How to Baby-Proof Your Relationship

When you look at the data, it is true that after people have kids, marital satisfaction declines. Having a baby drastically changes everything in your partnership that was familiar, that was predictable, that you got used to. And some of those are the reasons you got into the relationship in the first place. 

That’s the reality of having kids. And as much as we love our kids, it can be an incredible shock to the system. There were date nights, there were lazy Sunday mornings in bed, and now there are feedings and diaper changes, feeling touched-out, packing school lunches the night before or at 5:45 in the morning. To paraphrase Ethan Hawke’s character from Before Sunset: We used to be in love. Now we’re roommates who run a day care together.

There are things that bring us together in ways we could not imagine. A crazy amount of shared love. But there’s also a crazy amount of shared details and shared responsibilities and less money and more work. And it’s a tall order to ask your relationship to just adapt to something like that. But for many — probably most — couples, this issue is not hopeless.

And that’s where today’s guest comes in. Dr. Yael Schonbrun is a clinical psychologist, an author, and a researcher who focuses on the science and data behind healthier, happier relationships. And she’s here to help you baby-proof your relationship. 

Here are three highlights from the conversation:

What is a marital check-in, and why is it important?

It can just be an opportunity to talk about things that have been going on and to bring your best selves to have that conversation, because otherwise what happens is, people wait until the lid is about to come off the boiling pot. And at that point, either you’re tired or your emotions have hijacked your brain, and you’re not going to be talking rationally. You’re going to say things that you don’t mean.

The alternative can also happen, where people don’t want to talk about things and so they avoid, avoid, avoid. And resentment grows. And in part, it’s because you don’t want to rock the boat or because things are already so bad you don’t want them to really fall apart. And so having this habit of “every week we do a check-in, there’s a beginning to the check-in, there’s an end, and then we try to pivot and go do other things” just gives you an opportunity to not miss out on talking about things before it hits resentment, or to talk about it before it hits the boiling point, in a more thoughtful way.

The other is, if you’re talking about something that’s difficult, it can be hard to pivot to just enjoying one another. That said, I do think it’s nice to, if you can in your marital check-in, try to finish with something positive of life — “but here’s something that I really appreciate” — so that you can do that pivot in a way that feels positive, and you don’t kind of drag some of the negativity along with you.

How can you stop yourself from micromanaging your partner?

We also create less influence. The more we try to control, the less influence we have. And so by lightening up on the efforts to control and instead saying, “Ultimately it’s your call,” this is a good mantra. And we have more influence when we honor that, when we say, “It is your call, and there are probably some ways that work for you that I’m not seeing, but can I tell you how it makes me feel, or can I tell you my concerns?”

And this is another strategy, of asking permission to share your view. And if the other person is willing to hear it and they say, “Sure, you can tell me,” then it actually increases the likelihood that they’ll be open to it. And if they’re not, then you get to save your breath.

I think it helps us recognize some things are important and do deserve saying.

How does one navigate mismatched post-baby sex drive?

So there’s this real tension. So I think part of it is to just recognize that when one person is wanting more intimacy than the other, again, it’s not a villainous, malevolent desire. It’s a desire to connect. 

And so I think trying to think in more nuanced ways of: you have needs and I have needs, and we’re both really tapped-out and pulled in so many different directions, and so what’s a way that we can get a little bit better without expecting to resolve anything perfectly for the time being?

And so finding these middle-ground solutions that are imperfect and that recognize that it’s a complicated problem to solve — this difference in desire to connect intimately — and doing it really compassionately, is so important, because the tendency, I think, is to vilify one another because we’re feeling so hurt. It’s this instinctual “you hurt me, I’m going to hurt you back.” And instead of coming together, which is what both people tend to want, it sort of pulls you further apart.

Full transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain small errors.

So you can see that from people’s everyday experience from Reddit. But also, we see this in the data. So actually, there is a fair amount of data showing that marital happiness declines when people have kids, especially in the first year.

But even though people like to talk about this and make jokes about it, actually, it’s not great. And the goal here is to give people some tips to make that happen less, or at least talk about why it happens. So we’re going to do that. We’re going to be productive and not just talk about, “Wait, let’s start.” Do you have a partner, Yael?

And so I am definitely a fern, and he is more of a succulent. o we have a difference. And so he’s kind of off doing his thing. And I really need a whole lot of attention, especially if I’m sort of putting out energy and caring for the kids and caring for my patients and doing my writing work. And what he needs is independent time too, because he’s a classic introvert. So it annoys me that when he’s stressed, he needs time away.

And so you’re not doomed. If you’re thinking about having children, your marriage is not doomed. And if you’ve had a precipitous drop, your marriage is also not doomed. So there’s lots of variability, and we can look at the averages. And there is an average drop. But some couples, and in fact many couples do just fine. They’re sort of a stressful period, but they come together, and they cope as collaborators. And that’s great.

And for a lot of folks, that change those new stressors, lack of sleep, more demands on us really cause a fracturing. And so one of the things to think about is before you have kids to try to invest some time and energy in building up your relationship or in preparing for the transition as collaborators. And so a lot of the interventions that have been tested with this transition of partnership to co-parents look at intervening in the lead up, so helping people to strengthen the relationship before kids and then helping them to figure out how to cope better after the arrival of kids. And so there are a variety of ways to intervene in both time periods.

So what does that look like? A lot of it just looks like conversations and helping people talk things through because a lot of people don’t know how to talk things through or avoid it because it’s kind of uncomfortable. These are difficult topics to encounter. There’s a lot of anxiety about what each person wants and doesn’t want.

Sometimes, there’s a history of conflict that people are worried about tripping up and setting off a minefield. And so in the protected environment of a couple’s therapy room, you have somebody who’s kind of a mediator, who can structure things, who can make sure that each person gets heard and feels heard. And then there’s some problem solving, collaborative problem solving. I can give some of the communication tips that are really helpful for a lot of couples if that’s-

And so the goal of an understanding conversation is to improve understanding. The second kind of conversation is a problem-solving conversation where the goal is to solve a problem or come to a decision together or negotiate something. And that one is something that people just understand. And actually, when it comes to having new children, we almost always want to do the problem solving. We want to fix it. We’re exhausted. There’s so many stressors. We need to figure out what the baby’s going to eat, who’s going to take care of it, what that rash is.

And so we just drop into default mode of problem solving is what we need to do. But often, what would actually be more effective is to do understanding first. And we want to separate them out because when one person is trying to have an understanding conversation of, “I’m super stressed out, this eczema on the baby is really freaking me out because I’m worried it’s going to lead to something different,” and the other person steps in and says, “Well, you need to call the doctor immediately,” then the anxiety doesn’t get addressed.

And so by making sure and really clarifying each person what kind of a conversation do I want to have, we align on the communication goals. And when people are aligned on communication goals, often think of it’s a rowboat. you can row in the same direction. If you’re not aligned, you’re rowing in different directions, and you’re just going in circles. And it’s super frustrating for both people.

And by voicing that at the top it’s like, “Okay. Which conversation are we hoping to have?” Because if I’m trying to have the conversation with my partner where I’m just like, “I’m so tired and I’m exhausted, and the baby’s pooping 23 times in the middle of the night, and I just feel like crap,” and you just want them to be like, “Wow, yeah. That’s a lot of poop. I hear that you don’t like that much poop.” And then they’re like, “Well, here are some tips I read on the internet about how to get your baby to poop less.” That’s not helping.

And I was just looking for understanding of like, “You poor thing, but you’re so great.” I’m going to feel criticized. And then I tell him, “Oh, you’re such an unsupportive partner.” And he had come in trying to be helpful and thoughtful and listening, and responsive. And I’m telling him he’s a crappy partner. Now, he feels criticized and invalidated. And so here’s this conversation where we both entered into this space with good intentions, and both people are feeling really rotten.

And it is true, Emily, to your point, that a very similar kind of dynamic can happen with our kids. It can happen with work colleagues. It can happen with good friends and family members. So this distinction of what kind of a conversation do I want to have is one that’s really helpful in all sorts of relationships and definitely in our partnerships just to have that sense of if I know in advance what kind of a conversation I’m looking for, can I ask for it from the outset so that we don’t get off on the wrong track?

Or if in the middle of a conversation I’m noticing that I’m feeling like this isn’t going quite right and I’m not aligning, and I’m getting kind of frustrated, can I sort of point out, “Hey, I think I’m looking for this kind of conversation.” And you’re maybe assuming that I want that kind of conversation. Can we negotiate even what kind of conversation we’re having and maybe start in one place, start by having an understanding conversation before we move to the problem solving.

And I will say just as a quick tip. It is almost always useful to do the understanding conversation first before you do the problem solving. Even if it’s very obvious that you want to do the problem solving, even if it feels pretty straightforward, just to do a quick little understanding just so that you make sure, A, you are both ready to solve the problem, B, that you’re solving the same problem or, C, that you’re solving the same parts of the same problem, because often problems that seem really obvious and simple have multiple parts and different parts matter to each of you.

And so if you can just sort of have that understanding piece first so that you align on what it is and how it is that you’re going to do the problem solving, that can make things go so much more smoothly.

And so there’s a little bit of a kind of push, I would say. People would say, “Well, everything’s going fine.” We really like each other. Our marriage is great. But the investment in having a habit to address how to have harder conversations, so you are doing that before you are exhausted. I think that’s part of the kind of almost like pre-work before the meeting or you do… It’s the pre-read. You should have the pre-read. It’s the pre-baby prep.

So however you’re doing it, investing in those habits of maintaining a relationship can really make you more resilient in that transition because you are going to be more fatigued. You are going to be more stressed out. And there’s a number of ways to do it. And one of the things that I really encourage people to do is to have two real brief appointments blocked on your calendar, and one is to do a marital check-in like, “How are we doing? How are you doing? What do we need to talk about? What’s come up,” so that you just have a time in your week. And there’s a couple reasons for this. One is that it’s-

And the marital check-in can be this opportunity or relationship check-in if you’re not married can just be an opportunity to talk about things that have been going on and to bring your best selves to have that conversation because, otherwise, what happens is people wait until the lid is about to come off the boiling pot. And at that point either, you’re tired or your emotions have hijacked your brain, and you’re not going to be talking rationally. You’re going to say things that you don’t mean.

The alternative can also happen where people don’t want to talk about things and so they avoid, avoid, avoid. And resentment grows. And in part, it’s because you don’t want to rock the boat or because things are already so bad you don’t want them to really fall apart. And so having this habit of every week we do a check-in, there’s a beginning to the check-in, there’s an end.And then we try to pivot and go do other things just gives you an opportunity to not miss out on talking about things before it hits resentment or to talk about it before it hits the boiling point in a more thoughtful way.

The other is if you’re talking about something that’s difficult, it can be hard to pivot to just enjoying one another. That said, I do think it’s nice to, if you can in your marital check-in, try to finish with something positive of life. But here’s something that I really appreciate so that you can do that pivot in a way that feels positive, and you don’t kind of drag some of the negativity along with you.

And so I could never get them to do this. And in some ways, I thought, of course, if you’re already aligned with your partner, then maybe you don’t have to do this as much. Somehow, this feels like it would be most useful when one person is resistant. But what do you tell people if they say, “I just can’t get my partner to even engage with this kind of questions”?

But once people get there, there’s so much value. And so I do think it’s helpful to just talk about to set approach goals. So one of the things that we know from psychological research is that when we set avoidance goals of like, “I’m really unhappy, and I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to divorce you, so you better go to couple’s therapy with me,” is not a particularly warm invite. It feels controlling. It feels like an ultimatum. It doesn’t feel particularly appealing to most people to receive an invitation in that way.

Whereas if you say, “We’ve been having a hard time. And what I’d really love to do is get back to a place where we feel good around each other.” That feels more appealing to most people. The other thing, and I wrote a piece about this for parent data as well, is that it can often feel like the person who wants to have this kind of a check-in is really in a agency undermining position of like, “You need to do this. I’m so unhappy. You need to do this.”

And what happens when we are told that we absolutely have to do something, whether it’s by our parents, so this is also good advice for our teens and toddlers or by our partners, is that there’s this thing that psychologists calls psychological reactants, which is we don’t want other people to tell us what to do.

We want to have agency. This is a fundamental human drive. And so if we invite our partner and we do it in a way that really respects their autonomy, that sort of encourages them to have agency, it’s also a lot more likely.

So for example, I have been unhappy in this relationship. I would like to do something. Whether it’s couples therapy or just dedicating some time each week to working on our relationship, what do you think? How would you want to do it? Are there ways that would be more appealing to you and other ways that would be less appealing to you? I have lots of ideas. Here are some, what kind of ideas do you have that would help us to work on this relationship that seems important to both of us?

So to make it positive, to give the other person agency and to offer lots of different options so that people don’t feel backed into a corner, because when we feel backed into a corner, that’s when we get resistant.

And I think that’s an ongoing source of tension, and it’s a place where often this is the thing we care most about in the world. And neither of us have any idea what we’re doing. That’s a sort of characteristic of parenting. I could not be more engaged in wanting to do this right? And I just am lost in a sea of the internet and whatever. And I don’t know the right choice.

And if you don’t agree with me, if we’re both just swimming in an aimless pool of information, maybe we can come together to put something. But if I have a strong idea I’ve come to sort of think the right way to discipline is X, and my partner’s idea is the right way to discipline is Y. And those are not the same. Is there a more focused way we could try to work through that kind of specific conflict as opposed to the general like, “We’re tired and everybody feels busy,” conflict?

And that’s kind of the nature of parenting for everyone because we don’t partner up with ourselves. So invariably, we will have differences. And sometimes, the differences are small enough that it’s not so difficult to bridge them. But sometimes, the differences are really big. And a common one that I see, and this is kind of a broad difference, but I think it comes up in a lot of ways, is you have one parent who’s really more into discipline.

We need to set for boundaries and say, “No,” and really invite our children to know that there’s a hierarchy and respect needs to be important and following the rules needs to be important.

And then one parent who leads with warmth and love, who really at the end of the day, all that really matters to me is that my child feels connected and accepted and loved and in this unconditional way. And so you can have these differences that really bump up against one another in lots of different situations. It could be sleep training. It could be potty training. It could be the teenager didn’t do their homework. And how do you respond to that?

So one of the things that I think is important is to start with an understanding conversation before you ever get to problem solving, to really appreciate why it’s important to each person and to really try in the listener mode of hearing your partner explain why whatever the way that they prefer to do is important to them, why that matters to them? What is the function of that?

And try as hard as you can to listen with an open mind because the next thing that I’ll say that I know feels untrue when you’re sort of in the midst of a fight with somebody who you disagree with is that the differences between the two of you are probably more of a strength than you realize. And the example that I gave of the disciplining versus warmth really gets borne out in the literature on rearing children, which is it’s not great to be an authoritarian parent, and it’s not great to be a permissive parent.

So if you have somebody who leads extremely with discipline, that’s more authoritarian. And if you have somebody who leads on the extreme side with permissiveness with love, that can really equate to permissiveness. And what we know is the best kind of parenting is this combined authoritative like a lot of discipline and a lot of love, the both.

And so if you have a set of parents that leans to one side, each partner leans heavily to one side actually together, if they can come together, that’s the best way to do it. And that’s often the case is that the differences that exist between the two of you, they feel like they’re in opposition. But actually, they’re probably quite complimentary.

And so if you can get to that place of seeing the way that you do, it really drives me crazy. But actually, it’s a nice counterbalance for the way that I might do it. And can we rather than pull to the poles away from each other? Can we come together in a way that takes the best of each side?

And that is a hard thing to do when you’re in the fight. But if you can sort of calm your amygdala, get to a place where you’re being able to be more open and receptive to how somebody does things differently and invite them as an invitation with lots of options to do the same with you so that you can pull the best from each perspective, each approach, that can really land you in a much stronger, healthier place relationally, but also as parents.

The second thing I’ll say is create a network of support. So one of the really important pieces of science that I think doesn’t get talked about enough, although, Emily, I’m so grateful that you talk about it, is this idea of alloparenting. We are not actually evolved to rear-children alone. We are evolved to rear-children in community. And so you have your partner. But two people is not enough to rear-children. They are real time and energy suckers, those little suckers. And they’re awesome. They’re beautiful. We love them. They are exhausting.

And so as much as you can, create a support network. Join a class even in advance of people preparing to have babies because then if you’re due around the same time, then you’ll have a friend in the middle of the night to text with while you’re nursing or feeding the baby or changing their diaper.

And I will say just as somebody who had children very far away from extended family that this is possible to do even if you don’t have family nearby. And it’s important to do just for sanity’s sake. Professional caregivers like daycares, those are all great resources too, spiritual classes, spiritual communities, classes. So there’s so many different ways to really extend your social support network.

And then the third thing, and this is something I write about in my book about working parenthood, is try to think about the things that are less important that you’re willing to do less of during the more intense times in the early months of parenting.

So this is the idea of subtracting. So our temptation is humans and as parents is add more and more stuff to my schedule, to my closet to enrich myself. But it is a very taxing thing to have a very young baby and think about where you can let go a little bit, clean your house, stop doing regular meetings that are not important. What can you give on just to give yourself a little bit more time to take a nap or stare at a wall, or get a little bit of a break because it is so taxing. And all of those things that are good for our mental health, that sort of reduce the pressure on us as individuals can also be good for our relationship. We want to nurture our relationship. In order to do that, we need to nurture ourselves.

And I think navigating that and figuring out how much am I doing because I want to and how much am I doing because I think we should and then, therefore, I think we should split it, I think that’s… I would tell some of these people, it’s hard to have two people try to lean into their professional lives at the same time and just recognizing, I think, sometimes for me, it’s just good to recognize it’s hard to have two people trying to kill it at work simultaneously. And sometimes, that’s just hard.

And so think in advance about what are the sets of things that are sort of taking precedence. So we both teach. And so there was this sort of idea like, “Okay, if you are teaching, that wins.” And you have to be in the classroom and so the other person has to drop things. And that’s continued to be something, I think, is pretty important, is to just decide if you’re both going to have a job like which pieces of the job are more important because in the morning everybody’s meetings are the most important.

And I think we’re so hard on ourselves. So I think a whole lot of self-compassion in those moments is useful. And then remembering that our kids do not need to be entertained by us 24/7. And in fact, that’s not very good for them.

And I think there’s this great line from one of my favorite marital researchers because I’m the kind of person who has such things where the researcher says most crimes of the heart are misdemeanors. And I always think about that of the small things can really feel quite explosive.

We also create less influence. The more we try to control, the less influence we have. And so by lightening up on the efforts to control and instead sort of saying, “It bothers me, but of course it’s up to you,” ultimately, it’s your call. This is a good mantra. Ultimately, it’s your call, this recognition that every person has agency, true about our children too. And we have more influence when we honor that, when we say, “It is your call and there are probably some ways that works for you that I’m not seeing, but can I tell you how it makes me feel or can I tell you my concerns?”

And this is another strategy of asking permission to share your view. And if the other person is willing to hear it and they say, “Sure, you can tell me,” then it actually increases the likelihood that they’ll be open to it. And if they’re not, then you get to save your breath.

I think it helps us recognize some things are important and do deserve saying. It’s really important to me that our kids sit at the table if that’s really important to you or it’s really important to me that I don’t know that our kid has a bath or whatever is the thing, that some things might be very important to you and some things it cannot be every hill is a hill that you want to die on.

And we feel pretty certain in those moments that it is bigger, right? If I’ve been with the baby all day, then I am pretty sure that my partner who got to read emails from start to finish and go to the bathroom alone has had an easier day. But my partner may have had meeting after meeting with his crappy, micromanaging difficult boss and also is sleep-deprived and had to try to pretend that he had all cylinders firing neurologically all day long. And all he wants to do is come home and just sit without somebody telling him what to do. And he feels like, “The baby napped. And so I had a break to myself.”

So if you are both feeling in desperate need of a break, the reality is you are both deserving of a break. So I think trying to do some understanding conversation and some problem solving in advance of the moment, recognizing that that moment is really a difficult one for both people and that you’re both absolutely… You come by it rightly. You both deserve a little bit of a break and wondering how you can do that.

And there’s lots of different ways to problem solve that. One is to outsource it, to actually get some help so that you both can get a break, maybe even at the same time, maybe even together. It could just be napping together, which is lovely if you can get it. But there could be other ways to problem solve it too, like turn taking.

So perhaps the partner who’s coming home from work just stays in their car for 15 minutes so that they can have some quiet time. And then when they come in, they’re ready to take the baby so that the partner who’s been home with the baby all day can get a well-deserved break. This is a little bit later in life example. But my husband and I both really are desperate to get a little bit of work done on Sundays. And so we divide the day. He gets an hour in the morning. I get an hour in the afternoon. It is like a precious hour for each of us. And we try to honor it and do that turn-taking with whoever doesn’t have the work time, taking the three kids for an hour away from the parent who’s working.

So there are ways to negotiate it, and there’s ways to get help. It is hard to do that kind of thinking in the moment where you’re just desperate for the break. But in that moment just to recognize that the other person is not a villain. They’re not trying to screw you over. They’re probably also just extremely fatigued and struggling as well.

And so what can often happen is that the partner who feels neglected starts to sort of become more insistent. And then the partner who’s nursing around the clock and just is touched out feels like yet another thing. And you can feed and clothe yourself. So I don’t really want to meet your needs right now, and you’re being quite insensitive to me.

So there’s this real tension. So I think part of it is to just recognize that when one person is wanting more intimacy than the other, again, it’s not a villainous malevolent desire. It’s a desire to connect. If people are familiar with this idea of the five love languages, one of them is physical intimacy. And for a lot of people, that is a really, really important way to connect.

And so if you have one person who’s that love language is not on the table right now because it’s being consumed by the baby, then that can really leave the person who really wants to connect that way feeling unloved. And that’s a very painful place to be. So I think just starting from a compassionate understanding point of view, and then you can move to some of the negotiations, the problem solving. And the problem solving is not easy.

And so what I do want to say, and I say this so often in couple’s therapy, is that there is no good simple solution to a complicated problem. And if you think that there is one, anytime you hear yourself say, “If you would only just,” that’s probably the preamble to a simple solution, and it is probably a complicated problem. And your partner is probably going to resist that kind of solution because usually it’s something that they’re supposed to do that doesn’t feel so simple for them, even if it feels simple for you.

And so I think trying to think in more nuanced ways of you have needs and I have needs, and we’re both really tapped out and pulled in so many different directions, and so what’s a way that we can get a little bit better without expecting to resolve anything perfectly for the time being?

If it’s physical affection that you’re looking for and sex really doesn’t feel on the table because I’m still healing from delivery, then what other kinds of ways of connecting physically would be positive, even if they’re not exactly what you’re looking for? If space is what you need and care and not touching is what you need, what’s a way that I can give you that without totally giving up on our connection entirely?

And so finding these middle ground solutions that are imperfect and that recognize that it’s a complicated problem to solve this difference in desire to connect intimately and doing it really compassionately, I think, is so important because the tendency, I think, is to really vilify one another because we’re feeling so hurt. It’s this instinctual you hurt me, I’m going to hurt you back. And instead of coming together which is what both people tend to want, it sort of pulls you further apart.

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