You finally received the good news you were waiting for; You become a parent... In addition to your positive expectations about your child being healthy in the period until your baby's birth; Issues such as what his name will be, how and where his room will be, door decoration, baby candy, photographer are topics that will probably keep you busy until the birth
. Most likely, in addition to these, difficulties you will encounter in your life such as sleepless nights, a baby with gas
problems, limited social life, physical fatigue, financial difficulties
are also issues that you and your partner have put on your agenda and discussed.
There will be other issues you talk about.
An important issue that spouses do not focus on or bring up when creating these expectations is updating their relationship as husband and wife and re-establishing their expectations in this direction.
The fact that it is necessary.
With the birth of the child, the phase of the family system changes and the system moves from the "newly married
couple" or "family without children" phase to "family with children". It makes a dramatic transition to the "" phase. Although each of these
stages is temporary, it should be said that the real problems and difficulties are experienced during the phase transitions
. With the addition of a new member to the family, spouses must redefine themselves as "a self with a child" and "a husband and wife with a child." Making these updates
will undoubtedly shape your expectations and will undoubtedly make it easier for you to adapt to the new phase and situation.
In the new phase, to reorganize the marriage system by including children in the system,
acquiring new roles in raising children and exhibiting behaviors appropriate to these roles, and making new arrangements regarding economic matters and participation in housework. We need to roll up our sleeves as husband and wife. In addition to these, there is a great need to reorganize the relationships within the extended family by including the roles of grandfather, grandmother, grandmother, and even aunts, uncles, and cousins in the system.
. While witnessing your spouse's process of becoming a parent may be a happy thing for you, your spouse's extended family and your own extended family may be a happy situation.
Watching members of your team take on new roles
can be tiring at times. At this point, restructuring the boundaries of the nuclear family,
flexing it when necessary and not being a problem with this stretching may be a way out.
If these critical updates and restructurings are not made, the relationships of the spouses before the child
The desire to continue without making any changes ends in disappointment. Inevitably, problems arise and spouses are faced with dissatisfaction and unhappiness. In this context, it should not be a surprising result that the marital satisfaction of childless couples is twice that of couples with children.
Considering that one of the important determinants of general life satisfaction is relationship satisfaction with your spouse
, a decrease in your general satisfaction with life after having a child may be an expected situation.
Especially in problematic marriages, one of the most common mistakes is to see the child as a savior of the relationship and to think that the relationship will improve after the child. The best thing to do would be to put this fantasy aside and establish a healthy husband-wife relationship before deciding to have children. It is impossible to try to create and establish the triple subsystem as parent-child without fully establishing the dual subsystem as husband and wife. It is useful to remember that the quality of your relationship as husband and wife directly affects the quality of your relationship as parents, and the quality of these two relationships directly affects your child's development in every area.
Being informed about the changes that may occur in your relationship after the birth of your baby and the arrangements you need to make regarding the system will enable you not to be harsh when making references to yourself, your partner and your relationship about the causes of problems that will occur after birth
.
Exp.Psych. Şahika Akkuş Sert
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