Parenting is where Rebecca and Bill’s sense of shared Personal Worth is to be achieved. They know that they love each other and that these tensions will soon pass, especially as the children grow older. Rebecca and Bill are fully committed to finding Personal Worth through their parenting—this commitment serves as a “glue” for their marriage. Other couples have devoted less time than Rebecca and Bill to being intimate. Differing interests leave many couples with no time set aside for talking about their relationship or their parenting. Or simply enjoying each other’s company. Frequently, one of the partners (often the male) feels left out and ignored by the doting parent/partner. Their searches for Personal Worth are not aligned. Rebecca and Bill care deeply about different things. Bill is looking to his career for a sense of Personal Worth, while Rebecca looks to her role as a devoted mother. Not surprisingly, many of these conflicts concern the time spent by Bill with their children.
When describing a significant change that occurred during the 23 years of their marriage, Jeannie told a story about their first son, Pete, who was born ten days before their first anniversary. Jeannie was ecstatic about the pregnancy since both she and Bob had thought that Bob was sterile. Jeannie did not even see a doctor until she was five months pregnant because she thought it was impossible. When Pete was born, Jeannie’s whole world became her child. She shut Bob out. The couple had little time together. During the interview, she described herself as being an “obsessive” mother. Her child came before anything else. Personal Worth was totally invested in her view of herself as a parent. After fifteen months of considering only her child, and lavishing him with all her love and devotion, her relationship with Bob showed signs of disrepair. They fought more often and communicated less frequently and less clearly with one another. Bob also began drinking more heavily.
Bob reported that he felt excluded from the bonding between Jeannie and his son. His own investment in childrearing and intimate adult relationships as sources of Personal Worth was being ignored by his wife. Having been neglected himself as a child, Bob became jealous of the attention Jeannie was giving their son. Once again, he was being left out, now as husband and father rather than son. Bob resented their loss of time as a couple, and he did not like the child sleeping in their bed. He became increasingly fearful about being a capable parent and felt guilty about his own feelings of rivalry with his son. He found little of worth in his life as a spouse and parent.
Frequently, the issue of time spent doing something other than child-rearing is heightened because both partners work full-time, and late evenings are often filled with household chores that neither partner can do during the day. Many couples we interviewed reported very little time for talking or sex. They were left with an exhausted snuggle at the end of a long day. Many couples also do not enjoy Rebecca and Bill’s capacity to look beyond their immediate child-rearing problems to the gratification that they are receiving from this complex and demanding process.
In the midst of hurt feelings about attention being devoted exclusively to a child, or conflicts regarding who should change the diapers, it is often difficult for a couple to share a moment of mutual admiration for the important job they are doing in bringing a child into the world. It is hard for them to set aside time for savoring a shared sense of Personal Worth as good parents.
