Juggling Romance and Parenthood E-Book

50MINUTES

• Herausgeber: 50Minutes.com
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Health & Wellbeing
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 46

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Change is only 50 minutes away! Find out everything you need to know about keeping things in perspective as a new parent with this straightforward guide.

While no two couples will ever face the exact same challenges upon having a child, many new parents’ attention is so consumed by the new arrival that they inadvertently begin neglecting their own relationship. Of course, the first few months of a child’s life involve a great deal of change for their parents, but once your recently expanded family has settled into its new routine, maintaining a healthy relationship with your partner will be essential for the preservation of your own mental health. Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can follow to ensure that your relationship stays strong.

In just 50 minutes you will be able to:

• Understand the importance of balancing your parental responsibilities and your romantic relationship
• Identify any behaviour which is undermining your relationship with your partner
• Adopt new habits which will allow you to lead a more balanced life

ABOUT 50MINUTES.COM | HEALTH AND WELLBEING 
The Health and Wellbeing series from the 50Minutes collection is perfect for anyone looking to be healthier and happier in their personal life. Our guides cover a range of topics, from social anxiety to getting ready for a new baby, and provide simple, practical advice and suggestions to allow you to reduce stress, strengthen your relationships and increase your wellbeing.

Leseprobe

Juggling romance and parenthood

How to balance your family and your love life

Problem: when you are used to sharing precious, intimate moments with your partner, you may fear that having children will jeopardise that aspect of your relationship. If you already have children, you may be letting your responsibilities towards them overwhelm you. Devoting yourself to them while also nurturing your relationship can be a difficult balancing act.Aim: to maintain (or even strengthen) your romantic relationship while also taking on all the responsibilities of being a parent.FAQs:Our child does not want to let us have any time to ourselves. What should we do?Should we be thinking about having a second child even if we had difficulty adjusting when we had our first child?What aspects of becoming a parent can threaten a romantic relationship?What specific steps can we take to get our children to respect our need for privacy?When is it appropriate to leave parental responsibilities temporarily aside?What can we do to forestall criticism from those around us regarding our parenting methods?How can we juggle our professional, family and romantic lives simultaneously?How can I make my partner realise that they are spending too much time with the children?

Modern couples tend to have fewer children than in bygone eras. This means that nowadays, children are cherished even more because they are rarer, and because their parents truly chose to have them. However, society is constantly putting more pressure on all of us to be increasingly successful, which can lead to a desire to be perfect in the eyes of our children.

Before you know it, they will start making an increasing number of untimely requests of you, and you will end up spending more time playing your role as a parent than acting as an independent individual or taking precious moments to nurture your romantic relationship. But is it really possible to pour your heart and soul into living for your children, never taking any time to indulge in your own passions or to make the most of your relationship with your partner, without feeling like something is missing?

Of course, spending time with your children is fundamentally important, but you are still two adults who are in a romantic relationship, and you will need to spend time acting as adults. There is no obligation to spend all of your time talking about babies, school and “the little terror”.

This short guide will show you how to gradually take back some of your time for yourself and your partner without neglecting your children’s upbringing or the quality time you spend with them. On the contrary, this will make the time you spend with your children more meaningful, because it will no longer represent an obstacle to your romantic relationship or prevent you from recharging your batteries.

What happens when you let the romance die?

Deciding to have children together

Every couple is different. Each of the individuals involved has their own life story, their own personality, and their own goals. Furthermore, everyone has different opinions about how to raise a child. All couples need to be constantly working on a shared vision for their family life, and a child’s place in their life will be determined by the motivations behind and the strength of their desire to have children. Several different examples are outlined below:

Both partners want to have a child, perhaps because they want to start a new chapter in their lives, or to give their relationship or their marriage a deeper meaning, because they want the chance to pass their own values on to their offspring, or perhaps even because they are consciously or unconsciously seeking to fill a hole in their lives.One partner is less certain about having a child than the other, or may even be entirely opposed to the idea. However, there are many people who agree to have a child, despite their underlying uncertainty, in order to please their partner or because they are afraid of disappointing them. In some cases, couples may split up if one of the people involved has personal reasons for not wanting children, enabling each of them to live their own lives.One partner desperately wants a child because they think that this will fill a hole in their life. This can lead them to become disproportionately invested in their child’s upbringing.

Ideally, both partners should feel completely ready to have a child and to take on all of the responsibilities that come with that choice, or they may become frustrated and regret putting their own hopes and plans aside.

Test yourself

The following test may seem somewhat simplistic, but it can be revealing. Asking your partner the questions below will give you an idea of how they envision the role of being a parent and help you to identify their possible fears. This tool can help you to open a more constructive dialogue with them, and to prepare more effectively for having a child – or to realise that you are not as ready to have one as you had previously thought. If you have not had any children yet, now is the time to ask your partner:

Do you feel ready to become a parent?Is there anything you want to do before becoming a parent?What excites you most about the idea of becoming a parent?What scares you most about the idea of becoming a parent?