It is a well-researched fact that having a baby usually has a negative impact on your marital satisfaction. Let’s look at the whole early parenting thing and draw out some important lessons for married couples who are parents or about to become parents.

As you transition into parenthood, you’ll want to have some pretty specific parenting and marriages strategies to make sure that mom, babe, and dad are all taken care of because babies make for busy lives! They take a lot of time.

But there is some good news here. Studies show that as demands on our time have increased over the past 40 years, generally speaking, most couples have decreased their involvement in paid employment so that they can keep up with time spent with their spouse and children.[i]

We think this is great! That shows good values are at work. It also speaks to those of you considering having children that this is something you’ll be challenged with as well so be prepared for that. Most couples are adding time into their weekdays by reducing the number of hours they work.

Weekends are a little different story. Most couples end up paying a social and personal cost for maintaining their levels of spousal time. If you’re married with kids you’re probably spending less time with friends and extended family on weekends. Again, this is reasonable.

It is so great to see that in contemporary marriages spousal companionship is important and people are prioritizing it. However, we would urge you not to become too isolated from your social networks. There needs to be a balance.

So, that’s parenting and marriage in terms of time management. Some ideas there for you if you need a change.

Now in terms of your marriage itself and how you’re relating to each other - you need to stay connected as a couple. As we’ve already established in other episodes, having kids does put a dent in your marital satisfaction, so this is something we all need to work at.

A study by some major marriage researchers looked at couples' marital friendship at the start of their marriage versus the decline over the transition to parenthood.[ii] They followed these newlywed couples for 6 years and compared the new parents to a control group who remained childless over that time.

Here is what helped mothers to have stable or increasing marital satisfaction:

The husband’s expression of fondness toward her. The more warmth he puts in, the more satisfied she feels.

The husband’s high awareness for her and their relationship. This really ties to the first one. If he is more aware of the stress she is experiencing and responds with more fondness: this is a huge help. It goes the other way too - if she is aware of his efforts to be supportive and loving, she is way more satisfied in her marriage.

Her awareness for her husband and their relationship. Not only can husbands help by being aware and acting out of that in a generous way but she also needs to be alert enough to acknowledge, receive and even reciprocate this.

What about the other side? What predicts a decline in marital satisfaction of mothers?

The husband’s negativity towards her wife. Corrosive.

The husband’s disappointment in the marriage. Also corrosive.

The husband or wife describing their lives as chaotic. Chaos as a feeling comes from the sense that there are changes in their lives that are out of control. This adds a lot of stress to a major life transition.

So, how does this transition work then? In 2006, some researchers looked at the quality of the intimate relationship six months after delivery.[iii] They uncovered four factors that were influential.

The first relates to this whole subject of transition to parenting. It’s the most mentioned category in the study. The factors here that were most frequently mentioned were the “loyal sharing of responsibility” and “mutual respect and regard”.

What is happening in these marriages that are transitioning successfully is that the...