The Birth of the First Child and the New Roles That Parents Take On in the Family

The birth of the first child brings major changes in the married life of the young spouses. The changes are not only emotional and cognitive but also behavioral. What is certain is that the couple's life after birth will change. Of course, the change can be perceived by the spouses as positive or negative depending on how prepared they were for the birth of a new family member.

There are two cases: spouses who have longed for a child and are looking forward to it, so this is the case for husbands who are ready to become parents. And the second case is the one in which the spouses did not plan to conceive a child at that moment of their life, but fate took them by surprise and offered them this blessing.

This is about future parents who did not feel ready to be parents, but who agreed to do so. So, the couple's life after birth will be more changed in the case of parents who were not ready to have a child than for those who were prepared for this stage of family life.

Whether or not the couple's life after birth will be harmonious depends on both spouses. An important variable is the level of responsibility of the spouses. Not only the wife should be responsible for raising and educating the child, but also the husband.

The two spouses must discuss and share their responsibilities according to their wishes so that they are both satisfied. For example, the father may choose to stay with the child when he comes home from work for 2–3 hours, during which time the mother may do something else; or the father may choose to bathe the baby and take him for a walk, and the mother may take care of the feeding and other activities of caring for the child. So it all depends on both parents.

What makes some happy may make others unhappy, so each couple must make their own choices. There are no rules as to who and what to do, but if one of the spouses (usually the wife) feels that only he is raising the child and the other parent does absolutely nothing, then conflicts will arise between the two spouses and their married life. it will be affected negatively.

Life as a couple after birth will be influenced by the level of happiness in the couple before the child is conceived. Couples who were very happy with their marriage, who loved each other intensely, and who after a long time of living together still felt in love as in the beginning, will have an equally happy married life after the birth of their first child.

Surely that child was conceived out of the most intense and burning desire to prove their love. And such a desirable child will only bring even more happiness to the family. But couples who were unhappy, who felt that their married life was falling apart and conceived a child to save their marriage are only lying to themselves because a child cannot fix what two mature people have failed to do.

So, after birth, their married life will not change for the better, but on the contrary, it can change for the worse. That is, the partners become parents and can focus only on this aspect, forgetting the fact that they once fell in love, and end up seeing themselves as lifelong friends who have one common goal: raising and educating their child.

Another factor that influences the couple's life after birth is the emotional maturity of the spouses. Affective maturity presupposes emotional stability, the ability to give, altruism, the ability to create satisfaction and pleasure, sociability, acceptance of a certain degree of emotional dependence, etc.

Husbands who are emotionally mature at the time of marriage will also have a satisfying relationship during the marriage. So, for husbands characterized by emotional maturity, the birth of the first child will not affect their married life because they will know how to manage their emotions and cope successfully with this stage.

The new parents need to assume their parental roles as well as possible, but not to let themselves be taken over by them so that they forget that they also have a married life. After birth, it is not uncommon for parents to be so absorbed in the new role that they focus only on this aspect of family life. Usually, the wife is the one who focuses on raising the child so much that the husband comes to feel left out, he feels abandoned and insignificant in the eyes of his wife.

There are two cases: the one in which the wife pays too much attention to the child and too little to the husband, and the one in which the wife pays attention to both the child and the husband in an equal and balanced way, but the husband only has the impression that the child pays more attention. he is jealous of him.

It often happens that such men, who feel neglected by their wives because of the child, end up looking for someone outside their marriage to pay attention to them, that is, to have extramarital affairs. Usually, the men who do this are the men who have always been prone to infidelity. For example, the kind of man who always flirts with other women, or the husband who has cheated on his wife in the past, before having a child, etc.

From infidelity to the dissolution of the relationship is just one step. So, the couple's life after birth can also be affected by the infidelity of the husband.