Why having children can destroy a relationship, and the book that tells you how to stay together
Being a new parent comes with lots of pressures – lack of sleep, hormone imbalances, a loss of intimacy and more – which can play havoc on a relationship, says Jancee Dunn in her book ‘How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids’
Jancee Dunn wrote her book How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids because she and her husband Tom rarely fought before they had a baby. “I know it’s annoying when couples say ‘we don’t fight’, but truly, we didn’t,” she writes.
“Then came the baby. Soon afterwards, we started fighting all the time. The tiny part of my brain that was still rational knew that we were sleep deprived, my hormones were all over the place, and our lives had turned upside down and we were still adjusting. That said, the force of our arguments took us both by surprise. I knew I had to do something. And when I quietly asked around, I found that other new parents were fighting as much as we were.”
My husband and I would have been among them. And yes, we fought because of sleep deprivation and hormones doing a mad dance. We also fought because he/we wanted to cling onto a social life but we/I didn’t have the energy.
We fought because I was trying to redefine myself – difficult to do on little or no sleep, especially the first time around, because I didn’t know what motherhood was meant to look like or how to wear it. But we fought mostly because we were trying to realign the dynamics of our little family, to grow to accommodate the demands of the newest addition, and to find time for ourselves. It was at a time when there was so little time, and the little there was, I wanted to spend sleeping.
Hong Kong-based marital therapist Nikki Green isn’t surprised couples battle after the birth of a baby.