Amongst the most challenging adjustments for a couple after having a baby is the recalibration of expectations that needs to occur for each partner. Whatever the understanding that members of a couple have had about how each of their sets of needs can/should/will be/are/ met within their relationship, introducing an infant into that equation is guaranteed to change that understanding.
And how could it be otherwise? Not only is there a third person now insinuating him or herself into the relationship, but this particular person has absolutely no ability to hold up his/her weight or contribute in any way to the maintenance of that relationship. That little person is managing to use up a lot of the emotional resources that used to be distributed very differently.
So, just how can a relationship adjust to such a major demand?
Right in our own Evanston backyard we have a Northwestern professor and author whose research focuses on marriage, historically and in the current day. Eli Finkel, in addition to being a professor of psychology, management, and organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, is also the director of the Relationship and Motivation Lab. Much of his work looks at how expectations shape relationships and how those expectations have changed, or more importantly for our consideration, how those expectations have increased greatly in recent years.
Finkel points out (in his new book, The All or Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work) that couples have come to expect that their partners, in addition to loving them, will help them achieve self-actualization, to grow as an individual, and to become better versions of themselves. If this is what has been expected, if not verbalized, just think how disappointed partners are going to feel if now, after introducing a baby into the family, their standards have been lowered to comparing who has changed the most diapers today or who got the most sleep?
Lurking behind those small resentments is probably the larger concern that the deeper and more significant ways in which each partner has come to expect the other to support him or her has been irreparably compromised. Introducing a more flexible and more widely distributed set of expectations as well as a temporarily lowered bar for couple satisfaction can help the relationship to stabilize and grow. Finkel points out that little gestures of enthusiasm and appreciation for each other can carry tremendous power. He suggests that savoring the little stuff in a way that might not seem self-evident can enhance emotional pleasure during this difficult transitional time; and that recognizing that this relationship maybe cannot meet every last need can lead couples to broaden their social networks to include meaningful time with friends and family members, not just as a couple but as individuals as well.