{"id":8517,"date":"2016-09-06T06:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=8517"},"modified":"2016-09-08T22:07:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T02:07:43","slug":"martial-friendship-buffer-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/09\/martial-friendship-buffer-stress.html","title":{"rendered":"A Way To Prevent Marital Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4167\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2013\/02\/couple-in-love-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"couple in love\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" \/>Mike and Jan were excited about having their first baby and becoming new parents. Several of their friends were entering this new stage of family life and the anticipation of impending parenthood created excitement. Yet, all the changes and stress were taking a toll on their marital relationship. The couple argued about small things, busied themselves with too many task and lost sight of time together. This was supposed to be a happy time in their lives, so why didn\u2019t they feel happy?<\/p>\n<p>Having a baby is not the easiest transition for couples even when the experience is positive. The reason for this is because marriages are vulnerable during transition times. Marital satisfaction usually takes a dive because couples face more conflict and tend to have less positive communication. Stress rises and if you aren\u2019t careful, that stress can challenge the marriage. The question then is what helps couples prevent this normal developmental change from becoming so stressful?<\/p>\n<p>Researchers Shapiro and Gottman wanted to find out so they studied a group of couples who had children during the first six years of marriage. Looking at the couples who became parents, they studied those whose relationships remained stable and actually increased on measures of marital satisfaction versus those who did not. They identified a key factor that helped buffer the stress of having a new baby. It may surprise you, but speaks to the importance of friendship in marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Marital friendship was the important factor that buffered the stress for couples making the transition to becoming new parents. That friendship included two key elements: 1) Spouses had a level of awareness about their partner, his\/her life and the couple relationship. 2) Husbands admired and were fond of their wives.<\/p>\n<p>So if you want to protect your marital relationship from stress, build your friendship. Don\u2019t get so busy and consumed with the details of having a new baby that you ignore your partner. Keep the friendship strong and make time for each other. Focus on things you admire and respect about your spouse. Get to know your spouses\u2019 interests, stay positive, talk, have fun together and enjoy each other\u2019s company. The strength of the marital friendship will serve you well when stress and change become a part of your family life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike and Jan were excited about having their first baby and becoming new parents. Several of their friends were entering this new stage of family life and the anticipation of impending parenthood created excitement. Yet, all the changes and stress were taking a toll on their marital relationship. The couple argued about small things, busied&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[913],"tags":[128,998,1520,937,17],"class_list":["post-8517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-couple-relationships","tag-couples","tag-happy-marriage","tag-marital-friendship","tag-marital-relationships","tag-stress-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Way To Prevent Marital Stress<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/09\/martial-friendship-buffer-stress.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Way To Prevent Marital Stress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mike and Jan were excited about having their first baby and becoming new parents. Several of their friends were entering this new stage of family life and the anticipation of impending parenthood created excitement. Yet, all the changes and stress were taking a toll on their marital relationship. The couple argued about small things, busied&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/09\/martial-friendship-buffer-stress.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-06T10:00:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-09-09T02:07:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2013\/02\/couple-in-love-199x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Way To Prevent Marital Stress","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/09\/martial-friendship-buffer-stress.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Way To Prevent Marital Stress","og_description":"Mike and Jan were excited about having their first baby and becoming new parents. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8517"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8529,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions\/8529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}