Resentment, the rupture that often starts when things become unequal in relationships and how to rebuild.

Ideals and abandonment around having children

I am sure I said it too, my kids will fit around me, it's not going to change me. Certainly I remember organising the first NCT meet up in a pub and latterly a Tapas Bar, I could not bear the thought of all of our buggies like a cliche in another starbucks (besides I don't drink coffee). I was fighting to hold on to me, to not get lost. I loved my baby but I still wanted to be me, I wanted to keep my relationship equal, like most people I know, it's a bit like filling a bucket with a hole, nice idea, but flawed by reality.

The Betrayal of Loss of Equality

I remember my client saying "In my country you can be very direct". I said I grew up with Northern parents so that was ok. It allowed me to take a pretty stark intervention, I said "your wife, does not like, love or trust you right now, if you want to change that you are going to need to make a lot of changes". I don't normally work as directly as this, but it was what he wanted and they needed. Often the trust is lost in relationships after the first child, the equality that simply flowed, changes in a way no-one had planned for and anticipated, and what replaces that equality can be resentment. So many things are gained, but we also need to name the loss for both partners. There is a new priority, sometimes this new priority does not just deprive sleep, but can take the space in the bed, not just for months, but years.

You cannot argue against a mother and child sleeping together, it makes any partner look bad, some couples find a work around, they sneak a moment in the afternoon for themselves when the baby is asleep, or a child in nursery, or out with grandparents. Sometimes they drift apart. For the couple I worked with my male client worked in a really engaged way, to rebuild his wife's safety and trust. He prioritised time with and for her and their child, ensured that he was really present and engaged. Eventually all that was left was for us to look at his wife, and her behaviour, it was not an easy task, but she grew as a human, they grew as a couple, she started letting him in rather than shutting him out, he put her at the centre of his world, and she started to feel loved, and to love him back. The second pregnancy was built on something very different.

For some the resentment builds for years. Even Michelle Obama has talked about "oh you are off to golf, or the gym", fine when I was working too and had the same liberties, but absolutely not when we share children and our equality is suddenly distorted, beyond recognition.

My pain is bigger than your pain. I earn more, so my meeting is more important than your meeting

In these stories owning your failures, where you fell short, where you hid in your baby or your job, or where you became enemies on opposing sides of the "who got more sleep war" needs resolution. It's vital to acknowledge your partners experience to hold it and show your regret and sadness that they felt or were abandoned or not cared for in the way they hoped. This sets up a place of repair and healing. The alternative of "defend and justify" becomes like litigation me vs you "my pain is bigger than your pain". No one wins, no one feels cared for, it's a circular war with no resolution. This does not mean the other partner's loss or difficulty cannot be named, merely that one does not trump the others. Enough space is given to one, that there is emotional and relational space once the limbic system is calmed (your fight/flight/freeze reflex) that you can see and have compassion for your partner) In reality this might look like the simple act of saying I wanted to be the best for you, but I can see I was missing what you needed, may create the possibility of the other partner acknowledging their withdrawal, rejection and how that loss might also have landed.

The other eternal battle of new parents is a different competition my meeting vs your meeting, my career vs your career, sometimes it's my "turn", sometimes it's "I earn more", sometimes and often, too often it's about a historic expectation of gender differences. I heard the story of one of the couples I worked with despite their best efforts to continue their equality in their careers post children, school drop offs made it impossible. It seems almost reasonable that the female partner ended up missing her Management Meeting because someone had to drop the kids to school, it "made sense because he earned more". But ultimately she ended up staying a Manager in status but not being seen as one. It's neither partner's fault in hindsight, it's the reality of children and choices in our society. But these fracture points can wound, sometimes it's my female clients who earn the most money, but there can be a great discomfort in naming this. The most important point is how we take care of one another, how kind and fair and decent we can be. It's ok to say "I am really struggling with what these choices mean for me and my career, can we think about how we manage this. It's ok to make mistakes wholeheartedly saying "I feel terrible about the choices I made at that point in our relationship/last week, I feel I made the wrong call/I could have thought about it differently/I didn't show my care for you appropriately, that's on me" can transform a difficult story, into building a bridge, creating compassion and empathy.

Perfectly attuned co-parenting, but a marriage or partnership that cannot allow for individuals in the family unit.

Another couple I met had the opposite story. They were the most incredibly supportive and equal unit, it blew me away in its' uniqueness, each of their four children had not broken them but made them an incredible team. On the surface it looked a decade later like they had the holy grail of a relationship, absolute trust, equality, everything shared, but as the children had grown up, the once anxious girlfriend now wife, had become confident, competent and successful. Their dynamic where there was dependence and reliance had changed, she had reached a point where she could love her husband and her family but want a little more space to be her. The team had become suffocating, the change felt threatening to her husband and so very gently he was holding the reins tightly blocking the space for shared individuation, a place where they could do things independently but keep the richness in the relationship. Instead, the family and the children were a means of cutting off the world "we missed you today" when she had been to an important meeting abroad with her team. The leverage of "what is more important than family" was unsaid but very definitely felt. This inability to accept a new iteration of his partner and their lives as parents, and partners, his the fear of change was in fact the biggest threat they faced. Not her seperation which offered a way to see each other with excitement and pride, as a cheerleader, but a fear that drove greater isolation within the family unit.

Creating space for a new version of yourself in long relationships

In therapy we `'re-contract" with long term clients. "When you came you wanted to work on this, but you have moved and processed this. I wonder what you might need now in this relationship?" It's an understanding that people change and people grow. As a consequence, our requirements from those in our lives need to change and adapt. It's the same outside the therapeutic relationship. There is a book called "The Tadpoles Promise" I read it to my children, now I explain it to my clients. A tadpole falls in love with a caterpillar, they are so in love their one request to each other to preserve their incredible love, is they must "never change". Of course, each changes, and as they do, the other is bereft, they keep making the request but evolution is unstoppable for them the tadpole becomes a frog, the caterpillar ends up a butterfly (plot spoiler the frog eats the butterfly). Evolution is being affected by the environment inside and the environment outside, learning from today in my view to make us better tomorrow. It's a beautiful thing. The people that scare me in life are those that say "I am what I am and I am never going to change". Why would you not want to change. What a waste of an opportunity for growth to not learn and use that learning to show up differently in your life and relationships.