Divorce, separation, single parenting are all too familiar in the lives of families in contemporary society. Living together with an intimate mate creates profound psychological, emotional, and logistical challenges. Many couples who chose to move in together find themselves having more tensions and less satisfaction. It is in the very nature of sharing space that the intimate psychological dance begins to truly unfold. The reservoir of melodies and noise that shaped our early years reassert themselves as we find ourselves in conflict between the confusing loyalties of our past and the current demands of our partner in life in the present. Couples that are able to negotiate the dueling themes of their past begin to emerge with a coherent narrative that is able to accommodate the needs and dreams of each. Within this developing story, couples “choose” to bring in a child.
Living together as a couple creates stressful dynamics from our pasts but thrusting ourselves into parenthood fully engages us in the need to manage the unresolved angers, fantasies, and losses that burdened our own experiences of children in our families of origin. Child rearing is inherently conservative because it relies on the templates of our imagined past experiences with our parents to guide how we react as parents. We now must act as authorities—that is, as a couple we will have to make constant decisions about the welfare of our offspring in an atmosphere where advice comes from everywhere and guarantees from nowhere. How you as a couple learn to mange your family’s decision making responsibilities will not only affect how your children respond to authority but it will profoundly influence how well you as a couple can withstand the inevitable stresses of daily life. As authorities, you are responsible for setting behavioral expectations with appropriate reinforcements and consequences and for establishing a lifestyle that is sufficiently nurturing to each family member. We fall in love and decide to have a life partner in order to share, but we find that life with children demands endless decisions and each one can be an opportunity for conflict and injury. The successful couple evolves an appreciation for the wisdom of the partner in specific domains and encourages and supports that partner to exercise that authority as needed. The supportive partner offers ideas and consultation in order to feel that options are considered.
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