Children and Changing Love: How Parenthood Redefines Relationships
Why Love Changes After Kids and How to Embrace It
My wife and I have been together for 16 years and married for 13. Looking back, there’s almost nothing about who I am today that either of us would recognize in the man I was a decade and a half ago. Life changes us—surviving a drunk driver, grappling with infertility, facing heartbreak, parenthood and diving into entrepreneurship has made me more patient, more forgiving. It’s only natural that love changes, too. Just as we evolve, so does love, and it’s time we acknowledge and embrace that.
The love between parents, particularly after having kids, is rarely addressed beyond surface-level advice like “10 Ways to Keep the Spark Alive.” This singular focus on romance is like putting a Band-Aid on a deeper, evolving reality. Love isn't static, especially after huge life changes like becoming parents. And let’s be honest, new sex positions are not going to help. It’s time we navigate these realities more fundamentally.
We All Change (And So Does Love)
The truth is that change is inevitable. Studies published in Psychology Today show that 40-60% of our personality can change over 10 years, impacted by major life shifts like becoming parents, evolving careers, life crises and even the Cubs winning a World Series. So, why should love be expected to stay the same?
Consider this:
Infidelity rates range, depending on the source and definition, between 20-70% of couples, and very often, it’s linked to unmet emotional needs rather than a loss of passion (Pew Research Center and Esther Perel).
A third of marriages experience significant crises during the first year of raising a child. So you can extrapolate what that percentage might be over the course of 10+ years of marriage.
Parenting challenges, like infertility, affect 1 in 8 couples, creating emotional and relational strains (Our World in Data).
Then of course there’s the obvious data point… 50% of marriages end in divorce! Given this, it’s clear that love must evolve—and so must the way we approach our relationships.
Navigating Love’s Evolution
The modern parenting landscape is shifting. More men are leaning into parenting, while more women are focused on their careers. Traditional gender roles are being recast. Ambitious Dad Brett Astor shared how he and his wife crafted a unique solution: “We decided that neither of us would work full-time. We designed our week so we can both be involved in pickups, drop-offs, and everything in between.” For many, it’s about redesigning family dynamics to fit their needs rather than defaulting to traditional roles. To embrace this changing love, here are some key strategies:
Watch more French movies. The narratives we consume shape our ideas of love. American films tend to promote unrealistic ideals of endless passion, while French movies often dive into the messiness and complexity of relationships. With a bottle of wine to help with the subtitles, we can start to reframe our expectations around love and partnership to include struggling, compromising and growing.
TED is only the beginning. There are amazing talks, like Esther Perel’s two on infidelity and modern relationships, that explore the deeper layers of love and individual growth in the context of marriage. Classic books like the The Art of Loving teach us about love as an active choice, while The Five Love Languages provides tools for understanding how we and our partners experience affection. The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work offers practical steps for nurturing a relationship. These resources are essential for developing a deeper understanding of how to maintain connection as our relationships evolve.
Identify your needs. It’s amazing how something that sounds so simple can be so elusive. We think of needs as a checklist of things we can’t live without, but we get so absorbed in the life we’ve built and the people we take care of, we confuse others’ needs for our own. Make a habit of regularly checking in with yourself and your partner about individual needs. Ask yourself and each other, “What makes my heart sing?” and take those answers seriously.
Mind your “ughs.” After years together and having children, we naturally fall into patterns of storytelling about our partner’s behavior. We’re juggling a million things, so staying curious and assuming positive intent in all our conversations is impossible. But without curiosity, we undermine the emotional safety in our relationship. Many Ambitious Dads highlighted the resentment that comes from unspoken expectations. One dad noted, “We have 25 things we have to do as parents, but we don’t always prioritize the same ones. She may think math tutoring is key, while I prioritize basketball—and that creates friction.” Another Ambitious Dad shared the challenge of balancing work and home life: “I wish we didn’t shame each other when one of us has to work late. If we don’t communicate well about our workload, it causes frustration.”
Validate! We’re changing, remember? And we’re prioritizing 18 things a day. There is substantial power in validating our partners efforts, regardless of if it’s what you would focus on. When you acknowledge what they’re doing well, it fills their cup—and in turn, their appreciation will fill yours. Go beyond general compliments; recognize specific actions, like the way they handled a stressful situation with the kids or rocked it on their late-night work call.
Therapy together. Given how much we evolve, therapy isn’t just for problems; it’s a proactive tool for navigating these shifts. It helps couples develop the skills to understand one another’s changing needs, avoid resentment, and deepen emotional intimacy. As Mike Allen shared, even the way we communicate shifts over time: “Knowing the words that can trigger your spouse is huge—it’s a struggle, but understanding those triggers is key to better communication.” Relationships require flexibility, open communication, and sometimes, external help.
Conclusion
When you first meet someone, you’re getting to know them and “auditioning” each other’s best qualities. But 10 years later your needs and personalities have evolved, and you must try to stay curious. Practice seeing them with fresh eyes. Ask them how they are really feeling, instead of just diving into the transactional routine of coordinating schedules. It’s easy to default around shared responsibilities, but making an effort to meet someone’s emotional needs is critical, and that starts with understanding your own first, too.
So what does it really mean to meet someone’s emotional needs in the context of being a parent? As a parent most of our energy goes into meeting our kids’ needs - emotional and physical. But if we embrace the evolution of love, we can build stronger, more resilient relationships that weather the ups and downs of parenting, career changes, and life. Long-term love is about adapting together—and that’s what makes it all worthwhile.