In this article
If you’ve ever looked across the dinner table at your partner and realized you’ve talked about nothing but school pickups, grocery lists and bedtime routines for the past week, you’re not alone. The busyness of parenting often leads parents to interact more like business partners than romantic companions who once chose each other freely.
“Parenting introduces an entirely new dynamic into a romantic relationship — one where time, energy and emotional resources are suddenly divided among yourself, your partner and your children,” says Stephanie Saari, a licensed marriage and family therapist in San Francisco. “All of this can quietly create distance, making it feel more like you’re co-managing life than truly connecting as romantic partners.”
The good news: This challenging phase doesn’t have to take your connection down with it. Read on for unique, expert-backed strategies to keep your partnership strong even during the most overwhelming seasons of parenting.
Key takeaways
- Maintaining intimacy as parents doesn’t require elaborate date nights — small, intentional moments like shared rituals, light touches or quick check-ins can sustain emotional closeness. Consistent effort to prioritize connection helps couples feel like partners rather than co-managers of family life.
- Make deliberate choices to carve out space that belongs to you and your partner — whether that means reclaiming your bed, scheduling couple time or saying no to always putting kids first. Prioritizing your bond models healthy love and partnership for your children.
- Use shared calendars, clear division of responsibilities or systems like Fair Play to prevent constant logistical check-ins from dominating your conversations. The less time you spend coordinating, the more time you can spend connecting.
- Offer compassion to yourself and your partner rather than keeping score, and accept that your relationship will shift through each stage of parenting. If disconnection or resentment lingers, consider couples therapy early to strengthen your foundation.
Tips for creating — and protecting time — to connect
As parents, you and your partner are likely already exhausted, so the thought of planning and getting ready for an elaborate date night might feel like too big of a lift. But fancy nights out aren’t necessary to make your partnership a priority. Instead, look for little moments throughout the day where you can connect, or create rituals that are just for the two of you.
Get creative
Saari says it’s important to “remember that the basis of connection is about feeling thought of and important to your partner — not elaborate or time-consuming [activities].”
To that end, Cloyd and her husband have embraced what they call “back porch dates.”
“Our favorite thing to do is play a board game or card game and just hang out with a good playlist, some snacks and a bottle of wine,” she says. “We do this a couple times a month after bedtime, and even if we just spend an hour, it feels like we carved out some time.”
Nucci echoes this sentiment: “When we’re looking for extra connection, we play board games. We also shower together four times a week. Sometimes we talk about serious things, but most times it’s super lighthearted, and for some weird reason, we always laugh a lot.”
Set boundaries that honor your adult relationship
As a parent, it can be tempting to put your children first at all times, but it’s crucial to claim space for your relationship with your partner.
“By nurturing your connection with each other, you’re not only strengthening your partnership, but you’re also nurturing your children, showing them what love, teamwork and resilience look like in action,” Saari explains.
Cloyd knew she needed to reclaim space for her relationship when she looked across the bed at her husband one night and felt how much distance had grown between them — literally.
“I remember nursing my third baby one night and looking at my two kids sleeping between me and my husband and feeling actual heartache,” she recalls.
When she shared that feeling with her husband, he admitted he’d been feeling the same way. So they bought a couple of roll-up mattresses for when the kids wanted to sleep in their room and reclaimed the bed for themselves.
“Just being near each other as we fell asleep really helped us feel like we were still married and in love and not just two adults parenting the same kids,” she says.
“By nurturing your connection with each other, you’re not only strengthening your partnership, but you’re also nurturing your children, showing them what love, teamwork and resilience look like in action.”
— Stephanie Saari, a licensed marriage and family therapist
Streamline kid logistics wherever possible
When every conversation revolves around which kid has a soccer game, what time teacher conferences start and who’s cooking what for dinner, it’s hard to connect on a deeper level.
Cloyd found a practical solution. SheI puts kid logistics in a shared calendar. That way, her husband knows exactly what she has scheduled for each kid, and they get the same alerts.
This way, they can spend less time planning and checking in about the many moving parts of family life and more time to simply catch up. But it also comes with another big bonus: “It relieved some of the mental load of handling the kids’ schedules so I didn’t always feel like I was playing cruise director,” she notes.
How to approach your relationship as a unified team
Rachel Diamond, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in perinatal mental health who holds her doctorate in marriage and family therapy, says couples can nurture that sense of teamwork by checking in often about what feels fair and balanced.
“Fair doesn’t mean equal,” she explains. “What matters is that both partners feel their efforts are seen and valued.”
Get real about what fairness looks like for your relationship
Diamond points out that invisible labor — the endless mental load of planning, organizing, delegating and following up for birthday parties, after-school activities, doctor appointments, and on and on — can be difficult to recognize and measure, and therefore often goes unseen and unacknowledged.
“That doesn’t mean it is any less important or tiresome,” Diamond says. “Oftentimes it’s just the opposite.” She notes that when one partner — often the mother — serves as the house manager and task-delegator, it can create resentment for everyone.
Couples can find balance in their relationship by communicating openly and working together to create a system that works for them. Diamond recommends sitting down and deciding who is responsible for what, and for each person to be fully accountable for their assigned tasks — from planning to execution — so no one feels like they’re shouldering the invisible load alone.
If tension over roles and responsibilities is impacting the relationship, Diamond suggests couples look into tools like Fair Play, a system for couples to rebalance household labor, or working with a trained therapist.
Approach differences from a place of acceptance and curiosity
For couples who became parents before really establishing their relationship, learning to communicate well and maintain a strong romantic connection happens alongside learning to raise children.
“Couples who entered parenthood early may not understand what relationship vulnerabilities exist when it comes to co-parenting, such as differences in communication, parenting preferences and roles, or values,” Diamond explains.
She says the key is to lead with curiosity, not criticism and correction. “The more a person feels accepted by their partner, the more willing they are to attempt compromise and change,” she says. “Alternatively, the more a person feels their partner sees their perspective as needing to be changed, the less likely they are to change it.”
Saari adds that this season of transition can actually strengthen a couple’s bond, as long as both partners keep showing up for each other with patience and care.
“Becoming parents can be both incredibly rewarding and deeply challenging,” she says. “It’s natural for this stage to bring moments of strain as you adjust to new roles and responsibilities. What matters most is that you continue to show up for one another, knowing you’re on the same team.”
“Becoming parents can be both incredibly rewarding and deeply challenging. It’s natural for this stage to bring moments of strain as you adjust to new roles and responsibilities. What matters most is that you continue to show up for one another, knowing you’re on the same team.”
— Stephanie Saari
Be intentional with your connection, even in the small moments
When Nucci noticed that she and her husband weren’t connecting as usual, she didn’t say anything right away. “I was being complacent,” she says. “We weren’t fighting or arguing or even having a bad time. We just weren’t connecting with any kind of real intimacy.”
It was her husband who brought it up, announcing one day that he felt like they were just roommates.
“He was right. We used to have all these moments throughout the day when we’d connect — holding hands or a rubbing of the back or just a light touch as we walked by,” Nucci said. “So we made a very intentional point to get back to it. And it did bring us closer again.”
To set the stage for daily relationship rituals, Saari gives couples she works with three tasks to keep connection top of mind:
- Show daily physical affection — even small gestures like a shoulder rub or kiss.
- Respond when your partner reaches out, even if you can’t talk in the moment.
- Do one random act of kindness each week to show care and appreciation.
How to practice grace — for your partner and yourself
When you both feel like you’re running on empty, it’s all too easy to keep score and build resentment. But maintaining your partnership requires extending compassion, both to your partner and to yourself.
Release guilt about prioritizing your relationship
After Cloyd had her first baby, she immersed herself in motherhood so completely that her relationship with her husband took a major backseat.
“I kept our first baby on me basically 24/7 for over a year,” she recalls. “We had plenty of offers for help, and I didn’t take anyone up on them. I should have taken a few hours here and there to rest and just be with my husband without the baby.”
With her next two kids, she gladly took the offers for help. Not only has her relationship thrived, but her kids have only expanded their village of people who love them.
Like Cloyd, many parents feel they must pour into their children before caring for themselves or their partner. In reality, putting your relationship first benefits the whole family.
“A strong relationship between co-parents is the foundation for the family system and supports emotional stability within the home,” says Diamond.
In other words, investing in your partnership isn’t taking away from your children; it’s giving them the gift of parents who are connected and supportive of each other.
Accept that your relationship will evolve — and that’s OK
If you’re feeling a lack of connection or generalized discontentment with your partnership in the midst of raising small children, you’re far from alone.
“Satisfaction for couples frequently dips in the early years of raising kids,” Diamond says. “The postpartum transition involves rapid and sometimes unexpected stressors, such as mental health complications, sleep issues and shifts in roles and responsibilities.”
This doesn’t mean your relationship is failing. It means it’s adapting to enormous change.
“I like to remind new parents, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know,’ meaning that every difficult new milestone feels like it’s the new norm, because you’ve never gone through it before,” says Diamond. “But when you come out the other side, you see it for what it was — a transition.”
Know when to seek professional support
How do you know when normal stress within your partnership is something you’d do best to navigate with professional help? Saari offers a helpful guideline: “Your relationship should feel pretty smooth and connected 80% of the time, leaving flexibility for being overwhelmed and tired and having some frustrated or short interactions 20% of the time.”
If your ratio is flipped — if most days feel disconnected or conflict-filled — or if arguments escalate to a point that creates lasting anger or resentment, it’s time to reach out to a couples therapist.
That said, Saari acknowledges that relationship issues aren’t always obvious in the midst of taking care of small children, since so much of the attention goes out to them.
“It does require new parents to keep some level of awareness about how they’re feeling with each other,” she says. “Making this an active goal and scheduling a weekly check-in is ideal, because it requires some level of consciousness about the relationship.”
If you’re experiencing resentment in your relationship after having kids, Saari suggests seeking help sooner than you think you need it. “A good couples therapist can evaluate, from an outside perspective, any disconnection, anger or resentment building up,” she says.
Remember: Perspective matters
The early years of parenting are intense, overwhelming and temporary. Your relationship won’t look the same as it did before kids, and it shouldn’t. What matters is that you’re both committed to protecting your connection in whatever small ways you can, day by day, moment by moment.
“Remember, there’s no such thing as being a ‘perfect’ parent or partner,” Saari says. “Difficult moments are a normal and expected part of this journey.” Over time, she adds, your shared commitment becomes the foundation for a deeper, more enduring partnership — one that grows stronger through every stage of family life.
You’re not just surviving the chaos; you’re building a foundation that will support your family for years to come. And on the days when you feel like you’re failing, remember that simply caring enough to try makes you the kind of partner worth fighting for.
