{"id":2912,"date":"2026-10-11T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T05:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/?p=2912"},"modified":"2026-10-11T17:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T06:09:12","slug":"why-some-new-parents-stay-together-while-others-fall-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/why-some-new-parents-stay-together-while-others-fall-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Why some new parents stay together, while others fall apart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Working in the perinatal field, you get to see so many expectant parents take their first steps on the parenthood journey. They have such high hopes for their beautiful new family. Deep down you hope that they all make it, that their family is together forever. But the sad reality is it\u2019s estimated that in the US, as many as 1 in 4 fathers leaves the family home by the time their child is four years old.<\/p>\n

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So what makes the difference between the parents that stay together and the families that don’t survive early parenthood?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The research shows that one of the biggest factors is how they manage stress as a couple<\/strong>. Managing stress either helps them travel together in the same direction – or pushes them further and further apart. In fact, landmark research conducted by Belsky and Kelly showed that this polarization occurred in both happy couples and unhappy couples too. So, it\u2019s normal. But it needs to be managed: so happy couples don\u2019t become unhappy and unhappy couples can become happier.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that after the birth, a couple\u2019s connection improved or declined based on their ability to \u201creach across their differences\u201d. For example, in their ‘new normal’ after birth, mothers tend to take on most of the responsibility of for the baby’s health and wellbeing, while partners often feel that they\u2019re under more pressure to provide and maybe work longer hours, while at the same time feel that they\u2019re missing out on what’s happening at home.<\/p>\n

This \u2018divide and conquer\u2019 approach to early parenthood may make sense in terms of tackling tasks, but it can leave partners feeling disconnected at the end of their very different days, and for some, the beginning of drifting apart.<\/p>\n

What if you could help new parents to travel together, hand in hand, in the face of uncertainty, change and dashed expectations?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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If you want to learn more about how you can help parents prepare for their ‘new normal’ and find new ways of dealing with parental stress, check out our Becoming Us Professional Training.<\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n
Learn More<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sad reality is it\u2019s estimated that in the US, as many as 1 in 4 fathers leaves the family home by the time their child is four years old. So what makes the difference between the parents that stay together and the families that don’t survive early parenthood?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenthood","category-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2912"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2941,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2912\/revisions\/2941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ootw.au\/becomingus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}