Couples Counseling: New Parents Guide to Maintaining a Strong Relationship

As a new parent, you are likely to face an inundation of parenting advice, most of it unwelcomed.

The best parenting and child development a baby could hope for would be a healthy, happy relationship between the parents and it doesn’t happen by accident.

New parents may be surprised to learn that they need advice about their relationship with their spouse, partner, or significant other after the initial thrill of having a new baby has subsided. Regardless of the depth and strength of the relationship prior to the arrival of the bundle of joy, everything changes when baby arrives.

Fantasy: “It won’t happen to us.”

Reality: Stunningly 90% of 218 couples were less satisfied with their marital relationship than before children (detailed in a study by Doss and Stanley in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).

Rather than burying your head in the sand, prepare yourselves.

 1.     Plan if you can, and stick to it.

The same study mentioned above showed that those who maintained a strong relationship during child rearing had been married longer before having children or had higher incomes.

You don’t need to be rich to have a baby. Establish financial goals and work together on the family budget throughout the course of the marriage. If you have the option, don’t rush into having children early in your marriage or relationship.

If you didn’t plan either one and baby is on the way or you have recently had a child, don’t panic. Be smart and make a plan now. Accompany plans with wise counsel.

• Make the commitment to go at least once a year to a marriage workshop or seminar.
• Find a good counselor, therapist, or clergy to help with unresolved issues and strengthening good relationship habits throughout the year.
• Finally, seek regular financial checkups with a financial advisor or a trusted family or friend with good financial sense.

 2.     Share responsibilities.

Fathers have a natural tendency to focus more on the economical situation of the family as baby arrives. Let’s face it—babies are expensive. They may seize more opportunities for extra hours or put in additional effort in hopes of advancement.

At the same time, new mothers might feel neglected rather than excited for her partner’s hard work. He is at work far more than at home and both are exhausted when they finally do have the chance to be together.

Collaborate on every issue facing your relationship, including how much and when you both work. Be mindful of all the extra work inside the home and work together to ensure a harmonious environment.

 3.     Keep your promises!

It’s better to promise only one thing and keep that promise than to make more promises and miss some. Both the parent/child relationship and the parent/parent relationship will thrive under the security of knowing that promises will be kept.

If you promise to be home from work by 6 PM, then your day should revolve around ensuring that happens. If you promise to be gone for an hour to run errands, the entire hour should be carefully planned to ensure returning home in the specified timeframe.

It’s not just catchy words to a song: Love is a verb. It is reflected by intentional actions. Love means keeping the solidarity of your relationship as top priority when raising your children.

This Article is Presented by Thrive Boston Counseling, offering Couples Counseling in Cambridge, MA. 872 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 2-2, Cambridge, MA 02139. 617-395-5806

The work-life balance is often out of whack for many in the Sandwich Generation because of the interminable amount of time it takes to care for everyone’s needs. Some could be one call-out-sick day away from losing their job; and many haven’t had a day to themselves in months. Moreover, the stress on couples can quickly put a rift between a usually healthy relationship.

There seems to never be enough time or money to cover all the demands.

Statistics provided by National Alliance for Caregiving show that there are approximately 66 million women caught in the cycle of caring for both children and aging parents while working a full-time job. These stats are further reinforced by the number of counseling clients who cite the stress of caring for both children and aging parents.

In a perfect world, elderly parents would have planned ahead for assisted living or extended care and purchased a comprehensive insurance policy to pay for it. The reality is, not everyone will have it or can afford to have it.

So what can you do if you are part of this hamster wheel of never-ending demands on your time and money and keep your relationship and family strong in the process?

1.     Stay connected with your support circle.

In all the ups and downs of life, one fact remains: Your social support circle is a vital part of your emotional wellbeing. Because your time is limited, do your visiting in short spurts or while carrying out other tasks: Call a friend for a quick lunch or coffee, coordinate a grocery shopping trip with a friend, find a friend who will work out or take walks with you. You can always find ways to incorporate your support system without taking extended time away from home.

2.     Keep saving for retirement.

This could be the most difficult area to manage because both children and parents are likely to need financial help.

• It’s important to get financial advice for aging parents’ remaining assets and income to ensure proper management.

• Adult children should be given responsibility of their own finances and dependent children of all ages need boundaries when it comes to spending your money.

Avoid leaving yourself vulnerable to financial hardship when you are in or near retirement. If you can, work with a financial advisor to assist you with this essential task.

3.     Take care of yourself (and your relationship).

It threatens to be the snowball that turns into an avalanche as you lose yourself in the daily rush of caring for everyone else. If you don’t take care of yourself, you could become so stretched and stressed that you aren’t helping anyone effectively. If you allow your regular exercise regimen and good eating habits to fall by the wayside, you may experience a weakened immune system, decreased energy, and less patience to deal with the tasks at hand. So be sure to take time for yourself! For couples, being sure to take time for each other is crucially important to keep the relationship healthy during such stressful times.

You are not alone. There are many people in your situation right now. Seek local organizations that may provide some type of help. Scour the Internet for resources. Don’t be shy about asking for help from other members of your family, church family, and neighbors. Many persons find that connecting and partnering with a local counselor (or couples counselor) is helpful for managing stress and strategizing ways to balance responsibilities. Finally, maintaining a strong, healthy you is essential to maintaining your strong, healthy family.

This article is presented by Thriveworks Atlanta Counseling and Life Coaching, 8800 Roswell Rd #255, Atlanta GA 30350. Call us at 404-719-4233.  

PAIR Couple Inventory (About $50.00)

David H. Olson & Mark T. Schaefer

Couples Counseling: The PAIR (Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships) Inventory is a 36 item instrument that assesses five types of intimacy: emotional, social, sexual, intellectual, and recreational. It enables a person to describe their own relationship as they perceive and experience it. It can be used for a variety of relationships from friendship to marriage.

PAIR can be used for all types of dyadic relationships including friendships, dating, premarital, cohabiting, and marriage relationships. It is being used as a couple assessment tool in premarital and marriage counseling, as well as a feedback instrument in couple enrichment programs.

PAIR measures several kinds of intimacy that a couple may experience: emotional intimacy, social intimacy, sexual intimacy, recreational intimacy, and intellectual intimacy. PAIR measures both the perceived (36 items) and expected (36 items) levels of intimacy in that relationship. The discrepancy between the “perceived-expected” descriptions provides an assessment of their satisfaction in each of these areas. It can also provide directions and goals for couples in either therapy or enrichment programs.

PAIR has been systematically developed so that it will provide reliable and valid information about a couple. A conventionality scale has been included to indicate how much individuals attempt to “fake good.”

The advantage of using PAIR (vs. PREPARE/ENRICH) is that you only have to purchase it once. Then you can receive permission to reproduce your own copies for each couple that you counsel. Also, PAIR is a self-scored inventory that can be scored in a matter of minutes.

The PAIR Packet includes:

• PAIR Manual
• 2 PAIR Item Booklets
• PAIR Administration and Scoring Booklet
• 2 PAIR journal articles
• Abstract Form

Prepare/Enrich
This test is for premarital and marital couples. It explores the strengths and the growth areas of their relationship. It also allows a couple to discuss family-of-origin issues, helps them to make financial plans, develop couple and personal goals and strengthen communication skills and learn how to resolve conflict.

Other variations of this test are as follows – Prepare MC is for pre-marital couples with children. Prepare CC is for cohabiting couples. Prepare Enrich is for married couples and Prepare MATE is for couples over 50 years old that are considering marriage / re-marriage or a significant life transition.

ENRICH Couple Scales (About $50.00)
David H. Olson, David G. Fournier, and Joan M. Druckman

ENRICH contains three 10-item subscales that can be used for research including Marital Satisfaction, Communication, and Conflict Resolution. There is also a seven item Idealistic Distortion Scale.

The Marital Satisfaction scale provides a global measure of satisfaction by surveying ten areas of the couple’s marriage. These areas include the major categories in ENRICH: i.e. personality, role responsibilities, communication, conflict resolution, financial concerns, management of leisure time, sexual relationship, parental responsibilities, relationships with family and friends, and religious orientation.

The Communication scale is concerned with an individual’s feelings, beliefs, and attitudes about the communication in his/her relationship. Items focus on the level of comfort felt by both partners in being able to share important emotions and beliefs with each other, the perception of a partner’s way of giving and receiving information, and the respondent’s perception of how adequately she/he communicates with partner.

The Conflict Resolution scale assesses an individual’s attitudes, feelings and beliefs toward the existence and resolution of conflict in his/her relationship. Items focus on the openness of partners to recognize and resolve issues, the strategies and procedures used to end arguments, and their satisfaction with the way problems are resolved.

The Idealistic Distortion scale measures the extent to which the person is being optimistic, realistic or pessimistic in answering the questions. This scale can be a useful reference point in understanding the perceptual biases of a person. Premarital couples tend to be overly optimistic in describing their relationship, while unhappy couples tend to be overly pessimistic and married couples tend to be more realistic.

ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale (About $30.00)
David H. Olson

This is a 17 item scale with 10 items on satisfaction and 7 items on idealism.

The Marital Satisfaction scale provides a global measure of satisfaction by surveying ten areas of the couple’s marriage. These areas include the major categories in ENRICH: i.e. communication, conflict resolution, roles, financial concerns, leisure time, sexual relationship, parenting, family and friends, and religion.

The Idealistic Distortion scale measures the extent to which the person is being optimistic, realistic or pessimistic in answering the questions. This scale can be a useful reference point in understanding the perceptual biases of a person. Premarital couples tend to be overly optimistc in describing their relationship, while unhappy couples tend to be overly pessimistic and married couples tend to be more realistic.

Fowers, B.J. & Olson, D.H. (1993) ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale.
Journal of Family Psychology Vol. 7, No. 2, 176-185

Clinical Rating Scale (About $30.00)
David H. Olson and Elinor Killorin

The Clinical Rating Scale is an instrument that is designed primarily for use by therapists. It can be used to rate the family’s behavior on the dimensions of cohesion, adaptability (flexibility), and communication. It is then possible to assess location of the couple or family on the Circumplex Model.

Taylor Johnson Temperament Analysis
The Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis (T-JTA), an assessment from Pearson Assessments, measures personality traits that affect an individual’s personal and interpersonal adjustment. The T-JTA can be used for individual counseling, and with its unique “criss-cross” feature, it is ideal for counseling couples. The T-JTA profiles are designed to help counselors quickly identify problem areas. The instrument can help individuals better understand themselves and to compare their self-portraits with the perceptions of their spouse.

Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Referenced by Everett Worthington in Hope-Focused Marriage Counseling)

By: Graham Spanier

The Dyadic Adjustment Scale is 32 item self-report measure of relationship adjustment. Four factors are reported: Dyadic Satisfaction; Dyadic Consensus; Dyadic Cohesion and Affectional Expression. Normative data is provided for married and recently divorced couples.

The scale has good reliability and has been used in many research studies with a wide variety of couples, indicating good validity. Features include:

• Brief measure – quickly completed by clients.
• Wide variety of uses from couples counselling, effectiveness of therapy, at risk assessments, co-morbidity, etc.

Reports: The DAS may be hand or computer scored. Computer scoring and report generation can be completed on-site using the PsychManager software or through our Scoring Bureau’s mail/fax-in service.

Two computer generated reports are available. The Profile Report prints out a graph of an individual’s scores. The Integrated Report provides a graph of results for both members of a relationship.

1. DAS Profile Report.
2. DAS Integrated Report.

Other Inventories For Couples Counseling

Beck Depression Inventory
Do you think you are suffering from depression? This is a quick, inexpensive, self-score test that measures the attitudes and symptoms of depression to determine the extent of the depression.

State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI)
Are you or someone you know dealing with a lot of uncontrolled anger? This test explores how a person experiences and expresses anger. It is a straightforward, brief test with 44 questions and five main scales.

Trauma Symptom Inventory
This is a 100 question test evaluating Post-traumatic Stress symptoms resulting from rape, assault, natural disasters, abuse and other personal tragedies in an individual’s life. This tool measures the extent to which an individual is experiencing trauma.

If you are looking for a licensed professional couples counselor, consider contacting Thrive Boston Counseling at 617-395-5806.  or mail 872 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 2-2, Cambridge, MA 02139

1. RAD – What are the implications?

Reactive Attachment Disorder is a very serious condition. It is when a child is not able to establish an attachment or a bond with their parents or caregivers. When this is not managed properly, it can result in impairment in the child’s development, its inability to form long or short-term relationships as well as expressing his emotions. There are two forms of RAD – inhibited and disinhibited. In inhibited RAD, the child is not able to initiate or respond to interactions with other people (this is usually related to the loss of a primary caregiver). On the other hand, disinhibited RAD is manifested by a child participating in diffuse attachments and improper sociability, such as being excessively familiar with strangers. This is usually caused by the constant loss of attachment figures, or having multiple caregivers but being unable to develop an attachment to any of them.

The primary cause of reactive attachment disorder is the inability to consistently connect with a parent or a caregiver. There are certain risk factors that can lead to a child developing RAD. These risk factors include institutional or foster care, having different caregivers, inexperienced parents, consistent neglect, prolonged hospitalization, poverty and any form of abuse, such as physical, emotional or sexual.

2. What are the signs?

Here are some of the different manifestations of RAD in infants, older children and adolescents: in infants, they might avoid eye contact, fail to smile or reach out when picked up, reject your efforts to soothe them, do not care if they are left alone, do not coo or make any sounds, spend time comforting themselves such as rocking, are not interested in interactive games or often cry inconsolably. For older children and adolescents, signs and symptoms include discomfort over displaying physical affection, anger management issues, a preference for being dominant in most situations and never asking for help.

3. What can I do?

When caring for such a child, there are certain things that one should keep in mind to make the situation easier. Setting realistic expectations is one of them; be patient and strive to promote a sense of humor and joy for the child. Self-care is also very important, even if it proves to be stressful. When things get out of hand, find the time to talk with some friends or with anyone who can help. To further assist such a child, find the things that make them feel good and help them identify ways to express their needs. Of course, talking and playing with one’s child while responding appropriately to their emotional age is also very important.

It is very difficult to be the parent or the caregiver of a child who has reactive attachment disorder, but one should bear in mind that this condition is even harder for them. Keep vigilant and look out for the different signs and symptoms of RAD so that treatment can be sought after immediately.

This article was provided to you by Thrive Boston Counseling Services. Please visit our website at www.thriveboston.com for further information, or give us a call at 617-395-5806 if you are seeking assistance.

(In Canada, the percentage is roughly 70%, in the UK, it’s around 67%).

So, the question on a lot of couples’ minds is: how do you make it work, when you’re both…working?

Here are Three Strategies:

Strategy One: Clarify Expectations

Unspoken expectations are a deathblow to any relationship. If both you and your partner work, it’s especially important to clarify your expectations of how work-life and home-life will intertwine.

For instance, after a long day at the office do you need to be alone to decompress? Or do you want your partner around to discuss and debrief the day’s events with you?

Do you expect you and your partner to touch base during the day—that is, with phone calls, texts, or email–or do prefer not to be interrupted when working?

What are your expectations about time off, meals together, child care, and money? Addressing these issues, and others, will make sure that both you and your significant other are on the same page.

Strategy Two: Schedule Spontaneity.

People hate scheduling fun. However, for many working couples, if it’s not scheduled it doesn’t happen.  And that’s no fun at all.

Take a look at your calendar, and just like you would block off times for important company meetings, block off times for fun with your significant other. You don’t need to specify what you will do—just that you’ll be together, and not working. These respites from responsibility will help keep the spark in the relationship.

Strategy Three: Cheat — On Your Job. 

The philosopher Goethe once said, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

What happens when work conflicts with life—who usually wins? Too often, it’s work.

While career is important—not every “work emergency” is really worthy of cutting into your home-life.

In addition, small gestures like taking a day off when your significant other is sick, or coming home early once in a while, can go a long way in showing your significant other that the or she is a priority.

Question of the Day:

Are you in a relationship where both you and your significant other work? If so, what have you done that has helped keep the relationship healthy? Let us know, in the comments.