So the McGills (not their real name) would
catch a movie and dinner, often staying out until 3 a.m. Then,
after 10 years of being a couple, and a year after they got
married, their firstborn, a son, arrived.
"When you have a kid," says Bill, laughing,
"you're in bed by 11."
"It was a total lifestyle change," Heather
says. And not just for their social life. "Romance was ..."
Heather's voice trails off. "God, I don't think there was
much." Bill echoes the question. "Sex? It didn't happen. Our
boy was a vampire. He would stay up until all hours."
Adjusting to a tiny new family member has
never been easy. Over the years, researchers have found that
when a baby enters the family, the marriage can suffer and
even disintegrate. A third of all divorces occur within the
first five years of a marriage, according to 1991 data from
the National Center for Health Statistics. And for many
couples, that slippery slope to divorce begins with a decline
in the wife's marital satisfaction after the first baby
arrives, numerous studies have shown, including one appearing
in December 1998 in Marriage and Family Review.
More recently, however, a study by University
of Washington researchers has found that marital satisfaction
doesn't have to decline after the firstborn arrives. Some
couples maintain the same level -- or even boost it -- despite
a nonstop schedule of diapering, feeding, and working.
The Satisfaction Study
In work appearing in the Journal of Family
Psychology in March 2000, Alyson Fearnley Shapiro, a
doctoral student and the lead author, and her co-researchers
(including University of Washington psychology professor John
Gottman, well known for his research on the marital bond)
followed 82 newlywed couples for four to six years. During the
study, 43 couples became parents and 39 did not. Using
interviews and questionnaires, their marital satisfaction was
measured annually in several categories: fondness and
affection; "we-ness" (the tendency to use terms that indicated
unity in the marriage); "expansiveness" (the degree of
expressiveness about the relationship); negativity; and
disappointment/disillusionment. Declines in marital
satisfaction were noted both among new fathers and new
mothers, Shapiro says. Yet since the trend appeared to be
significantly more pronounced in the women, the researchers
elected to zero in on that group.
Among the new moms, 67% reported declines in
satisfaction. But when the researchers looked at the 33% who
maintained the same level of satisfaction or increased it,
they identified specific strategies that seemed to help. These
included:
- Building fondness and affection for your partner.
- Being aware of what is going on in your partner's life
and responding to it.
- Approaching problems as something you and your partner
can control and solve as a couple.
In addition, the researchers found that if the
couple believed their lives to be chaotic, they were more
likely to experience decreased satisfaction with the marriage,
Shapiro tells WebMD. While avoiding chaos with a newborn in
the house seems impossible, Shapiro further explains the
finding: "When couples in our study described their lives as
chaotic, they were really telling us they were going through a
lot of change in their lives that they felt they had no
control over." It wasn't the chaos that was the problem, it
was the feeling of helplessness about the change, says
Shapiro.
The solution? View the changes and the
resulting chaos as things they can resolve together. While
parents can't control whether their baby will sleep through
the night, for instance, they can offer each other emotional
support and work out a plan so each gets at least some sleep.
A Therapist's View
Many new parents think they should tend to the
baby first and the marriage later, says Mark Goulston, MD, a
Los Angeles psychiatrist and author of a new book, The 6
Secrets of a Lasting Relationship.
Instead, he suggests new parents try to
understand what's behind the marital dissatisfaction. Often, a
woman's anxiety level increases, he finds, with the
responsibility of new motherhood. She worries that she's not
doing everything correctly. And the man tends to concentrate
on being a good provider, no matter how untraditional the
marriage, often avoiding the daily tasks of parenthood. "A
woman often feels like her husband is not as active as she
would like," Goulston says. And from the husband, he hears: "I
would participate more, but I always have to do things her
way." If a husband diapers differently than his wife, he is
likely to hear about it.
Talk through these feelings before it's too
late, Goulston tells new parents. Once fears are verbalized,
couples can begin to work together to overcome the pressure,
Goulston says, and strengthen the marriage.
In Real Life
The McGills weren't part of the University of
Washington study, but they instinctively used some of the
successful strategies identified by the researchers and
Goulston. Once the initial shock of having another human being
to care for wore off, they decided they needed couple time. It
helps, Heather says, that her mom volunteers often to
baby-sit, allowing them to go out together frequently.
Bob and Jill Engel (not their real names) are
working on becoming a couple again. They were older -- 45 and
46 -- when they had their child, who's now 2. But the wisdom
of middle age didn't make the transition any easier, says
Jill, a therapist in Southern California. After her son was
born, her satisfaction with the marriage definitely declined,
she found. Before the baby, they had sex often in their
efforts to conceive. After the baby was born, she was less
interested in sex, partly because of discomfort during
intercourse that she developed after having a cesarean
section.
Eventually, they talked about how to become a
couple again. "Once my husband got over the shock that someone
was screaming in the next room and wasn't going away, he
decided to join the party," she says.
The marriage is better -- although different
-- now. "We have a shared focal point, a new dimension." It's
not perfect. "We never go out as a couple," Jill says. "He
thinks we should." She agrees, but has not yet been so
motivated.
After the McGills had their second baby, now
age 1, they found life got back to normal more quickly. They
used the same strategies to preserve their satisfaction with
the marriage. Yet a recent study done by Rebecca Upton, PhD,
an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of
Michigan, suggests that having two children is not the
cakewalk many parents imagine.
Upton followed 40 couples after the birth of
their second children and presented her findings at an
American Anthropological Association meeting in November. She
found that "women's full-time participation in the labor
market drops off dramatically with the second child. While
most paid professional women return to the office full-time
after the birth of their first child, over 50% change to
part-time work or take a leave of absence after the birth of
the second."
The implication is that such changes may have
significant negative impact on the couple's ability to
comfortably support their lifestyle under such circumstances,
and therefore their level of stress. But Upton also found an
upside: Men feel more like fathers after the arrival of a
second child and tend to get more involved in childcare.
Bottom Line
Remaining childless is no guarantee of marital
satisfaction, either. In the University of Washington study,
childless wives reported less of a decline in marital
satisfaction than those who became mothers, but they also had
less satisfaction as newlyweds than did the women who
eventually became mothers. And, during the course of the
study, 20% of the childless couples divorced. But none of
those who became parents did.
