Relationship After Baby: Why It Feels Hard—and How to Reconnect

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Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go to guide for navigating relationships, boundaries in laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy, your guide to creating relationships that feel good.

It's that time of year again, the baby boom. Did you know that September is when the most birthdays fall? And around me, I'm seeing so many clients, friends and families welcoming new babies. Which is why it feels like the perfect moment to Revisit this conversation, which is one of my favorite here on the podcast Podcast with a Friend and Colleague Becoming a parent is one of the biggest stressors a couple will ever go through. It changes intimacy. It stirs up our own childhood wounds. It asks us to reparent ourselves at the same time as parenting this little one. It collides with different parenting approaches, and it also forces us to navigate extended family in brand new ways. And yet, despite all of this, most of us prepare everything except our relationship. We decorate nurseries, we buy the swaddles, we learn how to install the car seat. We even practice infancy pr. But the one thing we don't do is prepare for how we'll stay connected to each other. Since this conversation, I've sat with countless more couples who continue to tell me the same thing. We thought having a baby would bring us closer. We thought we would be okay. We thought we could protect our connection. And yes, there are glimmers of that closeness. The honeymoon stage, when you're first home after having a baby and you feel like you're in that protective bubble. The laughter in bed, the chest to chest moments. But for most couples, what they actually feel is disconnection, resentment, and confusion about why it suddenly feels so hard. Before we go into today's episode, here's what I want to emphasize. None of this means your relationship is broken. It actually means you're human. We also don't talk enough about sexual seasons in a relationship. There are seasons of ease and also seasons of strain. And when it's hard, I want you to know it doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. Hard often means that you need support, you need skills, and you need a plan to get through this season together. And I think for so much of us, we lose that nuance in the quick scrolling through social media. How we don't emphasize that this is going to take hard work. So if things feel heavy right now, I want you to know it's not a verdict on your marriage. It's a signal. And I also want you to know that support is available. One of those options might be through my Be Connected program. It's an online space. I've been running it for five and a half years, helping thousands of couples feel more connected with the ease of you being able to access this resource at any time. And on top of that, for you to know that my new book will be released soon. You, your husband and his mother and I created this book because I kept hearing from so many couples that they were struggling with boundaries and Being on the same page with their partner, especially after having children. And if you happen to have a good relationship with your in laws, it's all the more reason to grab this resource because you're going to learn the skills and strategies that are going to help keep you on the same page and only strengthen that bond.

All right, today we're going back to.

This conversation with my friend and colleague, Dr. Cassidy. We talk about what no one tells you about your relationship, relationship after having a baby, and how to find small ways back to each other, even in the trenches. Let's dive in.

Dr. Cassidy, thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm so excited to get the chance to sit with you.

Oh, I'm so excited. I would sit with you and talk about anything, my friend Tracy. So, like, any chance I get. And I love the topic we're going to be exploring today. I know both you and I definitely share a passion for this work.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting. You and I have sat together before on Instagram Lives on your podcast, and I'm thrilled that you are returning the tables this time and you're sitting with me on my podcast, so thank you. So I love the question, not tell us who you are, but instead I'll do the bio. The intro in the bio is there, but instead tell us three things that make you you.

Okay. Oh, like wait, three things that make me me. Well, I think that I am first fully human and just like always wanting to go into any conversation and role and system, like, really embracing my, like, whole humanity and my humanness. And that means that I'm, you know, I've got my perfectionist parts and I've got my triggers and I've got my own history.

I also have my silly parts. And I would, I would say that shared laughter is my love language.

I love to dance like no one's watching, where I just, like, lose myself in the music. And it's one of the ways that I think me and my kids, at least when they're younger, I think my tween probably now looks at me like I am crazy, but it's one of the ways in which I connect with them. And I used to be an ice skater and a dancer, so it's just like a way of reconnecting with those parts of myself, too. So I'm messy. I can be funny. I can let loose. I can also be really serious. And I, I think that my, my serious side comes through in the work that I do as a therapist. But all My other sides come through there, too. But I really. I really do love to hold space for people in the hard stuff and the messy stuff infusing other parts of me, too, in there. Right. The humor and the messiness and the imperfections and all of that. And so, I mean, I feel like I didn't say three things specifically, but I like to break the rules too, sometimes. So I think. I think that that's where I'll land is, like, covered it.

I'm totally human.

And, like, there's a bunch of parts of me that infuse in there, right. Like, I'm a mom. I'm a therapist. Like, I'm, you know, I'm. I'm human.

And for people who don't know, Dr. Cassidy has this amazing podcast where you show up as human so much. And I actually remember finding your podcast before releasing my own and listening to your stories and thinking, okay, here's this therapist. She's in California. She's doing this thing. She's showing up as human. And what a huge shift that we could be doing in our field by we're not engaging in a therapeutic relationship. What we're doing here is much different than what we do in our office. And I mean, not taking out the being human part, but in the sense of sharing our stories and how powerful it can be for people to heal by hearing stories. Yeah. Yeah. So when I thought of, well, where is our, like, zone of genius together? And what would be the conversation that we need to have right now? And I think of the collaborations we've done before. But I think really what shows up for me is just how often we both see couples and we both work with mothers, and just how often people come into our rooms, come into our communities or our therapy rooms and say, you know, gosh, our relationship is just not where we want it to be. We're struggling.

We feel so far apart, and it's just such a common experience for mothers and couples to have this. And so I thought, let's just anchor ourselves in that. What is it that you see happening in our relationships after having a baby?

You know, I. I will. I will definitely say that over a decade ago, when I had. When we had our first, it was, you know, I talk a lot about the, like, behind closed door, messy side of becoming a parent in motherhood. And I think that the partner relationship aspect was, like, one of the messiest, you know, like, because it's just becoming a parent is. It can be so triggering because there's, you know, our own childhood experiences the luggage or baggage, whatever you want to call it, that we bring into a relationship. You know, it's when you have the, like, sleep and the space and the time to, you know, regulate ourselves, find times to connect. Right. But also, like, not having, like, literally a walking. Not, maybe not walking quite yet, but, like, a representation of, like, all these things that might be triggering it right in front of you that you're trying to, like, you know, manage together. It's. It's kind of easier to, like, move through life, like, maybe still feeling connected, you know, And. And also sometimes not talking about some of the harder stuff. And when you think. When I think about the prep that went into birth and postpartum for my husband and I with our first, you know, we went to the birth classes, we went to a baby CPR class, infant cpr. I went to, like, a breastfeeding support group just to kind of, like, get the lay of the land and see babies and mama's latch and, you know, and.

We prepared nothing for our relationship. And I was a therapist at the time. You know, it was the beginning. Baby therapist. Like, I was a therapist at the time, and I was just like, this will be fine.

It's so, so normalizing, Cassidy, when you say that, because here I am, same thing, couples therapist, you know, knowing all the things. And we did the birth course, we prepared the nursery and who we wanted to visit us in the hospital, but we didn't talk about our roles or how we were going to navigate, you know, postpartum mental health or, you know, how we would handle the mental load, which wasn't even a term that neither one of us had heard after having my first. None of that prep was there for us in our relationship. So I think even just being able to sit here and say, look, here we are, two therapists, and we didn't have that opportunity to prepare our relationship.

No, I think I was. You know, my husband and I have been together since we were in high school, and I fell in love with him very quickly. And, you know, I mean, we were together a long time. We break up here and there, but we always came back together. And I knew from a fairly early season of my life that this was the person that I wanted to spend my life with and, like, become a parent with. And I was just so excited for the good stuff, and I think the good stuff was there, right? And we don't necessarily have to, like, prepare for that, because those good moments will. Will be there. The mo. Like, there's. I still have a very vivid Memory of him. It's like in the middle of the night after she was born in the hospital and he took his shirt off and he was hold holding her to his chest. And like he looked over at me and he was like, are we always going to be this happy? And I just like, remember, like that is just one of those juicy feel good memories, right like that I hope I, you know, at the end of my life can like, be like, oh my gosh, like I lived and we had that moment. It was amazing.

But I think I was so just.

Really focused on the. This is going to bring us closer. And. And what I don't think I named is that there was a lot of fear going into motherhood. But I. It didn't fit with like the identity as a mom that I wanted to others to see. Right. And that I wanted to like, portray and like, and live. Was it ident. Was this identity like, oh, she was always meant to be a mom. And like, oh, they're high school sweethearts and they're finally gonna have a baby together. And I like. And underneath all of that was someone who was really, really scared. I was really scared. I really wanted to be. Have the birth, the perfect birth. The. I wanted to breastfeed. I want to, you know, be the perfect mom. Because if I was perfect, then that's how I would keep myself and my baby and my marriage safe. And so I went into, you know, postpartum with these very, like, unrealistic expectations as well as this kind of like, avoidance of the hard stuff, because that didn't fit what I envisioned motherhood and the good mom was supposed to look like and the good marriage. And then. Can I cuss on this podcast?

Yeah, of course.

Authentically. There's an E beside it, and I don't think people cuss enough.

Okay, so to smart, get explicit. Because then we had the baby and hit the fan. Like, literally like one of, like just one of the moments that like, is also forever going to be a juicy memory in my mind is I was struggling with postpartum, with. With ppa, with postpartum anxiety. I didn't really have a name for that. I was really ashamed of some of the thoughts that I was having, intrusive thoughts. And my husband was experiencing postpartum depression, which we didn't know was even a thing at that time. And.

My anxiety kept me up and wired. His depression led him to feeling exhaust very. I mean, I was exhausted, but he was like sleeping all the time. And so in the middle of the night with all the wakings wired, anxious, mommy here was up. And I still remember I was changing my daughter's diaper. She was a newborn. She had one of those like explosive projectile poops that just went everywhere, all over this perfect nursery that we had, like designed to the nines, right? Like all over the white little ruffly curtains. It was, it was literally everywhere. I remember him walking in and at this point, like I was. There was already so much resentment. And he walks in, he's like, you know, rubbing the crusties out of his eyes. I remember just being like, you piece of, you know. And he comes in and he's like, what did you do to her? And I lost it. Like, it was such an ugly moment, right? One of these nine closed doors, ugly moments. Awful things were said, like, to each other. And there's these, these two people, right, whom deep down love each other very much but are on these like little islands. Me, the island of, you know, postpartum anxiety, and him on the island of postpartum depression. And like, we can't, we can't reach each other. Like we. There was no, like, generous interpretation of what each other was going through. It was isolation and resentment and loneliness.

Eh, like in, in that sense of because we're on these islands, like the island just symbolizes the sense of being alone, feeling lonely.

And that sense of, you know, I don't know about for you, but in some ways I relate to your story, Cassie, in the sense of like having this upholding. I've got this, I can hold all this together. And if I'm going to keep telling myself I can hold this all together, there's no way I'm showing to others that I'm crumbling inside. And that vulner, that loss of vulnerability doesn't bring our islands together.

No.

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I think what I did was I armored up right with different defense mechanisms.

And that was, I think that the marriage piece like I, you know, I eventually, eventually we both got help. Wait. Took way too long, right? But we eventually both went to individual therapy and couples therapy. But I think that the relationship piece like I, I got, I was able to talk about my intrusive thoughts and my anxiety.

A lot more. Those, those wounds turned to scars in, in a way in which I was able to talk about them a lot more quickly. And by quickly I mean it still took a couple years there but to really heal. But it took a lot longer for me to really talk about the marriage piece and the relationship piece because I just think, yeah, I'm a marriage therapist. There's a ton of shame there around that. And it shame has this really slippery slope of leading us to feel like there's something just deeply wrong with me and like I don't want anyone to see this and so I'm just going to keep that hidden behind these closed doors. And it took him and I a year, a really long time to get To a place of feeling connected again. Like, we were on the same team. And I know for a fact that I'm not. That we're not alone in that.

Yeah.

And I see it in my work every week, you know, every. Every conversation. I mean, becoming a parent is such a stressor on a couple. It impacts so much. It impacts intimacy. It brings forward, you know, our own childhood experiences, the different. Different parenting approaches, and our own, you know, our own. Our family. Our family, extended family, family systems. Right. Like, how boundaries are going to be, you know, navigated.

I think I mentioned intimacy impacts, you know, our identities. It's. It's so much. And I. I really. I really found that beginning to open up about the struggles you could just see in other people. Like, their eyes get wide. Like, we're not alone. Right. And, like, that's what vulnerability allows, like, both in the couple and in us talking about these things about couples. Right. Like, vulnerability is the. The door that opens us up to connection, to getting support, to putting down our defenses so we can get support or, or have a. A conversation with each other and connect again. So, yeah, it's a lot.

I. I think there's this important piece in here of acknowledging that, you know, you and I know, we know what to do as an objective outsider. We can sit across from a mother or from a couple and talk about the things to do, the strategies, the skills, the tools, processing the luggage from before. And I think it's completely different than actually being in it and doing. And you mentioned the shame that comes with that. It is such a real experience.

And I want to. I want to normalize that for people listening. Because when you and I are sitting here and we're connected, we're regulated, we're not in this state of stress. We know. And so I like to use the phrase text bombing. I was really good at text bombing Greg and sending angry texts when he was at work and just helpless and confused and lost and tired and all of that. And resentful that he was at work having a warm cup of coffee, and I was just hanging by a thread in those moments when I'm not regulated, when I've just completely gone offline, you know, I can remember my son wouldn't latch before nap time. I would be walking the halls with my breasts hanging out, trying to get him to latch desperately. And, you know, and then just text bombing. Like, I know that's not the thing to do in your relationship. I know that doesn't bring us closer, but it was just this valve that had to Release. And I had nowhere else to put it, and it was so hard. And you mentioned this myth and I surveyed the community before sitting with you because I know we have so many of these myths or fantasies or wishes going into this period about what will happen in our relationship. And I'm so glad that you said it and you said that we would feel closer and more complete. Yeah. And that was the biggest one that showed up, that having a baby, moving into this next season in our relationship, we're going to feel closer. And the stories that you like, your experience, my experience, the stories that we hear, it's not. It's just not that.

Exactly, Tracy.

Not.

It's not that like, you know, your, Your.

Your moment, that moment of having your. Your daughter on your husband's chest as you were sharing it, I'm like, yeah, I have that moment. I can call it to mind. And of course, those glimmers. Right. These beautiful moments of connection. Or I have these moments of us all laying on the bed taking pictures and laughing.

Right.

All three of us. And they're there. They're glimmers. But then, you know, did we feel closer all the time? No. Did we feel more complete? My goodness, no. We were battling with ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and there's. There's so much like, that I think is important to bring into, like, understanding why. Right. Like the impact that sleep deprivation just has on our functioning, our ability to communicate, to regulate. Right. You know, the impact that having a baby and breastfeeding or navigating, you know, the feeding journey can have on. On. On both individuals. But when we look at the impact that birth and breastfeeding has and hormones have on the birthing partner and their libido and their body and their relationship with their body.

And when you look at the identity shifts and just the change in like, space, margins, freedom, spontaneity, flexibility. Right. Like navigating. All of a sudden, now there's. Now they're not just in laws, but, like, now they're grandparents and like, the intensity that that can bring to decisions around where we spend the holidays and boundaries and.

And how good each partner is at holding those bo. Sharing them and expressing desires and wishes. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

There's this piece here also around the transactional, and it even shows up today, now that we're several years after the one year postpartum mark, which is. Do you know where the splash pants are? Do you have the snow pants? What's the weather today? Did you pack the lunch? Oh, it's not lunch dates. Pizza Day.

Okay, good.

Well, we made lunch anyways.

But.

And are you picking up the kids or am I? And. And it, it's hard in these early years to get that intentional time of connection when. And again, you've already highlighted this, Cassie, in the sense of you're sleep deprived, hormones are all over the place, you're trying to figure out this new relationship and your own identity mixed in with guilt, shame, rage, anxiety.

And then, and then it's just, It's a lot, right?

That's so much. It's so much. And so, you know, I think so then I'm thinking of a listener and they're like, okay, like, this, this is helpful. This is important because now we first need to feel not alone, right? Like, first we need to like, address the, like, aloneness and those feelings and those experiences to then actually have the space, capacity to take a step, to do something different. We have to first feel like this isn't just like a. There's just something deeply wrong with me and us problem. Like this is. There's a name for it. Others experience this, right? Like, and so then the follow up to that is like, so then what can we do? You know, And I think that obviously the listener may be in a variety of different stages, right? Like, maybe the listener is in the. Trying to conceive or, you know, preparing for a child to enter the family season. Or maybe they are in the trenches, in the depths of, you know, that first year. Or maybe they're, you know, in more the toddler years, early years of parenting or beyond. Because those become. Those years bring their own challenges of all of a sudden, like navigating. Like, how do we discipline? What are our philosophies? How do we get on the same page with everything from, you know, screen time to meal time to, like, navigating.

Bedtime and bath time.

Yeah, all of it. How do we navigate figuring out how we're going to share the load of having a family and having a home together? And it's. I think that it's, I think it's. I really want the listener to hear me say this right now. That like, it is never too late to have some of these really important conversations. Ideally, I wish that my, that my husband and I had these really important conversations before our baby was here, that we went to couples therapy before we became parents. Like, not because we were on the brink of divorce, but because, like, we had the space and capacity and, and it was, it would, would have been really protective and proactive of us to do that. And so if you are, you know, in the, trying to conceive or planning to grow your family, season of life, like, talk to your partner about, you know, hey, I want us to, like, be, I want us to be really proactive and I really want to protect our relationship. And so maybe one of the ways we can do that is by, you know, talking to a therapist and a couple therapists and finding out some of our sticky points and what we're bringing into parenthood. And, you know, or, you know, if having these conversations, you know, on just the two of you, right, like, that's, that's a beautiful way to start it. Also talking about things like, at the end of the day, like, what are each of our values, right? When it comes to this next season of our life and what we want to prioritize.

Talking a little bit about, you know, boundaries and, you know, family, extended family, you know, a great place to start is like, yeah, who's, who's going to be there when the baby's born and what's, what are those visits going to look like afterwards and where are we going to spend the holidays? You know, talking about things like, all right, let's just take a specific example, like food, like when, when a child asks for a cookie or before dinner, what are both of our philosophies on that?

Right?

Like, just beginning to have those conversations. And, you know, if you're, if you're past that season and you're in the trenches, here's, here's actually the reframe I want to offer you. You already have the data of, like, what the sticky points are going to be, right? So you're not having these, like, well, what if conversations, you're like, here, this.

Right?

Like, how are we going to tackle this?

Right? Like, we are co piloting, like, this plane together and here's where the turbulence is showing up. And you know, I think that it's, it's, it's really, really helpful to have some guides when it comes to this. And so I love doing values work with couples where, you know, you can look up, Bernie Brown has a, a really wonderful, like, list of values. You can both look up a list of values, spend some time separately identifying the ones that you prioritize, and then come back together and explore where the differences are, how you define these values, why you're prioritizing these values. And I think that then translating these values into the decisions that we make, right? Because at the end of the day, if my husband and I disagree on something, but we've, we've already we've had the conversations where I can understand why this is important to him. Like, you know, just getting out of the house. Right. Like, he, like, he might want to be, like, rushing us out, whereas I'm like, wait, we need to, like, get all these things together so we're prepared for once we get to the destination. Right. But if I understand the values that might be really informing his decision to, like, be on time, whereas I'm prioritizing things to help make sure that we are prepared. Right. Like the. The stuff that's happening in that moment, I. It might be easier for me to. And ideally easier for him to have a more generous interpretation of why we're choosing to prioritize certain things in that moment. Right. And. And then from there, maybe open up dialogue for, okay, next time, like, we need to start getting ready earlier or like, hey, babe, I need your help to make sure that we're more prepared. You know, you've said it twice.

Generous interpretation. And I just want to highlight this, that. That when we first start dating, we give our partners that generous interpretation if they, you know, likely within the honeymoon stage. Right. You're like, oh, right, they're late because they got caught up at work.

Of course. Right.

I understand. Or they, you know, said it this way, and we just. We do that early on, and then we lose that, particularly when we're in the trenches and we're sleep deprived and all the things. So I think that is so important. And part of that, a hot topic in. In my community, is our partner's moods impacting us. And that, too, is kind of wrapping it in there in the sense of separating that what's happening with your partner is not about you. And that is this piece in our luggage. Right. Where we can easily personalize and internalize things.

Yeah.

And particularly when. And I love your example there, Cassidy, where it's like, we're trying to get out the door and you're rushing us. You're not thinking about me. Why?

Right.

And there's a reason why our partners do those things, often not about us.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, generous interpretation is something I. The wording of it that I. I got from my. My friend, Dr. Becky Kennedy, and she talks a lot about that in terms of. In parenting moments. Right. And she also said, how can that translate into turning towards ourselves and our partners? But that was a big shift for me because I. I've gotten really good at giving my children the most generous inter.

But giving it to myself and to my partner was a lot harder. Right. And I think that that's like, tapping into being able to give myself a generous interpretation actually became one of the first steps because a lot of times, you know, it was. I was looking at myself as an adult and I was, like, really hard on myself as a mom, like, why can't I get this right? And, you know, what's wrong with me? And that would. That would sometimes project itself onto my. My husband, the other adult in the house, in the household, you know, and recognizing that our children deserve the most generous interpretation and the compassion that comes with that and, like, tender approach that comes with that. And my husband and I, like, we deserved those things when we were kids too. And at no point did that change that we no longer deserved that.

That.

Right. And so being able to turn towards myself with that same, like, that. That same sort of, like, getting down at my own level that I would with my child. Right? Like. Like, yeah, it's okay to feel these things. It makes sense. And, and right. Like, just, like, I don't want to get swept up into my kids, like, feelings and, like, absorb all of that and get swept up into, you know, what, that their, you know, their whirlwind of a tantrum. And I want to stay, like, very, you know, secure in, like, where I am and where they are so I can show up for them. The same goes for with my partner when he comes home and he's really, really grumpy, like, being able to be like, okay, these are his. These are his feelings. Here I am, right? He deserves that generous interpretation. I know how to do that because I get. Give it to myself too, right? And. And now I'm able to, like, approach him in, like, a much more tender way.

And, and also. And also in a sturdy way where, like, if he's throwing it at me, I can be like, no, not cool. You know, Like, I'm not. I'm not going to receive that, like, I love you. Just like I would with my kid, you know, like, I love you. It's okay to be sad. It's not okay to do this, right? Like. Like, love can come with boundaries. And yeah, I think that it's the. The minute my husband and I started to give each other. And I will actually say it to him now, like, hey, babe, I'm really needing a generous interpretation right now. Or, like, I will even say to him, like, my most generous interpretation of, like, where you're at, like, with. With what you just said is this. Is that. Am I right? Like, I got that right? Is it wrong? Is there Something else that's going on. Right. And it just like. Like, it's almost like this little cue word now for the two of us that's like. It softens both of us.

Yes.

Like, he knows that I'm thinking about that, or I know that he's thinking about that, and he's trying to give me a generous interpretation. Even just that, knowing the effort is there, it softens me. And oftentimes in that softening is where, like, the vulnerability has a little bit more room to show up, to show.

Up, to create that connection. I. I talked about the healthy boundaries in our relationship and being able to have a limit with our partners the same loving way that we would with our children. Right. We turn to our children and say, I know, cookies are so good, and you really want that cookie before bed, and I can't let you hit me. And let's make a plan of when we can have the cookie.

Right.

We turn to them in very gentle, conscious parenting approaches. Right. And then we turn to our partner, and we're like, what are you looking at? We're not having cookies tonight. Put the cookies away.

Right.

And it's like, it is. You know, And I love the work that Dr. Becky is doing, just in the sense of what we're doing with her children. But as she had said it to us. Because you're teaching us how to do it with ourselves.

Yes.

And let's translate that into what we're doing with our partners. Right. Because when we can offer it to ourselves first, then it's easier to give it to our partners. But we can't just give it to our kids and hope they'll absorb that, take it in and move forward. Our children need us to see it modeled between us.

Totally. I mean, go ahead.

Good.

Yeah. At the end of the day, it's like, a lot of times people will come into therapy because they're like, we don't want to screw up our kids. You know, I don't want to screw up my kids. And I'm like, you know, whatever got you in the door? But my hope is to get them to a place that. That mom or dad or that couple to a place where it's like, oh, like, actually, we deserve. Like, we deserve this even outside of our role, like, of being parents. Right. But yeah, like, a lot of times what is motivating to folks initially is. Yeah, we.

It's.

Kids learn by what they observe. Right. Like, not just what we say. Like, they can sniff out. If it's like, you're telling me to be like, kind to myself. And then I see you saying unkind things to yourself or like, striving for perfect. You talk about, like, my perfect voice and how I. But then I hear you trying to be perfect or like, you know, are you and dad, like, being really, like, like impatient with each other and like, not compassionate towards each other, you know, so. Or you and your part, you and mom or you and dad. So it's like, it's. I think it's. That could be really motivating for folks, you know.

You know, one other resource that I love, because I just think we learn oftentimes through like, tangible doing of something, you know. And so Eve Rodsky, her book Fair Play is great, but she also has a card deck where you can. There's actually it. It lays out all the jobs and roles, Right. Of running a household and having a family. And that was actually really a big game changer for my husband and I when we sat down with that card deck and looked at, you know, which things were important to us and then who was doing it now and to kind of see, you know, a lot of the invisible load that I was carrying and also some of the invisible loads that he was carrying. Right. And finding ways in which we could pass some of this to the other. For me, a big part of that work was like, then saying, I'm not going to micromanage or control the way that you do this. Like, I'm giving this to you to learn and to shape and here, here to offer any guidance since I've been doing it for a long time. But, like, now this is yours, you know, and, and just that really helped with us just sparking the conversation around, sharing the load. But I will say that, you know, we had couples therapy before we went into those conversations just to help us with, like, communication basics, you know, so that we could engage in these conversations without just getting sucked back into old cycles of, you know, defensiveness or criticism or, you know, avoidance.

What would be the one thing that you would want the couple in the postpartum throws right now?

What would you.

What would be the one thing you want them to do? We've already talked about generous interpretation. That's what one's important. But if we could add one more in thinking of the sleep deprived parents, the parents who are in that transactional time.

You know, oftentimes going deep into conflict and wounds is not front and center because we don't have the capacity to do that.

Yeah, that. That's what the first thing that comes to my Mind when it's like if you're talking like the sleep deprived, like postpartum, like you're in the trenches, like in that, in that space. It really is about like we need to get, we need, we need sleep. Like I think that like for that couple, like when I think about my husband and I, what we did differently than for this. Our second was we made a plan so that we could both get sleep because I knew that I was, you know, had risk factors for anxiety, he had risk factors for depression and nothing was work was going to work and was going to function without sleep. And so we made a plan for our second that there was going to be. It was going to be his mother in law. And so that also engaged in, you know, we had to engage in dialogue just around like how we're going to communicate what we need from the support, right. And be on the same page, be on the same team, right. It was like a nice practice of like we're on the same team here together and recognizing that we both have a need here, we both need this. And so we actually asked my mother in law to come a couple nights during the week. She would spend the night while we both, you know, got sleep earplugs in eye mask on separate rooms so that we could actually get sleep so that we could have more of that capacity the next day to communicate with each other more effectively, to pick up on baby's cues, to, to be proactive against, you know, PPA and PPD for us. And, and you know, it's not always possible to have somebody actually come in the home. And so then with our third with COVID we didn't have that. And so in that case it was us having conversations about how can we share nighttime parenting roles together so that both of us are getting opportunities to get restorative rest. And it's like such a, like tangible, logistical, practical like things like sleep. Like what's that to do with like the love in your marriage? Honestly, everything at that point. Like him, him getting up with her, him like saying, you know, it's your night, go get those earplugs in like, hey, go, go get that sleep. Like at. In that season of life that was his. That was our ways of like showing affection and like love towards each other. Wrapping up in that, in my comforter, knowing that like I had the next like four hours even just without needing to be needed, right. Like he's got this. It was, it felt like love. In that season of our life, you.

Know, I love prioritize Sleep, though, that it's. It's this foundational piece that I know a lot of people will continue to justify and push off and say, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. And that can really help to protect you moving forward. Yeah.

And then it was getting. It was. It was allowing ourselves to meet ourselves where we were at in that season. Like, we're in the season right now. We're like, it's not gonna look like, you know, trips or, you know, necessarily dinner dates or, you know, going out or sex, you know, for. In that post, that really early postpartum period, it was not. That was not happening. And I think it was about getting creative for us in other ways that we could feel close. And, you know, for me, it was having him brush my hair or, like, you know, gently, softly, like, rub my back with him. He loves it when I, like, step on his back and, like, help him crack it.

We love. We. We have a very similar sense of humor. And so watching funny videos, like, shoulder to shoulder and just laughing together.

I think that. But that moment when he walked in and our daughter had literally, like, had literally hit the fan and she had projectile pooped all over that, you know, decorated nursery. I think that that moment, if, like, both of us had gotten. Had been getting a little bit more sleep, if we had been giving each other the most generous interpretation, if we had given our. If we had, you know, the night before, he had brushed my hair or I had walked on his back, or we, you know, took some time to laugh at something together. I think that middle of the night moment, it could have looked a lot different. It could have looked like us laughing. It could have looked like us just, like, working together as a team. Or, you know, it could have still looked like him saying something and me snapping back and then, like, you know, being able to repair, you know, much more quickly after. So, yeah, I think that that's. I think that those are some of the main pieces that I'd want to offer that couple or that person listening right now.

I am so glad that you've been able to share these key pieces today, Cassie. And I want to just thank you for being so human with your story. And, you know, we can often come into these experiences, like podcasts and interviews from a very expert level and citing the data and the research. And yet, what I know is we do heal from stories and from knowing we're not alone in the shit hitting the fan. And then I just think that, you know, these few pieces here that we've talked about today are so helpful. So tell everyone where they can find you, Cassidy.

Yeah, so I have a private practice here in California in the US and can see folks who reside in the state of California. We've got a wonderful group practice with some amazing clinicians and we specialize in working with individuals and couples in that peripartum, early parenthood season of life. And you can learn more at our website, www.doctorcassidymft.com. i'll share the link with you Tracy, so you can put it in the show notes. I'm also on Instagram @Doctor Cassidy, and if you're looking for a good laugh right now I'm mostly only showing up on Fridays where I share funny curated TikTok.

My favorite day on Friday.

Yeah, I think that our our generation could appreciate. I also have my podcast holding space where I share conversations like the one we just had.

That's great. Thank you, Cassidy.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

I hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode. I think there are so many pieces that Dr. Cassidy and I talk about and and I think one of the things that we can really learn in terms of moving forward in our relationship is to practice dropping our armor. Of course, when Dr. Cassidy and I talk about this, we really are talking about what happens in an emotionally and physically safe relationship. You need that as a foundation before you can drop your armor. But when we do that, when we turn to our partners from a place of vulnerability, we are offering this chance of connection. And that vulnerability really does take away that experience of being lonely throughout this hard, hard season in our life. As we're wrapping up, I want to hear from you. What did you think of today's episode? One of the best ways that you can support the podcast is by clicking the stars if you're listening on itunes. And also leave me a few words. I read every single review and I'm also in my DMs on Instagram rtracyd and I love connecting with you and hearing how these episodes resonate with you. So I want to first thank you for tuning in, sharing this episode so that your other friends and loved ones can also feel less alone and also to feel more connected with themselves. All right, I will see you next week with a new podcast episode.