Dating the One You Married, Part 21
The Birth of a First Child
Willard F. Harley, Jr., PhD
One of your life's most amazing moments takes place when one of your children are born. If you've already experienced it, you know what I mean. Bringing a new life into the world seems like a miracle. And that new life carries with it a very great responsibility. You not only give that child life, but you will also help mold that child into a happy and productive adult.
For some, that responsibility seems overwhelming, even frightening. For others, it's a very welcome challenge, something that they have been looking forward to as their greatest goal and achievement in life. But regardless of how parents view the advent of a new person in their lives, it's a game-changer, especially when their first child is born.
Those who are prepared for this miracle find it to be one of the happiest times of their lives. However, those unprepared often find it to be a disaster – a marital disaster. The most likely year for a divorce is the first year of marriage. But the second most likely year is the year that a first child is born.
How can that be possible? Doesn't a child strengthen a marriage, giving it a new meaning and mission? The answer is very shocking, no. In fact, the more children a couple has the higher their risk of divorce. Children don't strengthen a marriage. They tend to weaken marriage – unless a couple is adequately prepared.
How to prepare for your first child
Many books and courses have been written for couples who are expecting their first child. Both spouses are expected to read those books and attend those courses together as father and mother because there is a great emphasis on the child's care being shared.
But I do not know of a single prenatal book or course that warns parents that their marriage is at great risk after the child is born, and what they can do to compensate for it. So, here is the advice that should be in every one of those books and courses: Date each other a minimum of fifteen hours a week from the first week of the child's birth and onward. Use that time to meet each other's intimate emotional needs for affection, intimate conversation, recreational companionship, and sexual fulfillment.
Great advice. But exactly how can that advice be applied, especially during the first few weeks and months?
The way that a couple expresses their affection, talks to each other intimately, chooses their recreational activities, and enjoys sexual fulfillment requires careful and advanced planning along with reasonable adjustments after their baby arrives.
The needs of affection and intimate conversation are not the problem. Not only do most mothers continue to have those needs after a child's birth and want them to be met, they are also willing to meet those needs for their husbands. And most husbands are willing to continue meeting those needs as long as their own intimate emotional needs are being met – the needs for sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship.
That's the problem. His needs for recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment are very difficult for a new mother to meet. So difficult, that in many marriages they go unmet for months after a first child is born.
Throughout this series, I have emphasized the importance of meeting a wife's intimate emotional needs and a husband's intimate emotional needs at the same time. That way, both spouses enjoy the experience. But what if his needs can't be met? Shouldn't he be able to suck it up and sacrifice for the sake of their new child? What's the matter with men who simply can't do the right thing when their greatest responsibility in life shows up.
How could a husband be so selfish to be thinking of himself at a time when his new child needs everything parents have to offer?
Knowing what kind of a reaction they will get from their wives, in most cases, husbands don't try to make the point I've been making. Instead, they try, at first, to accommodate their wife's new perspective on life and they let their own emotional needs go unmet by her. But the Love Bank is still keeping score. During that time, as her balance in his Love Bank falls for a lack of major deposits, his willingness to meet her emotional needs begins to wane.
Then, his failure to meet her intimate emotional needs for affection and conversation adversely affects his balance in her Love Bank. That, in turn, reduces her motivation to meet his needs for recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment, even as it becomes physically easier for her to meet those needs. They get out of the habit of meeting each other's intimate emotional needs and find themselves out of love at the very time that they desperately need to be in love.
My reference couple, Norah and Jason in articles 3 and 4 in this series, were facing the results of their failure to be prepared for their first child. After Adam's birth, they had lost the passion they once had for each other because they were no longer meeting each other's intimate emotional needs. Their love for each other was restored when I helped them get back into the habit of dating each other. But most new parents never do return to what had created the passion in their relationship. From their first child on, they stop taking the time to keep their love for each other alive.
What obstacles do a new couple face?
Every mother and most fathers know that it is very difficult to get enough sleep during the first few weeks after the birth of their child. And, as I explained in the Lethargy article of this series, it's very difficult to meet intimate emotional needs when you are very tired.
But most mothers experience much more than just a lack of sleep. Her body and emotions become drained faster than ever before. Her instinct to care for the new baby exceeds all other previous priorities. She feels that her baby needs so much attention that she doesn't have anything left over for her husband.
In her state of physical weakness, and emotional reactivity, she wants her husband to join her in unconditional care of her and their new child, but she feels incapable of showing him even a fraction of the care she had shown him prior to the baby's birth. It can be easy for her to be so wrapped up in the miracle before her that she forgets that her husband still needs the same care she had provided earlier. But even if she is aware of it, she feels that she simply cannot meet those needs.
The months before and after birth make it very difficult for her to function or keep her emotions under control. She wants her husband to know how difficult that makes everything for her. She wants more love and attention than she would have needed before. But wanting more care, yet feeling incapable of giving her husband the same level of care creates a very unbalanced relationship.
Many new mothers don't really think about how this unbalanced relationship will affect her marriage. They feel that their husband should step up to the responsibility of being a father just as she will be responsible as a mother. His emotional needs at this time seem irrelevant. He should simply adjust to the new lifestyle. And yet, she wants him to do even more to meet her emotional needs.
There are many husbands who handle this unbalanced situation very well. They provide the greater care their wives need while understanding that they will be waiting a while before their own needs will be met. But, judging from the high rate of divorce after the birth of a child, there are many other husbands who don't adjust.
It's especially for those marriages that careful planning should be made for how and when intimate emotional needs are met. But even husbands that can handle the temporary imbalance well sacrifice unnecessarily. Planning minimizes sacrifice for either spouse.
What adjustments can be reasonably made?
Throughout this series, I have recommended a 15-hour a week dating schedule where the needs of affection, intimate conversation, sexual fulfillment, and recreational companionship are met in 3 to 5-hour blocks of time. For most new parents, however, that recommendation can be almost impossible to follow. But with a little creativity, these needs can still be met in smaller blocks of time.
The reason that I recommend 3 to 5-hour dates is that most women, unlike most men, need that amount of time to prepare themselves emotionally for intercourse. But since most physicians discourage intercourse during the first six weeks after childbirth, I recommend other forms of less intense and emotional sexual contact that does not require that much time for emotional preparation. There are many ways to have a sexual experience that do not require intercourse, yet are appealing to both husbands and wives.
During the weeks prior to the child's arrival, a husband and wife should think creatively about how they might be able to maintain sexual involvement with each other without actually having intercourse. They may already have tried several sexual alternatives with some degree of success that they could adapt to this unique short-term situation. But nothing should actually be finalized unless it is with their mutual enthusiastic agreement. After six weeks, they could gradually return to their preferred way to make love.
The same problem exists regarding recreational companionship. A new mother may not be physically capable of engaging in the same recreational activities that she enjoyed prior to childbirth. But that doesn't mean that there are no alternative activities that they could both enjoy until her strength is restored. By being creative in advance of the child's birth, a couple can discover activities that they will be able to enjoy together when the child arrives and for the time that it takes for her to recover.
What can you do together that would be fun for both of you? And I highly recommend that you spend all of your recreational time together during this time of adjustment. It's particularly tempting for husbands to engage in recreational activities independently of their wives when they can no longer do some of the things that they enjoyed together prior to their child's birth. But so doing will trigger the contrast effect. He will simply have too much fun apart, making his time with his wife seem boring in comparison.
I usually recommend privacy during a date. Friends and family should not be included. But it's essentially impossible for both spouses to have time away together from their new baby during the first six weeks after childbirth. So, while privacy helps make intimate emotional needs easier to meet, it's not absolutely essential, especially when the baby is asleep.
My suggestion is that a couple discusses these obstacles with each other in the months prior to childbirth. They will then be prepared to continue meeting each other's intimate emotional needs in a way that overcomes the obstacles.
Why focus so much attention on dating during the first six weeks?
When intimate emotional needs are not met for even a few weeks, the march toward the loss of romantic love begins. The routine and habits that have sustained high Love Bank balances up to the day of a baby's arrival are disrupted, and in many cases, they never do return. With romantic love eventually lost by even a few weeks of neglect, there is much less to motivate either spouse to get back into a romantic relationship. While she may still want her husband to be affectionate and conversant, and he may want her to make love to him often and passionately, neither have the same motivation to meet those needs for each other.
Once the pattern of meeting each other's intimate emotional needs is broken after the birth of a child, it's very difficult for many couples to restore it. Six weeks turn into six months, and then a year, and then two years followed by another child. Their romantic relationship becomes a distant memory. That's why the pattern should not be broken, even for only six weeks.
But while I encourage dating, I also encourage following the Policy of Joint Agreement in the way you date each other. I cannot put too much emphasis on the importance of having enthusiastic agreement when it comes to meeting each other's intimate emotional needs. Even if careful planning goes into finding alternative ways to have sexual and recreational experiences, when the time actually comes to implement those plans, a wife might not be so enthusiastic anymore. In that case, I do not recommend going ahead with the original plan. Instead, I recommend trying to find an alternative that would be more appealing to her or even letting those emotional needs go unmet until a new plan is in place.
Granted, there are risks to waiting for the time that she would feel right about engaging in sexual or recreational activities. But the alternative of forcing her to follow through on the agreement she had made earlier when she was feeling very different, is far more dangerous. Many wives have told me horror stories about the way she had felt obligated to have sex with her husband after their baby was born. From that time on, they reported that they had never felt the same about sex.
The way you meet each other's intimate emotional needs should always be mutually enjoyable. It should be a way of expressing your care for each other. That's the only way that your emotional needs will be met frequently and consistently. So, when obstacles such as the birth of a child prevent you from meeting each other's emotional needs as you have done in the past, put your creativity hats on and think of ways of overcoming them.
If you find that your intention to meet each other's intimate emotional needs after childbirth doesn't work out as planned, at the very least, the original intention itself keeps you both aware of the importance of dating after you have children. You would then be far less likely to fall into a permanent routine that prevents you from having a romantic relationship.
After the first six weeks, your dating will become more convenient and obstacles easier to overcome. It won't be as simple to date as it was prior to the arrival of your child, but it is clearly achievable. And with that achievement, you'll guarantee your love for each other at a time that you will need that love more than ever.