'Cracks in the relationship'

Becoming a parent isn't the only cause of new conflicts, says Stacey Sherrell, a family therapist in California. But pre-baby, couples generally have more time to focus on issues like poor communication. That's more difficult when a child is added to the mix. 

"Now, we have to slow down and come together, and all [those problems] are just sitting here waiting for us," says Sherrell, who says she finds herself frequently working with couples who struggle after having children. "Your sex life isn't good? It's probably not going to get better with a kid."

Meanwhile, she says, a behaviour that might just have been "a little annoying" before kids might turn into a full-fledged issue. If one partner loves playing video games, for example, that might not be a problem before children; the other partner might take it as time to relax on their own. But after kids, one person playing video games might mean the other one feels stuck parenting solo.

Conflicts don't only arise in relationships that are already troubled – they can also hit couples who consider themselves rock-solid. "Say you have the best relationship in the entire world,” says Sherrell. "There still needs to be an understanding and conversations around these things that get exacerbated in parenthood."

One parent who wishes she and her husband had discussed these issues earlier is Jancee Dunn, a New York-based journalist, and author of How Not to Hate Your Husband After Having Kids. When she fell pregnant, she and her husband had been married for 10 years.

"We assumed that we had worked out all of – or at least the majority of – the kinks in our relationship, and that we had a nice, solid foundation with which to build a family," she says.

They figured their new roles would fall into place seamlessly; her husband already shouldered half the housework, so she assumed the labour of parenting would be equally split, too. Rather than discuss potential issues that might arise, they spent their time talking about what colour they'd paint the nursery, what they'd name the baby and their registry. 

Dunn says after she gave birth, "it was just this tsunami of unrealistic expectations and fatigue and resentment towards each other". She quickly found herself in the role of "default" parent, which made her bristle. At the same time, the more her husband deferred to her on parenting, the more adept she became at it – and the more she micromanaged him when he tried to take over, a common behaviour called maternal gatekeeping.

"I was 50% of the problem," says Dunn, adding that she developed a temper that "still causes me a lot of shame". She would yell at her husband; he would retreat into his phone, "traumatised", which made her angrier. Frustrated and finding that attempts at communication only seemed to lead to fighting, she considered separation.

London-based Andy says he and his wife also developed "feelings of resentment" towards each other after the births of their two children, despite having had a "very solid foundation" for their marriage.

Their first son is "highly sensitive", and for the first two months, wouldn't sleep at all unless he was held. With their second child, the scale of time and effort required to parent and maintain the household only compounded. Amid this lack of bandwidth, Andy says he also felt a great deal of pressure to be a present caregiver.

"The responsibilities were so many, and the demand was so high, that I just found it totally overwhelming. I found it really made me burnt out until the point where I just cried most days, at the end of the day, with the stress and the pressure." This, he says, led to conflict with his wife – not fights, he says, but an underlying resentment made the atmosphere tense.

'It never ends well for us' 

The myriad stresses of caregiving, including the way in which it often reinforces traditional gender roles, aren't the only challenges for couples who have a child. The birth of a baby also often brings on an identity shift for each parent individually as well as together, which can pose significant challenges.

"You have no idea how your identity will shift until you have that kid," says Sherrell. "So, all of a sudden, I care about things that I didn’t before. And my partner's, like, 'Who have you become? Why do you care all the sudden that I’m playing video games?' You become a new person – and your partner has to accept a new partner."

The phenomenon is well-studied among mothers, in particular, in whom it is called matrescence. And these changes, which can range from hormonal shifts that affect behaviour to body image, often start in pregnancy. For the non-birthing parent, seeing their partner change even before the baby comes can be confusing and disorienting.

Mental-health issues, which also are common in the prenatal and postnatal period, can introduce further challenges. Postnatal depression, for example, affects around one in four mothers and one in ten fathers.

When Matt, in Michigan, became a father, the postpartum period was more difficult than he ever had imagined. His wife had a traumatic birth; then his son had allergies and feeding issues. And neither he nor his wife had much nearby support.

"The lack of family when you’re experiencing a very difficult first six months was really, really hard. And my wife had some severe anxiety… probably exacerbated by the health issues that my son had," he says. He put pressure on himself to provide as much calm and stability as possible. But he was stressed, too.

"I would be very calm when it came to my son," he says, but when their child was in bed, his anxiety surfaced, sometimes causing him to be "impatient" with his wife. She'd think he was being short and get defensive; he'd argue that he wasn't, and "the whole evening would devolve", he says. They'd never fought so much in their six-year relationship. 

A couple years since the birth, they have found better ways to communicate and strengthened their relationship.

Yet he says the changes he says he's observed in his wife still affect their level of physical intimacy. It isn't just sex that is rare now – it's also other types of affection, like cuddling or hugging. "It's maybe a self-esteem thing, where identity gets bound up in being a mom … She'll say, 'I just feel like his mom now, as opposed to more of a confident individual'," he says. "And then, for me, it feels like kind of a rejection."

In Virginia, US, Erin always considered herself a busy, independent person with multiple hobbies and interests. One of the most important to her was fitness – she even worked with a personal trainer while pregnant. But after her son was born, that time and freedom to care for herself vanished. 

Five weeks after giving birth, she was diagnosed with postpartum depression. "I just was not loving any of it. I was missing a lot of my old life, and realising what I've lost," she says.

But she says the same didn't hold true for her partner. "My husband doesn't mind all he's given up nearly as much. He has become one of those parents that can't imagine being away from our son." She'd like to take occasional trips as a couple, for example, while her husband doesn't want to leave their child with relatives.

Both their differing approaches to parenthood, and their lack of time alone together, have left her feeling less connected to her partner – and often more frustrated with him. Adding to the tension is that their son, now aged three, prefers her husband – an imbalance that has brewed further feelings of bitterness.

It's led to "verbal jabs" and frustrating conversations that rarely resolve anything. "It never ends well for us,” she says.

Satisfaction stigma

Despite how common it is for couples to feel less satisfied or experience more challenges after having a child, many parents don't open up about these issues – let alone seek help.

Dunn was hesitant when talking to friends about her marital issues. "I just felt too embarrassed. And I felt like everybody else was handling it better than I was," she says.

Once she started writing and researching her book, however, she realised that wasn't the case: some 95% of the couples she spoke to said they'd struggled after having a baby, but felt like they were the only ones, which added "shame on top of everything else that young parents are going through", says Dunn.

At a mums' group, twin-mother Holly did decide to share her struggles – but she instantly regretted it. "I said that I would get so frustrated with my partner, I felt like I needed to punch a hole in the wall to get this pent-up anger out of my body," she says. "And nobody said anything. I freaked out. I was like, 'Oh my God, is there something wrong with me?' It made me spiral even more."

Janina Büehler, a practising psychologist and assistant professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, believes this stigma makes relationship challenges even harder to surmount. "The idea that relationships should just be very satisfied all the time, and we should have sex all the time, and just be happy all the time – that's just not true," she says.

Bottling up feelings can make parents feel more isolated and keep them from seeking professional support or communicating to their partner. And on a societal level, the silence around how common this is adds to the belief that these conflicts are rare – which just adds to the stigma, says Buehler.

However, there is some solidarity to be found – particularly online. While the highlight reel of happy families on social media can make some struggling parents feel isolated, others find support in digital communities where others candidly share their difficult experiences.

Only when she saw those types of posts online, says Holly, did she feel less alienated. "I realised … this is more common than I think – it's just that people don't talk about it." Once she understood she wasn't alone, she moved away from blaming herself for her rage, and instead figuring out why it was she felt this way. She also felt more comfortable opening conversations with her partner.

Urgent action

Some couples can't recover from these conflicts, and find themselves splitting up ­– even when they've put in a lot of effort to salvage their relationships. Yet not all couples who have seen their marriages affected after having children are primed for permanent conflict or divorce. 

A big part of improving partnerships, say experts, may be nurturing those "protective" factors that breed positive relations among couples. According to the large review on relationship satisfaction over time, which Buehler co-authored, these include clear, open communication; feeling understood and validated; spending time together at least once per week; and having realistic expectations – in particular, not believing that one's partner must be ideal in every way.

After finding themselves arguing often after having a third baby, Holly and her partner chose couples therapy, which research has shown can lessen relationship distress. Initally, she says, her husband resisted, seeing seeking help as a sign that their relationship had failed.

Finally, Holly sat him down. "I have these three needy kids that need me 24/7 – I don't need to also be fighting with my spouse," she says she told him. "I said, if you don't want to do counselling, I don't know if we can stay together, because I cannot keep doing this."

It helped "a lot". Holly realised just how much her perspective on their relationship needed to change.

"I told [our therapist], honestly, I see him as another person that needs something from me," says Holly. The therapist encouraged her to see him as her partner, instead. "That mindset shift for me has been a huge thing. We still have our little tiffs, but I feel like they’re way less explosive than they used to be. And I feel like when we do get angry with each other, we actually discuss it now."

For Andy and his parner, their relationship only improved when they learned to communicate better, he says. In particular, "whenever we feel like one of us has gone down a road that they don't enjoy, we have to talk about it", he says.

Today, while the dynamic of their relationship has changed – and is still evolving – they're in a good place, thanks in no small part to learning to discuss the most challenging freely and openly.

The ease with which couples can prioritse their relationships varies, however. Some may have time and means to access therapy or childcare help to spend alone time together, while others may not have the ability to do so regularly. Whatever way couples in conflict can nurture their relationships, though, Buehler says it's important to act as soon as possible.

Fourteen years after giving birth, Dunn and her partner found their way through their struggles, and are still together. She says this is due in large part to a therapist who told her "conflicts arise in the lack of clarity".  

A lightbulb went off, and they were able to break through, re-calibrating their expectations of each other and addressing resentment. "We just realised that there was a lot to salvage and that it wasn't that we didn't love each other anymore," she says. 

Holly, Erin, Matt and Andy’s names have been changed to protect their family privacy