to fall in love all over again. Work
at your marriage and you’ll reap the
benefits.
Team sport
Parenting is the longest-running team
sport in history. Pregnancy, newborn,
infant, the toddler years, primary
school, teenager (whatever…), and
university student – every stage
comes with its own soul-crushing
challenges and heart-melting
moments for mum-and-dad teams to
tackle. The good times will have you
high-fiving each other as the ultimate
Gattaca
-inspired makers of superior
humans. Everything else will test
your relationship, and highlight how
different you are. And therein lies the
problem.
“At the beginning of a relationship,
because we’re in love, things usually
go smoothly. However, after having
kids, stress, new responsibilities, and
varying parenting methods often
lead to conflict between partners.
Parents need to compromise and
work together to be on the same
page: adapting their parental style to
the unique personality and need of
each child,” Dr Ghazi explains, “We
each have a way of viewing ourselves
and we each have a set of unique
values.” The task of parenting and
the decisions we face as parents will
highlight our differences. And so, we
need to actively work on maintaining
our love more than ever after our
beloved children enter the world.
First, it’s important to understand
the building blocks of a good
relationship. According to Dr Ghazi,
it’s difficult to build a successful long-
term relationship without effective
communication, flexibility, and the
ability to balance our roles as parents
with our needs as a couple and lovers
as well. These concepts can easily
go out the window as we battle to
keep our heads above water with a
newborn in the house.
In practical terms, Dr Ghazi says
there are three areas on the domestic
front we must tend to: our marriage,
our family and ourselves. These are
three individual buckets that need our
devoted attention at different times.
You need to spend time alone with
yourself, you must spend dedicated
time with your partner and, of course,
we all know our kids need dedicated
family time with Mum, Dad and their
siblings. Key to success is flexibility
and being devoted to the bucket you
are tending to – this is not the time
to multi-task. Let me be clear: family
time isn’t marriage time. Time as
a couple, just the two of you, is a
must-do. Time alone is essential for a
healthy relationship.
Time together
It’s a no brainer, but spending
dedicated time together as a couple is
invaluable. Dr Ghazi says, “We need
to spend time together, doing what
we used to enjoy before our family
got larger. Our energies will be in
sync and more harmonious. Imagine
a husband coming home after a
productive day at work, fantasizing
he would take his wife out for a date
(he hasn’t done that in ages), and he
would do this and that. He gets home
and, without checking the state his
wife is in (because he stopped paying
attention a long time ago), he says:
‘Honey, let’s go out’; or ‘Love, let’s
get intimate.’ The guy has no idea
the things his wife has been doing all
day to keep the family and the house
functioning. ‘Oh, give me a break,’
she responds with a sigh.”
May 2015
45
