How to Thrive in a Relationship as New Parents – Mental Fitness

At the bottom of the pyramid, is something he refers to as physiological needs. This is a phase of life where people are doing the best they can just to survive. They are trying to get sleep, food, and water and that’s their main focus. Said another way, they’re just trying to survive, but the thought of thriving is kind of out of the question.

This is typically what happens when people have kids. They tend to go down Maslow’s hierarchy and lose the ability to travel and court and invest in their health or careers like they could before having kids.

This can be quite shocking, however, I mention it because having the right expectations about having kids can help you not resent your kids or your partner in that phase.

The fact is most people do go down the hierarchy of needs when they have kids, and that’s OK!  Often the biggest challenge of having kids in a relationship is not letting go of the expectation that it should be the same as when you were just dating.

A flexible belief system can help you and your partner offer each other grace as you go into a survival state as new parents, and then trust that as your child or kids get older and more independent, you will move back up the hierarchy as well.

Parenting is incredibly hard . Thriving in a relationship as parents is also very hard, however, I hope by having flexible expectations and offering grace to your partner throughout this phase of life, it can help you have the right mindset to make it through in the most loving way possible.