When you’re trying to balance parenthood with your career and other responsibilities, your relationship with your better half is likely to take a back burner. Bringing up children can increase stress and strain, change values and goals, shift roles, reduce communication, and create hostility in a relationship. Raising kids can bring you close as a couple, but can also chip away at your relationship if you’re unprepared for some of these pitfalls. In Part 1 of this series, I’ll be taking a look at some of the problems faced by couples, that I have seen as a couples counselor, in balancing their relationship and parenthood.

Conflicts: With children come conflicts and issues that you will need to negotiate with your partner. You both may not always see eye to eye on how your children must be fed, raised or educated, and these differences of opinion can be serious enough to cause a rift in your relationship. A couple's inability to successfully resolve the conflicts over parenting their children can often make or brea their relationship.

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Responsibilities: If you feel you’re taking on more tasks and working harder than your partner to take care of the kids, then resentment is bound to set in. Many couples who come to me for counseling often fight over division of labor in parenting their children. Such couples usually don’t have a plan to share parenting responsibilities and just assume who’ll do what, leading to confusion and conflict.

Sleep deprivation: Let’s face it, having children is exhausting. Catching up with your household or office work after the kids have gone to bed and then getting up early next morning to get them ready for the day means you won’t be getting the required amount of sleep. Lack of sleep is very common among couples bringing up children and strains the relationship in various ways. Sleep deprived couples are more agitated, anxious and stressed, which means they might squabble more in general.

Lack of intimacy: Parenthood often reduces the frequency of lovemaking as couples experience a decline in desire due to busy schedules and fatigue. But sex is important because it reflects how the rest of your relationship is going. If parenthood is creating issues between you and your partner, and you both are still struggling to resolve those issues, then that will affect how attracted and ready you are to have sex with your partner.

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll be discussing some important tips on how couples can successfully balance their relationship and parenthood to enjoy the best of both worlds.

If you'd like professional help improving or strengthening your relationship, contact Orly Gueron a Licensed marriage and family therapist and relationship specialist in Aventura, FL!