Relationship Quality: How Kids Affect Your Romance

It's commonly said by many that having children can make your marriage stronger. Yes, it's not overrated. In fact, you stay together and longer for the kids but in that notion, it was never mentioned that relationships of couples get more intimate and passionate after having children. In many studies, researchers stressed out that the fire slowly goes off when couples started to raise their kids.

Here's Why

According to a post in the Conversation, it explained that raising a child or children is next big thing to do as a couple but the transition that they need to go through is bigger because almost everything will change. "From lovers to parents" may sound fulfilling but try to remember when you were still in a relationship without the knots tied, your priorities were different. But after marriage and having children, you'll find yourself choosing diapers over those designer clothes.

By simply saying, it means parents are prioritizing the needs of their child than their own satisfaction not just in material things but also emotionally. Raising a child needs a lot of effort from bathing, feeding, sending to and fetching them from school, etc. All those requires physical effort and at the end of the day, parent couples tend to rest than spending the free time with intimacy.

One Factual Study

In an eight-year-long study about the effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality published in the journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers suggested that the deterioration in relationship quality is really evident in couples after having their first child. Involved in the longitudinal study are 218 couples (with and without children) and those couples without children better because they have a gradual deterioration in relationship quality than those parent couples.

Keeping the Fire Burning

A suggestion coming from iMOM, setting boundaries and focusing not only on your children but also on your marriage is the key to keeping the heat on. One example given out is making your master bedroom free from kids if possible because this is the best place you can relax as a couple. As you focus on the needs of your children, try also to focus on the needs of your marriage with the same amount of enthusiasm.