- Someone's been watching "Rush Hour" too much.
- I've never seen that.
- I know, but you're still doing
what Chris Tucker does in that movie.
- Who's Chris Tucker?
- Oh my gosh!
How are we even married?
(Jonathan giggles)
(bright upbeat music)
Hello, and welcome to the Therapist Say
where we break down from our fans
things that their therapists have told them
that rightfully give us all pause.
Today we're gonna be talking about the advice
that a baby fixes everything.
- You're saying it doesn't?
- Has it for us?
- Well, I mean I did it five times
so if it's not fixing something, why?
- Because we didn't discover
that vasectomies were a thing
until pretty late in the game.
So here's the thing, couples often think,
"Okay, we're stressed, we're having a hard time,
we're on the verge of breaking up,"
and there's this very old school mentality.
- Right.
- It's very old school, but
- Predominantly religious cultures, I'm telling you.
- This idea that if you have a baby,
marriage is for family, right?
So if you have a baby, it will strengthen your marriage.
It will give you unity of purpose, right?
- Closeness.
- And closeness as you bond over this life
that you've created.
And the love that the child brings into your home
will be bonding and healing.
Your thoughts?
- This is not true.
(both laughs)
There is a lot of responsibility
that comes along with raising a child for 18 years.
- Mhm.
- A lot of stress.
And I don't think, you know,
when there's already stress or tension,
you just pile on some more stress,
take away some sleep, you know, and it's like,
that's somehow supposed to fix it.
- It's water on a grease fire.
- Yeah, along with the idea
that you're bringing a human being,
you're bringing a child into this environment.
And is that really fair?
- Fair for the kid, yeah.
For the child.
- Because if, I look at it like your relationship
is a foundation for the family.
If the home is your building,
your relationship is the foundation.
And if the foundation is wonky,
you don't start building the walls.
- Right.
- Right? You fix the foundation first.
You're right, that it's not fair to the kids.
I just look back on how little sleep we got
when we had newborns, and I just think
if you're having strain and stress in your marriage,
and then you add,
- A lack of sleep - A total lack of sleep,
you add a divergence of a,
this is just more opportunities
for us to disagree and argue over something
and the stakes are even higher now.
So the emotion is even higher
and we haven't figured out how to resolve conflict
or communicate in a healthy way.
It's just gonna compound everything.
It's all just gonna be bigger
and then, that you get at less sleep,
there's diapers to change, there's more bills to pay,
everything gets more expensive,
everything gets more complicated.
- Right.
- Now some of you're watching and it's like
"Well, the ship's already sailed.
Our relationship was in trouble
and we already had more kids or I'm pregnant."
Like it's okay, the answer is still the same.
When they say,
"the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago,
the second best time to plant a tree is today."
Right, it's the same thing with couples therapy.
It's the same thing with working on your relationship.
Like it would have been better before kids, sure.
It's still not too late,
but if you're contemplating having kids to fix your marriage
(Jonathan whispers) that's not how marriages get fixed.
- Don't do it.
- The best way to fix your marriage
is to actually work on conflict resolution,
is to work on your anger, is to work on what you do.
Do you withdraw when you're angry or do you lash out?
And what should you do instead?
And how do you get there?
It's to work on actually communicating your wants and needs.
It's working on, getting on the same page as far as goals,
as far as life vision, as far as how you'll raise your kids.
Because if you think you're arguing now
about who should do the dishes
or who's gonna take the trash out
or your jealousies, just wait when it comes to
how are we gonna raise the kids?
It's gonna be huge.
- So when is the right time to have a child?
How do you know?
- Well, some people say I wanna wait until I feel ready.
I don't think you're ever ready to have a kid.
- I Would've been like 40.
(Jonathan laughs)
I would've been like, I think I'm ready now.
- Because it's a growth experience
and there's always gonna be a curve
and there's always going to be things
that you couldn't anticipate.
But as far as your relationship,
are we on the same page as far as our goals for our life?
And you may think that you are
but if you're not having regular conversations
about what your life looks like five years from now,
a year from now, six months from now, three months from now
if you're not talking about
how we are, what we are gonna do with our money?
How we spend our money, how we save our money,
how we invest our money.
If you're not talking about
what values do we want to instill our children?
What role does faith have in our home, if any?
These are the types of things that you want
to be locked down on the same page
and then you can bring children in.
Are you having a lot of contentious strife and conflict?
- Right, well, and something to understand about conflict
is all couples have conflict
and conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing.
- It's like manure.
It stinks and no one likes it
but it's necessary for growth, right?
Conflict can be a very beautiful thing.
A lot of the best growth in our marriage,
both for us as a couple and for us as individuals
has come from conflict, it's come from disagreement.
It's come from seeing the world differently
and having to like do that painful process
of meeting in the middle somewhere.
There's conflict and there's contention.
- The question is,
do you know how to resolve conflict in a healthy manner?
Are you able to stop and calm down,
come back and come back together.
- And I'll tell you, if you haven't learned it
like sought out how to learn it,
the answer is probably no, you don't.
Most people naturally don't know how to resolve conflict.
We are fight or flight, we withdraw or we attack
and that is what people do.
So if you haven't actually taken the time to learn it
the answer's probably no.
- Well and recognize that it's almost never modeled.
Like I didn't grow up in a home
where it was modeled in a healthy way.
Most of us don't have that example
and so how do you create something in your life
that you don't even know what it looks like?
- Right, I had it,
and I realized the older I get how rare that is
that I had a healthy model of how to resolve conflict
and how to navigate differences and how to be a team.
It's actually, the reason why I became a therapist
is I saw what my parents had
and I wanted other people to have it.
We offer support in that arena.
Our counselors are all trained in helping couples
like yourselves to get into a place
where you can resolve conflict in a way
that brings you closer together,
instead of pulling you apart.
And so if you're watching this
and you could use the lecture support
schedule a complimentary 15 minute consultation
there's the link in the description below.
- So I have one more question.
If people are in a relationship, a couple,
and they're struggling and they had a baby,
what do they do now?
- Get help now, learn now.
Is it going to be a little bit more of an uphill battle
or a lot more of an uphill battle
because you've got children in the mix?
Yeah, it will, doesn't mean it's not worth doing, right.
And so you educate yourself,
"The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work"
is a great book on this subject that I would recommend.
The work that we do with our relationship courses
and that our therapists do is great work for that.
But there's so many sources and resources
for how to be a healthy couple.
We do not live in an age that our grandparents lived
and where no one's talking about this.
- Right.
- Where everyone's just assuming,
well you love each other and you make it work.
The fact is the good old days weren't necessarily so good.
Some people had great healthy marriages
that they kind of stumbled into
or they learned some good values but a lot of people
- There was a lot of unmet needs,
there was a lot of buried trauma.
- Yeah, and they stayed together but they were miserable
but we don't live in that era anymore.
There's so many resources for people out there.
- And recognize if there are generational patterns
of behavior or examples that you are living with,
that you can be the pivot point,
you can be the turning point,
you can be the person that says
this stops with me
and my kids are gonna have a better example.
My kids are gonna have a different opportunity.
- Now I do wanna say for a lot of people,
having kids can be a very bonding beautiful experience
that brings you closer together,
that increases your unified purpose
but what it doesn't do is fix what's broken.
If what's broken is fixed, if you're in a solid place,
then yes, it can be something that brings you even closer.
But it's not, it's a bandaid on a bullet wound
and it's not to be used that way.
It's not fair to the kids and it's not fair to you.
Now if you've enjoyed this one, which of course you have,
we wanna invite you to check out this other video.
"You can't heal broken relationships," they said.
How do you know if a relationship can be saved,
or if it's time to walk away, we address it in that video.
Now for those of you who are watching, let us know
in the comments below, how do you strengthen your marriage
and how do you prepare for children?
Or how have you done this?
We'd love to hear what you have to think.
- Love to hear what you have to think.
(both giggle)
or have to say.
So until next time
Please keep shining because we need your light.
(upbeat music)
Oh, look it.
It's the next one that we were telling him about.
I don't know why you would do anything with your time
but just sit and watch mend light videos
all day, every day.
- [Alicia] I bet it makes you a better person.
- [Jonathan] It's a pretty good life.