Читать книгу Sister Lilian’s Pregnancy & Birth Companion - Lilian Paramor - Страница 18

We all know that babies don’t save marriages, yet it is amazing how often couples in an ailing relationship pin their hopes for family happiness on having a child. Sharing children can be good as you will often laugh about mannerisms and delightful personality traits peculiar to your child in the knowledge that only you, the father and mother, really understand and love your child that intensely. A child will not, however, heal a deep rift.

Perhaps our expectations of marriage or love partnerships are unrealistic, but just as we hone the qualities needed for our careers and practise them, we should do the same for this time-consuming and very important aspect of our lives. I believe the tools of the partnership trade are:

•respect for the individuality of the other;

•time invested in making your partner feel good;

•regular and non-sarcastic communication;

•the ability to forgive and ask for forgiveness.

Taking time to do things together is the fertile ground for nurturing and practising these skills. And when the honeymoon phase of your partnership inevitably starts to wane, remember that this is natural and that a strong, caring friendship will nourish the relationship in the long term.

Before you embark on the road to parenthood, be honest with yourself:

REALITY CHECK

•Are the problems you and your partner experience too deep to overcome?

•Do you fight continually in a destructive manner?

•Is there mutual respect?

•Do you enjoy a wide variety of similar interests and friendships?

•Do you support each other in your personal ambitions?

•Do you give each other space to develop individually?

If, despite sustained hard work at the relationship, you simply feel the rift widening, don’t make the mistake of having a baby. Once you have a baby, there is a sense in which you are tied together forever. How many amicable divorces do you know of, where the good of the children is placed above the good of the parents? And then, as if to rub salt into the wounds, issues of access and finance complicate both partners’ lives. Think further ahead to your child’s school functions, graduation and wedding. How much heartache and awkwardness awaits the whole family?

I am all for trying to save marriages and wish to encourage you to work at your relationship in a positive, caring spirit. But do not underestimate the pressure babies and children can place on an already tenuous partnership.