Marriage: Tips & Advice for Coping With the Stress Caused By Children

Children can make or break a couple — whether you’re deciding to have them — or you already do have them.Ways children come between couples:1. One member of the couple wants them and one doesn’t.2. Both people want children, but they both want to work and the man wants the woman to stay home with the kids.3. Both people want children, but the man wants to stay home with the kids and the woman doesn’t want him to.4. Both people want children, but the woman wants to stay home with the kids and the man wants her to work.5. One or both members of the couple is infertile and infertility treatments are a “wild card.” (Expensive, not certain to work, and can be stressful to the relationship)6. Adoption is something that one member of the couple wants – whether there is infertility or not – and another member does not want. Some people are invested in having their own DNA passed on. Other people want to parent children, regardless of their biological origin.Even once you do have the kids they can put a damper on careers, but on marriages, too.1. Normal kids can take way more energy than either person expected. Work productivity may suffer. Sex life may suffer. Everyone may be more snappish because of the lack of sleep and excess stress that comes with parenting.2. Kids can have unexpected problems ranging from asthma to allergies to ADD to more serious health issues that can change and drain relationship plans.3. Multiple births are much more common today with fertility treatments at all time highs, and the stress on a family of raising twins, triplets, or larger quantities of kids — with or without already existing siblings, can be huge.BEFORE YOU GET MARRIED – TALK IT OUTAPRIL’S TIPS ON MAKING “THE P WORD” EASIER TO DISCUSS1. Discuss pregnancy and children while you’re dating. In fact, the earlier you find out your partner’s views, the sooner you can decide if you’re still “onboard” the relationship or not.2. If you don’t want to have children — be upfront about this. Tell your friends who are fixing you up on dates. Alert online dating partners that you’re looking for someone who doesn’t want to have kids, also. And don’t continue a relationship where your partner dreams about living in a house with a white picket fence, a Volvo station wagon and six rugrats underfoot.3. If you do want children, and your partner doesn’t, don’t count on “changing his or her mind” or on him or her changing their minds “with time.” It may not happen, and the pain and suffering will be your responsibility for not accepting your partner fully.4. Deals can be made — but be prepared. If one of you want kids, and the other partner doesn’t, a compromise of one child can be made. However — be prepared for today’s pregnancy “landscape” which includes infertility, selective abortion (if you find yourself an infertility patient with a promise to your partner of one child, and you get pregnant with twins, triplets or quadruplets, the partner may press you for selective abortion to “eliminate” one or more of the embryos for health reasons and/or personal reasons) and the tremendous expense of ZIFT, GIFT, artificial insemination and other in-vitro fertilization techniques. Adoption is another option, but can bring up tricky emotional baggage for one or both parents.The important thing is to keep lines of communication open, seek professional help if needed, and be aware that some people’s life dreams are to be parents so that this issue of children CAN make or break a relationship.