Stronger Marriage Connection
It's often said that marriage takes work. The Stronger Marriage Connection podcast wants to help because a happy marriage is worth the effort. USU Family Life Professor Dr. Dave Schramm and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Liz Hale talk with experts about the principles and practices that will enhance your commitment, compassion, and emotional connection.
More than ever before, marriages face obstacles, from the busyness of work and daily hassles to disagreements and digital distractions. It's no wonder couples sometimes drift apart, growing resentful, lonely, and isolated.
The Utah Marriage Commission invites you to listen and discover new ways to strengthen and protect your marriage connection today!
Stronger Marriage Connection
Protecting Your Marriage During The Transition To Parenthood | Sean Brotherson | #179
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We welcome Dr. Sean Brotherson to talk about the joys and pressures of becoming parents and how that transition can strain or strengthen a marriage. We share concrete ways to stay connected through fatigue, changing roles, and shifting intimacy while building the stability kids need most.
• why the transition to parenthood feels so intense even with preparation
• setting realistic expectations through education, planning, and honest conversations
• protecting couple time with simple routines like consistent bedtimes
• children’s core need for security and how marital stability supports it
• how partners experience parenthood differently and why comparing “top stressors” helps
• daily check-ins and small rituals of connection that build resilience
• navigating intrusive in-laws with healthy boundaries
• dividing childcare and housework based on perceived fairness and changing seasons
• warning signs of emotional disconnection and ways to stay close physically and emotionally
• building your village so you can rest, date, and keep choosing each other
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Dr. Liz Hale:
Welcome And Why Parenthood Strains Marriage
SPEAKER_03On today's episode, Liz and I welcome Dr. Sean Brothers into the show, and we talk about the challenges and joys of transitioning from partners to parents and how it can spill over and affect the marriage. Sean shares tips to help those who will soon become parents as well as those who are in the early stages of busy parenting. From parent education to patience to prioritizing your relationship and staying positive, you'll learn all kinds of practical tips to help you maintain a strong marriage connection through the wild and wonderful transition to parenthood. Sean Brotherson is a professor and extension family life specialist with North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota. He earned a master's degree in family science from Brigham Young University, and has PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from Oregon State University, and has worked at North Dakota State University since 1998. His work involves conducting family research and developing educational programs for children, couples, and families. He has conducted research and published articles on marriage, family policy, family life education, fathering, grief, and bereavement, rural stress, and other family-related topics. He speaks frequently on healthy family living, writes regularly on family topics for public audiences, and develops educational materials to strengthen family relationships. Sean and his wife Kristen have been married for 35 years and are the parents of eight children and three grandchildren. They enjoy spending time together, reading, traveling, and church service, as well as cooking a lot of family meals. We hope you enjoy the show. All right, Liz, I am actually uh super excited. I don't know why it's taken us this long to get my good friend Sean Brotherson uh on the show today. He's a longtime colleague and friend. I don't know, Sean, we've known each other 25 uh plus years. And like me, he works as a family life extension specialist, etc. He is in North Dakota. And we're tackling the tough topic of parenting, the joys, the struggles, and how the challenges often spill into marriage. Welcome to the show, my friend, Dr. Sean Brotherson.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Dave and Liz. It's great to be with you today coming from snowy Fargo, North Dakota. Oh, the snow is melting. Spring is on the way.
SPEAKER_01We're so happy for you because you've had your fair share, my friend. You had our snow and yours.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, boy, we've had record temperatures here. This is nuts. Well, Sean, this is a timely topic because uh we've had we have four children. Sean has eight. We're gonna get into kind of children and talking about that and relationships today. We have uh two married daughters, we have an engaged daughter who's gonna get married here in June, and then our son, and all four of them were up first time since Christmas. There are all four up here this weekend, and it's so fun to be with them, and including our eight-month-old granddaughter, whom I'm obsessed with, so she may be poking through and waving to me through the through the glass doors as we talk today. So I may be a bit distracted. I love that little girl. But Sean, okay, you've been working in this field of family life education for uh for decades. We'll just call it decades, right? Can we we
Sean Brotherson’s Path Into Family Science
SPEAKER_03start at the beginning? I mean, just a little bit of uh not too much, but just give us the a beginning of Sean Brothers and your interest in this area, why studying f strong families and and what brings you the most joy kind of broadly in this field of studying families?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I grew I grew up um in the state of Utah in a loving, supportive family uh with five siblings and um parents who really made our family life um very important. We vacationed together, we played together, we worshiped together, our family had was involved in a big family ranching operation, so we worked hard together. Um, and I just found that my greatest experiences in life came in a family setting, and and I was uh naturally curious about people as well. Then I got into college, and I took a course called Introduction to Family Science from Dr. Tom Holman. And Tom just lifted the veil on family life for me, and I've been fascinated ever since we learned about family communication and family rules and about families transmitting patterns down generations, and I just I felt like I started to understand things about myself and others that that came from my family experience, but I hadn't really seen or understood before. And so I was kind of hooked from that time forward, and then I went on to do uh master's and PhD degrees in the field of human development and family science. Um, and with an emphasis in family life education, I was really interested in practical ways that I might be able to help individuals and families. And so in my career working with the Extension Service for about 30 years, um that's really allowed me to develop educational resources and programs across the lifespan in areas like early childhood education, um uh working uh with positive youth development, um, couples in the early stages of a marriage, um, parenting programs for raising young children, um, and then mental health awareness and suicide prevention for uh people across the lifespan. So I've I've kind of been able to work in a lot of different areas, but a lot of that has included marriage and parenting, and I just I really enjoy it when individuals um who've been able to use a resource that I've been involved in developing or participate in a program, um, identify how that has been useful to them, how they've been able to apply it in their personal lives or relationships. That's just really meaningful to me. And so that's a little bit my my background and and my passion professionally is is working in that field.
SPEAKER_01We we love that you um have all this great information, knowledge, research, Sean, and in parenting. It's
Why A Child Rocks Your World
SPEAKER_01gonna be a huge transition for individuals as well as for the the couple themselves. Tell us a little bit about that. I have not had my own children. We'll talk about that maybe. But um what what is there for those maybe who are ex who are yet to have families be parents, can they expect?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, parenting. Yeah, parenting, that's a good way of thinking about it. When a child arrives in your life, whatever the pathway might be, it might be uh birth as a biological parent, it might be adoption, it might be foster care situation, it might be stepping into a blended family, whatever the pathway, when a child lands in your life, it rocks your world a little bit, it changes everything. And you know, I often say parenting is likely the hardest job that a person will ever take on in life. And it's often the job that we're least prepared to begin when it occurs in life. But it can also be the most joyous, rewarding experience of our lives. There's nothing like it. Most people who become parents identify that transition as the most impactful transition in their entire lives. More impactful than getting married, more impactful than retiring. That transition of parenthood tends to change their life in a just really unique way. Um and so when you take on that challenge and opportunity of raising a child, your life changes and it will continue to change because kids don't stay the same. They're always growing, they're always having new needs, and you have to learn, grow, and adapt with them to be able to really effectively raise them and be a meaningful influence in their lives. Um, for married couples, that process of going from what we call we to three or four or however many it might be, um, it's just a major life change. There's less couple time, there is more intensive experiences in caring for another person, and just other stresses like financial and otherwise. So the need for a couple to have intentionality, flexibility, and adaptability in their changing situation is really important. Couples are facing, they're facing more adjustments like added financial responsibility, constant care for a child's needs, um, maybe making adjustments to their social interactions with friends, um, and just balancing demands of work and family as well as their relationship. And so in the middle of all that, they still they need to still give attention to maintaining a healthy marital relationship. So that process of giving priority and attention to the relationship that is at the heart of their family, the marriage, is important, and they have to learn how to adjust and do that and not neglect that relationship while assuming these other added, very consuming responsibilities with raising a child. So there's a lot that a lot of change that happens, and change is very stressful, and being able to adapt to change successfully is one of the really big challenges for any of us in life, whatever the stage of life we're at.
Kids First Or Marriage First
SPEAKER_01Yeah, when I talk to friends and clients as well through the decades, um it seems like the biggest confusion is what do I give my children versus my mate? In other words, do children come first? Does marriage come first? Do children come first? I would imagine when children are younger, they're very dependent, that means their needs come first. Do you have do you have an easy explanation for what comes first? Who's on first? Who's on second?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, when you think about what the experience of parenting is like, it's been likened to um watching a tornado on TV versus having one actually blow the roof off of your house. The reality is different. And if you have ever worked in a natural disaster, you know, like you have to, you know, there are some things that take front and center attention. You've got to plug the leaks, you have to make the house habitable again, things like that. And so um, you know, couples are often surprised in their relationship by um the intensity of the parenting experience and the demands that it places on them. And so uh I think you know, being able to still preserve their attention to their marriage is critical, but it's challenging because their attention and their energy is consumed by this child. You're very true, very accurate in saying that a child, especially a young child, demands attention. But but I think the amount of energy and attention that that a young child, a a little baby who might be 10 pounds, 15 pounds, like people are just very surprised by the amount of energy that raising a child demands. That they're just typically, even if they've gone through a preparation process, done some childbirth education or other things like that, um, unless they have some significant prior experience working with and raising kids, it's often just a surprise to them, especially in that first year when a child has quite intensive caregiving needs. And so mentally preparing for that can really help you. And talking together as a couple about how you're gonna support one another in that process is really important. And and, you know, like I think the three things that surprise people the most that they have to adjust to one is how much learning is required. Learning about the needs of a young child, you know, just very many things. How do you have how do you comfort a crying child? How do you handle a child who is ill? How do you help a child in terms of making sure they get the nutrition they need? All these little items of care that are constant. So and and also learning what your partner is experiencing and how to be supportive of them. So the amount of learning that's required is much higher, I think, than people expect. The second is just the intensity of raising a child. The 24-hour-a-day constant attention to a child's needs is really important, you know, and the fatigue factor that comes in there for a lot of people is really, really impactful to their couple relationship. It's not they stop caring about each other, they just don't have that much energy left over for each other often. And then the third thing is just the amount of change, the amount of adjustment, you know, while we might need to adjust our expectations about, you know, I was talking with someone the other day about, you know, as a couple going out for date night regularly, and and they're like, hey, we were really good about that until the first child hit. And then it was like seemed like months before we even could think about planning a date. And it's not that they didn't like dating each other, just the reality of the adjustment to well, who's gonna care for this child? Do we trust someone else to care for this child? Things like that. The amount of adjustment is so those factors together equal a lot of change, and that requires just a lot of patience, flexibility, conversation for couples to to to adjust to those new circumstances with raising the child.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So with some preparation, they're going to be caught off guard a little bit less.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Preparation preparation is absolutely helpful in those circumstances. And and um, you know, I I did an article years ago about about this topic, and one of the uh quotes I had in that article, who which was from an experienced kind of uh childbirth educator, was um it's as important, just as it's really important for a mother to understand the changes her body is going to go through and her mind is gonna go through as sh as her body prepares to deliver a child, it's just as important for a couple to understand what are the things that are gonna impact us and what are our expect what do our expectations need to be? What are the demands gonna be on us? How are we gonna adjust to that? And if they prepare themselves mentally through education and conversation about how are we going to adjust to things, then that transition can be much easier. If they if they start to work out ahead of time some of the questions like, hey, who's gonna change diapers? What are we gonna do about balancing work and family? Like you have a job, I have a job. How are we gonna balance that? What are we what are our priorities gonna be if if we use child care outside of the home? Or can some a relative come inside the home? How does that how does that look? You know, so just the very practical elements of how how are we gonna manage this change in our lives that we're expecting? Because just like having a tornado hit your house, at least if you have some foreknowledge that it's coming, you can do some preparation of like, okay, so so the impact of this, we will experience it, but let's do it in a way that we can sustain a really healthy marriage relationship in the process.
SPEAKER_01Brace yourself. That's what I think about when tornado you did this eight times and date four times, and wrecks four times. You guys have my greatest respect. All right. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03I'm more about run and hide when a tornado comes, and I don't know if you can run and hide from parenting. We'll be right back after this brief message.
Expectations Versus Reality For New Parents
SPEAKER_04And we're back. Let's dive right in.
SPEAKER_03Uh but Sean, I'm curious, when couples are are preparing for parenthood, what do they often, I guess, think the job, you know, will look like? And what's parenting gonna be like compared to the reality, you know, especially in the in their relationship. Uh you know what I'm saying? How do they how do they think about it and then reality hits?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, they often think it's gonna be great to snuggle a baby, help them learn how to walk, things like that. But the reality is the level of care required for a little human being, um, and the level of stress and fatigue that you experience in that process is likely far beyond what you've thought about, like I said, unless you've had some prior experience to acquaint you with that. And so the need to put aside a focus on yourself and focus almost exclusively your um your energy, your attention, and care on the needs of this other little person is the need is very high. And that means you know, not just your your care for a child, but your care for each for each other, giving one another as spouses attention, meaningful support. Particularly, we find for for men, and many mothers say this the most meaningful support that my spouse gives is actually not in their direct care of this baby that we have or child that we're taking care of. It's in their direct support of me in my role as a parent and understanding, giving me respite, um, having adult conversation, but just feeling emotionally and mentally supported as a caregiver, as a mother, or like the most meaningful thing that my spouse did during this process of transition to parenthood is that they, yes, they they helped provide care for that child, but they also provided a lot of caring support for me. And that was very helpful, very critical. And so, so if you can understand that, actually giving support to your marital partner or your your um couple partner in that experience, that's especially um one of the most meaningful things that you can do. And I think couples are often surprised by how their identity starts to shift. Not that they don't still identify as as you know, as the husband or wife or partner of of who they're with, but that parent, you know, that parent identity becomes really big really fast. And I mean, even I just tell people, just look at how you're allocating time in your day, how much of it is allocated to kind of care of that child versus, hey, we used to sit and we had time to you know play a game together in the evening or something like that. Well, you're gonna have reduced time and energy for that. So how do you
Protecting Couple Time With Bedtime
SPEAKER_00how do you preserve that? Right. And one of the really practical things that couples can do is simply like, um, and it's hard to discipline sometimes, but like be very focused on like having a practical early bedtime for kids and not just like let it be all over the place, like, okay, like with my grandkids, it's really interesting to watch. I have three grandkids all within the same little family, and they're like 7:30 is bet it's bedtime. Those kids are like in bed, and and I ask a little bit, okay, why do you put them to bed so early at 7.30? They're like, because that gives us a couple hours just to talk, sit, relax. And I was there with them the other night, and my daughter and her husband, they put those kids down, and then they came down and they played a little video game together that was a game they could do together. They did it for an hour or an hour plus, and I thought, oh, I'm I'm so appreciative that they understand this lesson. We need to preserve time and energy for us at the same time that we're raising these kids we love. And it's a really good example, right?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's a great point about what parents can do for children. I mean, that helps children keeping their relationship strong, right? That's an added benefit to being a parent to helping these kids.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, correct. Absolutely. It's very interesting. There's research on on um different types of divorce. And so there's this term out there called the good and the good enough marriage, right? And that um that for kids, like they don't care that much about the state of your marriage until it starts to impact them negatively, and then they start to perk up, like, hey, hey, you know, and what they want is they want that stability, that sense of security and stability. And when that starts to disappear, then their psychological well-being tends to go south pretty fast. So, very simply for kids, I mean, in fact, people often ask me, I I once wrote an article about this. What is children's greatest need? And I always tell them security. Security is a child's greatest need. And and stability in a marriage relationship provides a real positive foundation for a child's sense of security in a family setting or in a family experience. And so instability tends to be pretty um. Pretty challenging for a young child's mental and emotional health, I will say. And so if you can provide that couple stability, that's a really good foundation for ensuring that your children have a setting that is really helpful to them psychologically.
Security And Stability For Kids
SPEAKER_01It seems it understandably that when two parents approach parenting, they just come from different places, right? Even if it's two women approaching parenting as a couple. And so what are some of those differences that impact the marriage? And is it good to have two different types of parents, do you think?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, I think absolutely I think absolutely, but but at the same time in parenting, you need to get on the same page about how you're going to handle concerns with the child, how you're gonna, you know, when a child gets old enough, administer correction or discipline, things like that. It doesn't help kids if parents are on wildly different tracks with respect to those things. So it's important to have a lot of conversation and work together to get on the same page. Um coming into the experience of parenting, especially that transition of parenting, um, yeah, parents tend to experience that transition differently. I don't know if you remember, but years ago there was there was research done in the early 70s that that kind of started to talk about his and hers marriage, right? That within the same marriage, there's kind of two marriages going on. Like his experience and hers experience, and they're not always exactly the same. I mean, they're in the same relationship, but they're each having their own unique experience of the relationship. And so that's why you could have one spouse who may be, hey, everything's great, things were pretty good in my relationship, and the other one's like, Well, things are okay, but I have some issues in the real and and they're and they're in the same relationship, but the issues they're experiencing might be a little bit unique to each of them. And so understanding that you could have in one marriage a his and hers kind of experience, the same thing applies when you're talking about the transition to parenthood. You can have a his and hers or a one partner versus another partner, different type of experience. They're not going to have the exact same experience. And so I actually developed years ago this quiz that's actually been in kind of exercise that I use in couple education and parent education that's been used quite widely, and it's just called the transition to the transition to parenthood quiz and activity. But one of the things that ask couples to do is look at a list of about 30 different potential issues that can be a challenge in the transition to parenthood and identify what are the five or six most common for them as an individual, then have their
Different Partner Experiences And The Quiz
SPEAKER_00partner do it. What are the most common for their partner or spouse? And then just sit down and talk and compare your lists. And it's kind of eye-opening. And I've had many settings where I'm doing this with couples, and we talk for hours because the couples are like, oh, wait, I didn't understand. This is what I'm experiencing that's such a big issue for me, but yours is over here, and and there's some that are most common for women in particular, or for men in particular. Um and for women, there's some some unique issues that they're going to experience, you know, changes in their body figure, or um unpredictable shifts in their mood or anxiety, because there's a lot of hormonal changes that are taking place during the process of pregnancy that you know they weren't necessarily anticipating that they need to adjust to. I remember coming in one night when my wife was expecting our first child, and she was watching the show, TV show Cops, and she was crying up a storm. And I was like, why are we crying about you know these people getting arrested? It's so, so sad, you know. And anyway, she was quite tearful, and then later she was fine and she's like, I don't know why I was crying about that. So she was trying to make sense of her emotional experience in response to that, and it was just she was later in her pregnancy, and those hormonal changes were affecting her mood. Right? Well, if you're the spouse and you have no idea of what those changes might be or how they might affect your partner's mood or things like that, then you're kind of in the dark about what why are they talking to me this way? Why are they reacting in a certain way? So understanding what the issues might be for your partner can be really enlightening. So for but for both men and women or any couple, uh, whatever their configuration might be, lack of sleep and tiredness tends to be the number one issue. The amount the just the amount of fatigue that they experience. And it just is something that takes time to adjust. And um and people, unless they've gone through experiences where they are sleep deprived and they are running on low energy and stuff like that, they don't understand how much it takes a toll on their ability to show up and be present in their own marriage relationship, right? So they have so you just have to account for that. And that's why that advice about hey, if you can have a train a child to sleep at a certain time and then have some couple connection time, just conversation on a daily basis, it's really, really important. But so I'm kind of going on. I could talk about this all day, Liz. So so I'll I'll be quiet for a minute, but but a little window into the different worlds of experience that people often experience as spouses when they're in this transition to parenthood.
SPEAKER_03I I love this vein though that we're we're kind of headed on. I I think for many, yeah, it may feel like a tornado. And I think for all, you know, parents there there's this just this adjustment time period. Uh, you know, some research shows, oh, you know, the relationship satisfaction goes down. But I think for there are some actually that research shows that they they thrive. Couples can thrive during
Intentional Habits That Help Couples Thrive
SPEAKER_03this stage. Is is there something that these couples are doing differently? Does that make sense than some of the ones that are really struggling through it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's something that I personally experienced, and it's also that that when I teach about uh transitional parenthood for couples, what what's one of the keys that you can use? And I'll come back to it repeatedly, is intentionality. Being thoughtful about so, for example, um I had taken a course where you know they showed me this classic um this classic curve where a couple is on this happy positive trajectory and then baby comes along and there's this nosedive, you know. Just like, well, you should just expect your marriage to go in the tank when a baby comes along. And I'm like, that is a really like does it have to be that way? Is that a requirement of the transition of parenthood? Is that you have a nosedive in your marital satisfaction? So two things about that. Number one, the actual decline in marital satisfaction is not as steep as the as the chart that they show you in class or you know in the in the news. It's actually less than you might expect. But there it is fairly common to have some decline. But the other thing is that it doesn't really necessarily count for variance and intentionality for couples who are aware of that possibility and they take proactive action to have that off at the past and have plans plans to manage that transition more effectively and include a focus on how to maintain a healthy, happy marital relationship in that process so that so that a child is adding to their joy and contentment as a couple, not just challenging it. And so I think two or three things that are really helpful. One is just for couples to talk about and share their expectations. You know, well, and what is their past experience that that is leading them toward the experience of having a child, and do they feel prepared? And if they don't, if one or both spouses don't feel mentally prepared or otherwise practically prepared for the experience, you have a significant, usually you have a significant amount of time leading up to that experience of a child actually coming into your home that you can start to prepare. You can take classes through Utah State Extension or other places. You can do childbirth education through a local healthcare system, and those classes are very, very helpful to be able to be prepared for that process so that as you're going through the experience, things are not so much of a surprise for you. There's great programs like home visiting programs where where a home visitor will come to your home and talk to you as a couple and help you learn about this little child that you're caring for, and what are some things that can be helpful. So, you know, um uh often it might be a nurse who comes in who has pediatric experience and and they can come to your home directly and visit once a week and help you understand, hey, what is this experience we're going through? How do we help provide care for this child as well as for us as a couple? So I think understanding expectations, another thing is just couples, if they'll just take 10 minutes a day to do a couple checkup and say, hey, let's press pause, the baby's sleeping. How are how are we feeling today about us? Hey, did did you I mean I had this experience with early on in in marriage with with we had a couple of kids and and after a little while and I was kind of consumed with work and school at the time and we were trying to balance all that, and finally after a couple of weeks, my my wife said, Can I take a few minutes with you? Because I'd come home and you know it looked like a tornado hit the house that day, and I would wonder, what happened here today, right? And so, you know, and I I voiced that, you know, and my wife finally said, Look, here, let come with me. So she took me around to different put places in the house. See this pile of baby clothes that are folded. That took me an hour and a half to get these washed, folded, blah, blah, blah. See this over here, you know, and she took me around the house and said, These are all the things I did today. I I know you think I just like slept on the couch while I was having the baby next to me. Not so. Like a lot of work was done. You just you're not seeing it. And so having that time to check in with each other and educate each other a little bit. This is what I'm doing. Now let's connect with us, but I want you to appreciate my world of experience with taking care of a child. Tell me about yours today. What happened? And so that check-in about what's been going on and how are you feeling? How are you feeling about this child we're raising? How are you feeling about us? Just a daily check-in. It's kind of a temperature check, you know, where are we? But help to help to have a healthy temperature in your relationship. We're not too distant, we're not too mad with each other, we're at a good you know, 98.6 degrees or whatever. That's the optimal temperature for a couple relationship. And then I think couples need to really be willing to experiment with um new things. They've got to make adjustments. They and but they can talk those things through and they can learn from others. And you know, everybody's gonna have advice when you have a child. And you have to, but you need to remember this is our family, this is our child, and we need to learn and develop enough confidence that some advice will say, Oh, that's that's great. We might consider and use that. And others, you know, that they might get from well-meaning relatives, um, then they'll say, Okay, we'll consider that, and then they'll they'll set it aside. One of the top challenging issues for men often in the transition of parenthood in their relationship is intrusive in-laws. All of a sudden, they've got a lot of sisters-in-law and mom-in-law and stuff who have a lot of input, not just on you know, how to raise the baby, but how they should do things. And it can be a little bit feel intrusive and overwhelming. Yeah. And so, I mean, that and that can go for either either spouse, you know, in a marriage relationship, but but that's another thing to watch out for a little bit, is to have those healthy boundaries too.
SPEAKER_02We'll be right back after this brief message.
SPEAKER_04And we're back. Let's dive right in.
Division Of Labor And Fairness Talks
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm sure there's other common relationship challenges. Is that right, Sean? Um, we'd love to know ways to navigate them or even just the small habits or conversations that make a big difference early on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd say the number one relationship challenge that comes up is division of who's going to do what in caring for a child. Um and so, you know, finding finding agreement and mutual satisfaction with um who is doing what and caring for a child is really important. A child, uh a baby, especially, they need care every hour of the day. And it's interesting you think, well, these little babies, they sleep 14 to 18 hours a day. I mean, how how much care can they need? But actually, two people full-time caring for the, I mean, they'll just look, you'll look at each other and you'll be like, how in the world is this little creature who sleeps 14 plus hours a day still demanding so much more time and energy? But it's true, it's it's just true. And um so it can be contentious because each person is tired, they're balancing other things with work and and other things like that. And so you're like, oh, you know, will you get up and do this? I mean, if you both laid down, the baby's been down for half an hour, and you're thinking, oh, it's that's so nice. I just have a little rest time at the end of the day, and then the baby cries, and you're like, okay, I have to go and check on the baby, and you know, and you're just looking at each other and you're like drawing straws, who's gonna who's gonna be the one to go do this? And then you start negotiating. I mean, my wife and I would have this conversation, and I've had this same discussion with many couples. You're like, I will pay you five hundred dollars if you will get up and go check on the baby, please, you know, and and you like you know, like you're not really gonna pay $500, but you're desperate. I just need a little bit of time for myself. So, couples talking about those things, what are their expectations? And a lot of us have gendered expectations. We were raised in families where people split up housework and childcare in a certain way. And if you don't understand where those patterns come from in your own life and thought and your own family, then it can be hard to come to a meeting of the minds as a couple. And so you really need to step back and just talk about well, who did what, you know, what are these practical tasks that need to be done in caring for a child, right? And um how do you feel about changing diapers? How do you feel about getting up at night? How do you feel about being the one to put a child to bed? How do you feel about um you know making meals, things like that? And understand that you you you need to find the key actually to satisfaction as a couple is not so much who does what and having it be exactly equal and fair. It's does each of you feel that it is fair based on you know what pattern is meaningful to you. It's interesting because couples will say, do we have to be just exactly 50-50? And what I'll tell them is you have, I mean, proportional involvement in housework and childcare is good. But what's most important is does your spouse feel that it is fair? Like there can be a couple, and if at 70-30 and she's doing 70 and he's doing 30, but she feels like, hey, that's my role. I want to do that, I feel good about that, and they're both comfortable with it, then it's okay. It's it but for the satisfaction of the relationship, it's what both of them perceive is fair and comfortable. And other people may try to come in from the outside and say it has to be this way, but it's really what that couple perceives as logical and fair for them, and then understanding that seasons of life change. Like, you know, my wife and I had eight kids, so we went through a lot of different seasons, and there was a season when I was um finishing some things with with postgraduate education, and then she needed to go back to school to finish some things, and so all of a sudden I went from um being the one who was primarily working to then I was primarily home with kids, and she was working and finishing up some school, and I needed to say, Oh, this is a different season of life when when I'm much more involved in doing certain things than I was two months ago or three months ago, and accept that you're gonna have different seasons of life as a couple and in raising a child, and you need to renegotiate your expectations. But that whole area of kind of division of housework and childcare and supporting each other in that process and kind of navigating it, talking through your expectations and being willing to make adjustments is really important. Doesn't matter if your grandpa or your dad never changed a diaper, be willing to change a diaper. You have to be willing to change in a way that your spouse feels is supportive to them. And if they feel supported, so much better for the happiness and satisfaction of your marital relationship as you're raising kids.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Sean, I I love this. You've you've talked about uh sleep deprivation, right? The stress, the hormones and new responsibilities and juggling, who's gonna do well, and it can be, as we've meant, we've talked about this episode, it can
Intimacy After Baby And Warning Signs
SPEAKER_03be a real strain on the relationship. I'm I'm curious, um, how do you know when, okay, or some warning signs perhaps, Sean, that the relationship is it's starting to take a back seat because a lot of what we're talking about then spills over into, and I'm gonna bring it up, into the sexual intimacy, right? This transition and and often the man feeling like uh neglected. It's like, hey, you know, you're always yeah, too tired because you're exhausted and emotionally, maybe you're breastfeeding, all these things happen, and it feels like there's this this drift for a lot of couples. How do you know when it's like, oh man, we're really starting to drift, and maybe even need some outside help?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think when it's it's not so much the you know the frequency of your physical interaction together as a couple, it's do you feel emotionally connected? And do you feel emotionally connected when you're intimate with each other, right? Do you have the energy and attention to be present in that moment? It's interesting, like you you look at sexual satisfaction in marriage, and I mean there's a lot of stuff, stuff out there in the world about it, but I think that primarily what each partner is seeking and what they miss, and so this is a signal when okay, things need to be maybe retuned. You know, maybe we need to work with the dials of our marriage relationship and retune what's going on. It's when we feel like we're missing that emotional, authentic connection with our partner when we're physically intimate with them. If that's missing, especially for women, but I think for both men and women, when that is missing, then um it's a signal like, hey, we're we're not showing up for each other. We at least one of us doesn't have the bandwidth to show up for each other in that you know special um caring part of their relationship. And so I uh the circumstances around birth of a child, for example, pregnancy and birth of a child can disrupt a couple's intimate life in a number of different ways, you know, um in terms of a woman's recovery from the labor and delivery process, especially if there's been any complication. Okay, what if what if a child is born early and that child is in the NICU and you're spending a lot of time there? My very first child was in the NICU for two weeks, right? And you can bet, like the thought of sex didn't even cross my mind during those two weeks. It was like, how do we keep this child alive? Right. So there's just a lot of circumstances that can occur. You have to be flexible and willing to adjust your your expectations. But it's important not to ignore the topic either. Right. And really important to recognize and pursue opportunities for non-sexual touch and intimacy during this time. Physical intimacy is not restricted to intercourse, right? So we're so there can be a lot of snuggling, cuddling, hand holding, um, things like that, um, that are all manifestations of your love and physical affection for each other while you're being patient with each other in the process of, okay, um, you know, uh a person's bodily recovery from the labor and delivery process, and however long it it takes to go through that adjustment process. So I think as long as couples are prioritizing their physical affection with each other, they're prioritizing their emotional connection during intimacy with each other, those are the two primary things I would say. And for couples to not judge their quality of their relationship during that transition to parenthood by the frequency of their sexual interaction, but but by the connectedness within their set sexual interaction. And and um and then just not neglecting it as a topic. But I think it can be very easy to feel defensive or to feel um, I'm not sure what the word I'm looking for is, Liz, you might be able to help me, but to feel vulnerable about that part of a marriage relationship, um, both as a husband or a wife, right? Because psychologically you're experiencing things like, hey, my body has changed. I feel different about myself and about my body now that I didn't feel it's new to me. I I haven't dealt with it before. I need some patience adjusting to that. I'm trying to figure it out. So you're gonna have a hard time figuring it out because you're traveling the journey with me and I'm just trying to make sense of it, right? So patience, understanding, communication, all those ingredients that typically make a difference for a healthy marriage are really critical in the physical intimacy element of marriage during the transition to parenthood.
SPEAKER_03Well said, my friend, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We just have uh two two last questions for you to pick your advice, okay, my friend. Pick your brain
Prepare, Communicate, Build Your Village
SPEAKER_01a little bit. What's your piece of advice for, let's say, couples before they become parents to help protect their marriage? What would you what would you advise them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, two or three things. Before they become parents, number number one is to get educated about becoming a parent. Think about anything that you have experienced that can help you in your your sense of preparation for doing the job of a parent. Have you been an older sibling and taken care of kids? Have you been provided child care? Have you worked at a child care? Have you taken care of a pet? Whatever it is, all those things that involve caring for another person and taking on a regular responsibility, thinking about that. And there's no substitute for education about the process of childbirth and the process of raising a child in that first year. Young children are remarkable, but they demand a lot out of you. But to me, it's like I said, learning that the amount of learning that you need to do is really surprising to people, but it's also such an amazing opportunity to learn about ourselves as human beings, our capacity to care for others and one another. So I'd say do not neglect that learning aspect, really focus on that. I would say the second thing is really communicate your expectations about being a parent. Why are you looking forward to it? What kind of parent do you want to be? Communicate those with your spouse so that they can and talk about are there things in your background that you want to repeat? Are there things that you might say, I I want to set that aside and start a new pattern or a new tradition in my parenting, and maybe some things I saw in a prior experience in family life. So I think those are really critical things. And then I think just um build your intentionality as a couple, that you are doing small, simple things to connect every day. You know, these are these are you know um John Gottman's, you know, at least five positives a day. The number of positives need to away outweigh the negatives in your relationship, and these small actions of turning toward each other in small, simple, caring ways just to say, hey, I'm thinking about you. Like, you know, I'm thinking of a couple that I know, and they've they're well into marriage, they're getting close to 30 years into marriage. And when I'm with him, I'll go to lunch with him, and he'll be like, pull out his phone and be doing something on his phone. I'm like, hey, we're at lunch. Put your phone down, let's let's talk. He's like, well, I just have to text. And I'm like, is it your wife? And he's like, Yeah, we're just texting each other. And I'm like, what are you texting? And they're texting each other little love notes and stuff like this. And that's not everybody's cup of tea, but my point is for them, it's the little it's that their little ritual of connecting throughout the day through text messages. Okay, find out whatever that is for you as a couple and engage in those small little rituals of connection every day. The the thing marriage provides a lot of things for people, but but most people want um that human connection was to feel valued, accepted, and understood by one other person in the world who knows they're special and treats them like they're special. So if you can do that on a regular daily basis, that's a that's a huge it's it's kind of like your immunization against the challenges that are gonna come and the stresses that are gonna come with the onset of a child in your life. And welcoming a child is great, but it's gonna change things for you as an individual and as a couple.
SPEAKER_01Whatever we can do to be caught off guard a little bit less, right?
SPEAKER_00That's right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't feel like quite the tornado or quite the rock of the world, is like, oh yeah, Sean Brotherson, he said there'd be days like this.
SPEAKER_00There will, there will be days. And some days you'll just but but the the wonderful thing for a married couple welcoming a child is if you can look over at someone and say, at least we're sharing this day, right? At least we're sharing this day. I'm not I'm not just feeling totally alone. And and one and I will say the comment or the the the axiom that it takes a village to raise a child, what that means for a couple is you need to think who is our village? Who is gonna help us? Who are we gonna enlist for support so we can go out on a date? Who's gonna be there? Like, who's our network of support that we all together have an interest in this child? Well, who are those? Are they other couples in your life? Are they family members? Who is it that can come in and extend you a little bit of support as a couple so you can take a little time to prioritize and focus on your marriage? Because your marriage does need that at the same time that your child needs care. And so paying attention to your extended support system and who those people are going to be and setting those agreements up ahead of time. Hey, when we're six months into marriage, can we call you when we want to go out on a date once a month and you'll come over and spend a couple hours watching our child? Yes. Line that up ahead of time. There's no reason why you can't.
SPEAKER_01Brilliant, really, truly brilliant.
SPEAKER_02We'll be right back after this brief message.
SPEAKER_04And we're back. Let's dive right in.
Resources Plus The Key To Connection
SPEAKER_01Sean, you have all kinds of available resources for parents and couples. Where can you point our listeners to for more information, please, my friend?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can um just um go to uh the nearest search engine and type in NDSU extension, um family resources, and I'm sure our our extension webpage will pop up, and we have a lot of resources on there. And then in the show notes, I I think I've shared there's some specific um resource publications on this topic: one called Preparing for Parenthood, a couple on um key tips and the transition to parenthood for couples, and so those will be available, and people can just go to the show notes for this podcast and click on those and get direct access to those resources.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for your generosity. Well, we will indeed do that.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Hey, Sean, before we wrap up, we'd like to ask all of our guests a couple of questions. The first one is what do you feel like is the key to a stronger marriage connection?
SPEAKER_00I think the key is intentionality. Um, years ago, and Dave, you'll know about this, I was involved in conceptualizing a little bit new and different model of marriage and relationship education. And part of the wide-ranging conversation we had over a couple of years was you know, what does research say? What are key elements that should be that we should teach couples about having healthy marital and couple relationships? And so we had quite a lot of wide-ranging discussion, and at the heart of our model and the heart of our conversation, one thing that came out is helping people understand that choosing your partner, choosing your marriage, recognizing the power of the choices you make on a daily basis to influence the stability, the commitment, the satisfaction of your marriage relationship is really critical. Um, that helping people understand that they're not just at the mercy of the random winds of life, but they can make daily choices, intentional choices about how they show up for, how they support, how they listen to, and how they connect with the partner. And how they make self-corrections to say, hey, I'm sorry, or will you forgive me, or can I do something for you? These little choices to turn toward our partner versus turning away from them, as the research by Dr. John Gottman and his peers talks about, is I think you know, the the the keystone of maintaining a healthy marriage connection. Intentionality, so to speak. And we ended up calling that dimension the choose dimension of marriage education. Be intentional.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's right there, right at the the front of that of that framework, that model. Sean, the last question is is uh we call it takeaway of the day of all the stuff we talked about with transition uh to to parenting for couples. What do you what's a take-home message
Takeaways, Marriage First, Closing Thoughts
SPEAKER_03you hope our listeners will remember from our discussion today?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the the take-home message I would suggest is that um you will likely not experience in family life a more transformational experience than taking on the commitment to raise a child. And that transformational experience um can also be transformative to your marriage relationship, either in a challenging way or in a positive way. And if you're intentional in sharing your expectations, um learning uh the tasks and the skills um that you need to be able to effectively parent and prioritize your marriage during that process, the process of raising children together can be a significant um enhancement to your family experience and your marriage relationship. It's one thing, I would say, to to um pursue a life um together um intentionally, and it's another thing when you add someone else to that equation, and then you're extending and expanding your family experience. And any of us who have the opportunity to extend and expand our family experience so we contribute to the well-being of the next generation, what what you know the psychologist Eric Erickson called generativity, um, giving the next generation its opportunity to grow and flourish. There's very few experiences in life that are as rewarding as working together to love and raise children. And so even though it will be an experience that might change you, um, it can change you for the better and it can change the future. And um there's no sweeter experience, even with the challenges that come with it, there's no sweeter experience than loving a child together as a couple. And so prepare yourselves for that because it will be demanding, but it will be rewarding, unlike any other experience that you might have in life.
SPEAKER_01That's what I hear.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure is. Liz, what about you? What's your takeaway of the day?
SPEAKER_01I so many things, but I I love the reminder you had, uh, Sean, about children. They don't really they're not really tight in too much in the parents' marriage or what's going on there so much, but they but they care about a security and stability. Yes? And and maybe it's up to parents to kind of educate them a little bit, like, you know what, no, we're doing the state night so that we can keep this whole thing going. We we gotta have our own time together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I referenced earlier that you know I I was taught a little bit about marriage at the knee of Brent Barlow, who was an educator in Utah and wrote many books on the subject of marriage. And um and I was in a setting with him where he was very directly asked, and he asked that specific question you voiced earlier, Liz, which is what what's more important in the in the family setting, prior prioritizing the marriage relationship or the relationship with kids. And he was unequivocal in his professional and personal opinion, that prioritizing the health of that marriage relationship is going to do more for the security and well-being of kids than prioritizing attentiveness towards the kids and putting the marriage second. His priority was put the marriage first and then let kids experience the stability and um positive emotional safety that comes with that family environment, and you'll be doing much more for them than if you put the marriage as a back seat in the family experience. And I thought then, and I and I think now that there continues to be a lot of wisdom and truth in that, and that kids naturally they are looking for stability and security, and so prioritizing that in the marital context is very helpful to them.
SPEAKER_01Ah, thank you. I appreciate that. Dave,
Subscribe, Share, And Get More Help
SPEAKER_01my friend, what stands out most to you from our conversation today with Sean Brotherson?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Sean, this is this has been awesome. You know, several words that stand out, actually beginning with the letter P, and you just mentioned one of them that's prioritizing the relationship. You talked about preparation, preparing, taking classes, getting information, reading books and blogs and podcasts and getting information. I think another P word is patience for this this whole process. It is just be patient with yourself, patient with the baby, and it's gonna be cry and there's colic, and you're not gonna sleep well. Your patience will be tried to the core. Um, another one is perspective, that P word, because um your perspective. I remember thinking, Sean, at one point, I was so narrowed in, and I thought I actually wondered, I wonder if I will ever sleep through the night again. Like I wonder, like that really went through my head. I wonder if I'll because our kids are yeah, eight, six, four, two, and it was I would really wonder if I'll actually sleep through the night. So perspective, your perspective changes. And then as a grandparent, it totally changes, unlike anything I've ever experienced. And the last P is positivity. Just try to stay positive through this this process. There's it's a lot of negativity, a lot of things are gonna drain you. But man, yeah, trying to see the positive, to stay positive through this, this whole parenting process is is so important. So, yeah, Sean, all of that is is really uh stirred a lot in my own mind, my own relationship, my own parenting, and now as a grandparent. Yeah, what a what a fun discussion we've had today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I definitely agree with with all of those. Patience and perspective are critical, as well as trying to prepare yourself as an individual and as a couple for the changes that are inevitably gonna come and and it doesn't stop, you know. Little kids grow up to be big kids and big kids grow up to have their own lives, their own opinions, their own perspectives, and you know, they they might sit at the dinner table with you and say, I don't think that you think to yourself, What do you mean? I thought I taught you this way, but you're thinking this way, and guess what? It's an adventure and change all the time and and learning to be patient and and loving um with these young people who come into our lives and change they're just gonna change us forever. You know, and it's okay to be it's okay to be changed, but but it's easier if you prepare yourself for it to a degree and to accept hey, I'm along for the ride and I'm gonna do the best I can and loving the people I've signed up with in that family journey, and and it can be a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it is it can be, yeah, a beautiful thing. Sean Brotherson, thanks so much for taking time today. Man, we need to bring you back on and talk about all kinds of other topics. You're full of wisdom, my friend. You've got a lot of experience, a lot of head knowledge about the research and scholarship in so many areas in family life. Thanks so much for sincerely for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00You bet. Happy to be here, and I'd be happy to come back anytime.
SPEAKER_01Been an honor, Sean. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Russ. Thank you, Dave.
SPEAKER_03All right, friends, that does it for us. We will see you next time on another episode of the Stronger Marriage Connection Podcast.
SPEAKER_01And remember, it's the small things and the simple things that create a stronger marriage connection.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for joining us today. Hey, do us a favor and take a second to subscribe to our podcast and the Utah Marriage Commission YouTube channel at Utah Marriage Commission, where you can watch this and every episode of the show. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment, and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram at StrongerMarriage Live and Facebook at Stronger Marriage. So be sure to share with us which topics you love and which guests we should have on Joe Next. If you want even more resources to improve your marriage and relationship connection, visit strongermarriage.org where you'll find free workshops, free courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys, and more. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, Rex Polanas, and the team at Utah State University, and you, our audience, you make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.