Foundations of Love

10 Sep Foundations of Love

Posted at 00:00h in Parenting by

“Dear Dr. Hanson,
I just don’t feel that spark with my husband any more. Who knows what he is feeling because we never talk much beyond ‘what’s for dinner,’ ‘what happened at preschool,’ or ‘how did it go at work.’ At night when we could be together, we are so fried that we just go to bed. I read, he goes to sleep, and after awhile I turn out the light. We used to feel so good about each other. Does that feeling come back? Can you lose a spark forever?”

It is so easy to conceive a child, and so hard to provide strong and lasting care. I think it is even harder to stay in love.

The price of parenthood

Just parenting itself is very difficult. The larger task of making a family — earning a living, maintaining a marriage, juggling schedules, managing a household, etc. etc. — is even harder. In the best of circumstances, parenthood strains mothers, fathers, and marriages. And if circumstances are not the best, then the extraordinary work of family-making can damage the health of individual parents and tear marriages apart.

In order to raise children with the greatest possible love and skill, three things are vital. First, mothers and fathers must take care of themselves and each other so they have something to give their child. Second, they must work together. They must find a way to parent consistently, share the load fairly, and solve problems and conflicts. Third, it is best if they stay married and provide a model of a strong and enduring love.

Besides a child’s needs, parents have needs and wants of their own. Mothers and fathers need ways to parent well without killing themselves in the process, ways to solve the pressing problems that stress themselves and tear marriages apart, ways to keep alive the spark that drew them together in the first place.

The flame and the wick

A quintessential image of romantic love is candlelight. Candles contains a lesson about staying in love. The lovely flame that lights our lover’s shining face is wrapped around an everyday bit of boring blackness, a wick, humdrum — and absolutely essential.

The fire of romantic love can sustain itself for a while, but over time there must be a wick, a foundation to an enduring love. The foundation of love between parents consists of skill and well-being in two areas: Self and Team. Self and Team intertwine with a third circle — the Couple. Together, these three circles are the foundation for family.

Self, Team, and Couple

Self is the domain of the individual parent. It includes everything we do, think, and feel, as well as our physical and psychological health. Team is the territory where mothers and fathers must work together (or fail to do so). This includes what they think of each other as parents, how they work out problems, and how they share the load. Couple is the realm of the loving heart. This domain includes friendship, romance, and sexuality. It is the territory of being “in love with” the man or woman one married, beyond being co-managers of the family enterprise.

These spheres are intimately interrelated. If a mother or father becomes physically or psychologically worn out or even unhealthy (Self), she or he will probably have less energy to work things out with the other parent (Team) and have less to bring to the intimate relationship (Couple). It is a cliche with broad implications: tired parents have little interest in sex . . . or conversation, or difficult negotiations about the daily business of schedules, budgets, and what to do when Johnny tells Susie that she looks like a pig.

Or if two parents disagree about parenting practices, or have a hard time cooperating in solutions to the everyday problems of families (such as around schedule or money), or have resentful feelings about not sharing the load fairly (Team) — then each individual parent will be that much more stressed (Self) and the negative feelings from the breakdown in teamwork will make it harder to be friendly, loving, romantic, or sexual (Couple).

And if there is a cool distance between spouses, or ongoing harsh and critical talk, or no time for their own relationship, or little romance and sexuality (Couple), then the reservoir of goodwill, compassion, and love which couples need to solve problems (Team) will be drained, and individual parents (Self) will not be fed by their intimate relationship and supported by it through the difficult tasks of parenting.

Positive cycles

Because these three spheres are connected, the bad news is that problems in one sphere affect the others. The good news, though, is that when good things happen in one sphere they cause good things to happen in the others. For example, a parent who exercises regularly may feel less stressed (Self) and as a result be more patient during conflicts with a spouse (Team) and feel happier in the intimate relationship (Couple). If mothers and fathers make agreements to share the parenting load more evenly (Team), then individual parents will be less fatigued (Self) and resentments about inequities in the workload will not spill over into the bedroom (Couple). Or if a husband and wife arrange to go out together by themselves once a week or so (Couple), then each is likely to feel a bit more cared for and restored (Self) and also friendlier and more civil at times when disagreements used to get heated (Team).

When parents want to bring back the spark, they are often advised to spend more time together. I think that’s great, but if the foundation is shaky (Self and Team) then the benefits of going out will be limited. It may be fun to hear about ways to spice up your love life after children, but not very useful when you feel hurt by your spouse or you’d really rather sleep.

A gift to yourself and your partner

Perhaps a good gift would be to talk about how you can take better care of yourselves and each other. If you are really brave, you might agree on a time when you can talk about being better teammates, about how you can treat each other with more respect, speak more civilly, cooperate and compromise more, and negotiate more effectively.

The “how” of caring for parents and working better as a team is pretty straightforward. I have written much on the subject which you can find in my book Mother Nurture or in my blog posts about parenting. Many other counselors are knowledgable in this area, so you may want to consider speaking with a marriage or couples counselor. The key to parental well-being and teamwork is thus not techniques but rather intention followed by sensible work.

When your foundation is solid, it often takes very little to bring back the spark. You were in love with each other once. There was a time when seeing each other made your hearts beat faster. You can feel that way again! Clear away the muck surrounding your wick, straighten it up, and then light a little flame and watch grow ever brighter and hotter.

This is an article adapted from the book Mother Nurture (2002) by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Jan Hanson, M.S. and Ricki Pollycove, M.D.

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Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and expert on the impact of toxic narcissism. She is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and also a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg.

The focus of Dr. Ramani’s clinical, academic, and consultative work is the etiology and impact of narcissism and high-conflict, entitled, antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. She has spoken on these issues to clinicians, educators, and researchers around the world.

She is the author of Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, and Don't You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility. Her work has been featured at SxSW, TEDx, and on a wide range of media platforms including Red Table Talk, the Today Show, Oxygen, Investigation Discovery, and Bravo, and she is a featured expert on the digital media mental health platform MedCircle. Dr. Durvasula’s research on personality disorders has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and she is a Consulting Editor of the scientific journal Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Stephen Porges is a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and has been president of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences, which represents approximately twenty-thousand biobehavioral scientists. He’s led a number of other organizations and received a wide variety of professional awards.

In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological states in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders, and has had a major impact on the field of psychology.

Dr. Porges has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers across a wide array of disciplines. He’s also the author of several books including The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation.

Dr. Bruce Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network, Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, and a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago and the School of Allied Health at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. From 1993 to 2001 he was the Thomas S. Trammell Research Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital.

He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of trauma in childhood, and his work on the impact of abuse, neglect, and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs, and policy across the world. His work has been instrumental in describing how traumatic events in childhood change the biology of the brain.

Dr. Perry's most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, was released earlier this year. Dr. Perry is also the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children, and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Additionally, he’s authored more than 300 journal articles and book chapters and has been the recipient of a variety of professional awards.

Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith is a child clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma and issues of race. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard and then received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She performed postdoctoral work at the University of California San Francisco/San Francisco General Hospital. She has combined her love of teaching and advocacy by serving as a professor and by directing mental health programs for children experiencing trauma, homelessness, or foster care.

Dr. Briscoe-Smith is also a senior fellow of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and is both a professor and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Wright Institute. She provides consultation and training to nonprofits and schools on how to support trauma-informed practices and cultural accountability.

Sharon Salzberg is a world-renowned teacher and New York Times bestselling author. She is widely considered one of the most influential individuals in bringing mindfulness practices to the West, and co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts alongside Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Sharon has been a student of Dipa Ma, Anagarika Munindra, and Sayadaw U Pandita alongside other masters.

Sharon has authored 10 books, and is the host of the fantastic Metta Hour podcast. She was a contributing editor of Oprah’s O Magazine, had her work featured in Time and on NPR, and contributed to panels alongside the Dalai Lama.

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