Dear Mr. Dad: My wife and I just found out she’s pregnant. I thought the pregnancy was going to bring us together, but we’ve been arguing a lot lately. Either that or silence. Is this normal? Either way, what can we do to get back on track?
A: Pregnancy is a time of great joy and anticipation—and of great stress. And even though you and your partner are both expecting at the same time, you’re not experiencing the pregnancy the same way or at the same pace. This can lead to a lot of misunderstandings and conflicts.
Adding a baby to a family is like looking at the family through a magnifying glass: everything that’s good about your relationship gets better and everything that’s bad gets worse. As the pregnancy continues, then, it’s critical to learn to talk and to listen to each other, and to find ways to help each other through this marvelous, but emotionally bumpy, experience.
As men, we instinctively want to protect our partners from harm. And when they’re pregnant, protecting them may include trying to minimize the levels of stress in their lives. One way men do this is by not talking about their own concerns. Sometimes it’s because we worry that mentioning our own fears may cause our partner stress; other times it’s because we don’t want to expose how vulnerable we are at a time when we’re supposed to be strong and supportive.
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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
