no agreement to protect each other, to feel safe, enforce boundaries, and above all to protect the coupledom, then it will break,” he said, while speaking at the In goop Health summit.
Tatkin suggests tackling issues from a place of collaboration and thinking of it as us against the problem we are trying to solve together.
"Never work on each other. Work on a problem,” he says. “You have to care more about the relationship than about being right.”
Tatkin also recommends only addressing one issue at a time and being in a setting where you can face each other and look each other in the eye. And, “don't focus on memory — you're both wrong because you can't prove it,” he says.
Benefits of Couples Counseling For Parents: Address Potential Issues Before Problems Arise
Even if there’s not a specific issue or conflict that you and your partner need help navigating, seeing a couples therapist can be beneficial.
Dr. Tatkin says one of the main reasons couples don’t make it is a lack of organization and structure. “You have to have a co-created organization and structure of the relationship — a shared vision, mission, and goals, a social contract to work together,” he said, while speaking at the In goop Health summit. Couples therapy for parents can help partners create and maintain this structure.
Dr. Nasserzadeh says when things are going smoothly in your relationship you can think of couples counseling as a check-in. “It's like an annual checkup that you go to a doctor for,” she says.
In these instances, Dr. Nasserzadeh says she’ll often have couples take an inventory called the Relationship Panoramic Inventory, which provides insight into the dynamics of their relationship, from personal values to sexual satisfaction and their ability to connect.
“It tells you, ‘these are the areas that you're very strong in, and these are the areas where you might be a little bit weak, that you need to really work on,’” she says. “If you tackle [the weak areas] head on, they never become a huge issue.”
She says that can include things like talking about different conflict management or connection styles or looking at past trust issues and insecurities that could manifest later on.
Benefits of Couples Counseling For Parents: Learn To Model A Healthy Relationship For Your Kids
Kids notice when you’re fighting. Dr. Tatkin says he often uses a military metaphor when talking about how fighting affects the family as a whole: "When generals fight, soldiers die." In this case, it’s the kids who are the “soldiers,” aka the ones who suffer from the fighting.
Studies have found that regular and poorly resolved conflict between parents can negatively impact their kids in numerous ways, including increasing their risk of developing mental health issues, struggling at school, and having poor relationships with their peers. But the opposite is true when they see their parents work through conflict and negative emotions in a healthy way.
“When kids know that their parents are in harmony, they have lower stress levels, their outcome is better, they're more fulfilled with their lives,” says Dr. Nasserzadeh.
And when parents model healthy relationship behavior, it also influences how their kids act in their own relationships later on, and decreases the likelihood they will be in romantic relationships with violence or poor problem-solving.
“It doesn't matter what kids read or see elsewhere, their foundation is us, always us,” says Dr. Nasserzadeh.
Benefits of Couples Counseling For Parents: Strengthen Your Intimacy
Being busy and overwhelmed with work and parenthood can often take a toll on the intimacy in your relationship — both physically and emotionally. Couples therapy can help you integrate practices into your relationship to strengthen or redevelop intimacy.
On the emotional side, Dr. Nasserzadeh says starting and ending the day consistently with a moment of connection is important.
“Greetings are so important,” she says. “You’d be so surprised by how many couples don't say ‘good morning’ to each other when they wake up.”
She recommends also doing a quick check-in in the evening, and sharing your “oyes and joys” of the day.
“Over a period of time, what creates a wedge between a couple is not a big affair. The majority of couples fall apart because they drift apart,” she says. “We all are exposed to so many different stimuli and different things throughout the day, that if we fail to share those with one another, then over a period of time, you just look across the room and you don't know the person anymore.”
On the physical side of intimacy, Dr. Nasserzadeh says she highly recommends couples develop a “touch lexicon” where each partner knows what another partner’s touches are meant to convey.
“For example, when I touch you like this, it means, ‘Oh, you did such a great job with our child today.’ Another touch could be, ‘Come here I can comfort you,’” she says. “There are different types of touch that couples need to develop and have a repertoire and agreement over because sometimes a person gives a touch and the other person interprets it in a very different way.”
Dr. Nasserzadeh says touch is critical for maintaining intimacy.
“I really cannot emphasize enough for people that if they feel like after becoming a parent they can't have regular sex, at least don't take away the touch,” she says. “Touch is so important. After a while [without touch], your bodies don't even know each other, they’re quite alienated.”
For more ways to maintain a strong and loving relationship, check out Dr. Nasserzadeh’s book Love by Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love. And if you are looking specifically to strengthen your sex life and in-the-bedroom intimacy, I highly recommend Arya’s monthly intimacy toolkit, which is available at a discount to Proxy subscribers. Sign up for Proxy, here.
How To Make Time + Where To Find Couples Counseling For Parents
Couples therapy is incredibly valuable for parents. An experienced relationship expert will help you navigate big transitions associated with becoming parents, give you tools for managing conflict and developing intimacy, and help you create and model a healthy relationship for your kids. But you have to make the time for it and commit to investing in your relationship.
“It's not just couples therapy that is going to solve the couple's issues,” says Dr. Nasserzadeh. “It’s the commitment to that 50 minutes they spend with the couples therapist and also following through with the exercises, with the insights that they take away.”
And this is where I can step in with my personal expertise. As you know, creating time is my superpower. To help make time to enhance your relationship, I highly recommend planning out your week with your partner, outsourcing chores, and hiring help at home. Committing to therapy and being there for your partner at home is so much easier when you have a support team at home to take on tasks that often create problems between couples and strip you both of the time you could be using to make each other feel loved.
In terms of finding couples therapy near you, Psychology Today’s online tool is a useful resource. They have lots of different filters you can select depending on your preferences, including whether or not they accept your health insurance. In a lot of cases, health insurance plans will cover at least part of your visit, even if you choose someone out of network. Alma is another national network that can help match you with a couples therapist in your area. Alma also works with different health insurance providers and offers both virtual and in-person sessions. An added bonus is that the therapists they partner with offer free 15-minute initial consultations so you can have a short conversation to see if it's the right fit before committing to a full session.
Planning to hire help at home so you have more time for your relationship? Subscribe to Proxy: the fast and easy way to hire household help at discounted rates.
