In this episode, we continue our conversation with Licensed Professional Counselor Tim Carroll about the importance of good communication and how to make sure it happens.
Narrator (00:00):
Welcome to the Moms Circle Podcast, presented by Floyd Medical Center, a place for new moms, veteran moms, and moms to be, to hear expert advice from experienced healthcare professionals. Here are your hosts, Dan Bevels and Jen Carroll.
Dan Bevels (00:17):
Hello and welcome to the Moms Circle Podcast. I'm Dan Bevels. On our last episode, we began a conversation with licensed professional counselor, Tim Carroll, about the importance of communication and the key role. It plays in our success as both partners and parents. Today, we're going to continue that conversation. Tim, as we wrapped up the first part of this conversation, we were talking about how important it is for dads to be just as involved in the care for the baby once they come home, as the mom. Let's take that a little further. What are some other steps that dads can do to ensure that the relationship with their partner is strengthened and protected in these early days, which can obviously be very tiring and stressful for the mom?
Tim Carroll (01:04):
I want to frame all of this as opportunity. Is it stressful? Absolutely. It is stressful. It's a huge life transition. Absolutely a huge life transition. Got to be way up there as far as if we're measuring stressful life experiences. It's way up there, but it's also rich with opportunity, and it's rich with opportunity for you and your partner to really become a power couple, in the sense of connected and close and really deepening your understanding for each other. Another piece I want to highlight too, again, remember, it's easy to talk about, easy to say, super hard to do. Everybody's stressed, tired, maxed out, but I think we want as partners, as dads, as husbands, I think we really need to be looking for strategic moments to continue nurturing our relationship with our partner. We get so focused on the baby, so focused on the newborn. So focused on the newborn. This little tiny six, seven pound, eight pound, nine pound new person that's entered our lives eclipses everything else.
Tim Carroll (02:21):
I think we've got to keep looking for these little opportunities to make small deposits in just our couple of relationship. And one of the ways that we do that, I believe, that can be really important is with what I would call non-sexual touch, just nurturing touch. Holding your partner's hand, rubbing their arm, offering just a comforting hug, not just a quick sideways hug. Again, think about those first five minutes. Maybe there's an opportunity there. It's not just that passing hug, but a real embrace. Learning how to give non-sexual, nurturing touch, touch that just says, "Hey, I care about you. I'm so grateful for you. You're precious to me. Here, I want you to just to be relaxed and to be still for a moment. Just let me hold you, let me rub your shoulders or massage your hand, or let me massage your feet." It's really important, really important as men to be clear that this is not about sex, that we're not expecting anything in return. Again, I think this is a tough issue and I think it's something that we need to talk more about.
Tim Carroll (03:32):
Again, you think about, it's maybe three weeks out, and as partners, it's like the whole question of, when are we going to begin to be sexually intimate again? This can become a real source of stress and tension for new couples. And is part of being connected. It is part of being connected. He may be feeling more tension or feeling more interested and she's sitting there thinking, "Oh my God, I am so touched out. I've been pregnant. I've just had a baby. I might be breastfeeding. I've got baby attached to me physically all day, every day. My body has changed. I've taken this major hit physically. I'm not back to my pre-pregnancy self. I don't know if I ever will be." She's going through so many changes, and he's wanting to have sex? And she's just thinking, "How's this going to happen? I'm confused and this is the last thing I want."
Tim Carroll (04:39):
And so, again, for him to be able to just say, "Hey, this is not about sex. It's okay. Just relax. This is just about being together. It's just about having a few moments where it's just you and me. It's just you and me. We've got to find moments to do that. Touch may be part of it. Maybe it's not touch. Maybe she's so touched out. She doesn't want you to touch her. Again, there's got to be moments, but that's where screen-time may be a great option. There's got to be some sort of a TV show that you can sit and watch together. I don't know what it's going to be.
Tim Carroll (05:14):
The key concept is to find some ways to nurturing your relationship. It may not be going out to a movie. It may be. It may not be being able to go out on a date. I'm talking about small deposits we can make at home that don't require hours. This is critical because this is the time when a lot of us begin to drift apart. There's so much attention on the newborn, and it's almost like, "I'm so exhausted. I just don't have time or energy to deal with you the way we used to deal in the past. I'm not able to engage with you intimate level the way we have done in the past." That's what we're thinking. And so the challenge is either we're not going to engage at all, and that's the drifting apart, or we have to find some new ways, within the context of an hour or 30 minutes, to comfortably nurture our relationship. And I just think that non-sexual touch is so, so important.
Dan Bevels (06:20):
And I think that every effort we can make to understand that upfront and to prepare for it fends off the resentment that often comes soon after birth, when the mom necessarily is so focused on the baby. And it's easy for us as dads, because again, we're not there all day long in those early days. It's easy for us to say, "Hey, what about me? I used to be the center of your attention and then now I'm not anymore." And I think that a lot of dads hear that and they think, "Oh, I would never feel that way," but I think it is a real emotion and we have to [inaudible 00:06:58] for it.
Tim Carroll (06:58):
It's very common. Actually, that sense of resentments for dads, and even sometimes for moms, although for moms, I think it's more commonly grief. I think for moms, again, that's really confusing. Again, I have dads who are clients who've struggled, maybe it was feelings of resentment, and then feeling almost like childish that they feel that way. But it is understandable in one way, in the sense that what's really happened is you're trying together is taking a huge hit, and you're going to feel something as a result of that. But for moms, a lot of times what I hear from moms is a really confusing sense of grief. "But shouldn't I be over the moon happy? And I'm really, really sad. I'm sad. I look at my baby and I'm grateful. I'm happy, but I'm sad because there's some losses. I've lost a sense of independence. I might have lost a working role. I might have lost a sense of identity that I had." Jen, you want to speak to that? I think that that's something that we don't talk enough about, but it does impact on couples, sometimes, of surprising grief.
Jen Carroll (08:11):
Yeah, absolutely. Grief is a normal human response to loss, and it doesn't mean that that loss isn't something that we actually decided to do, but it does involve a sense of loss often involves grief. And so many moms, especially moms who've had careers and are at home for a bit of time, it is normal for them to process through this and feel a range of emotions. And the same is true for the fathers, the partners. It's normal. This is normal thing, but we don't talk about it because somehow we're afraid of it. We can bring it up there and we'll find that it's not that scary, that it's actually a very common experience. And what you guys are talking about and learning new ways to nurture relationship doesn't mean that, "Of, I'm not going to have this amazing, wonderful relationship."
Jen Carroll (09:10):
No, it means that it's going to get deeper and better, because we're going to know that person more fully, understand them more, and be able to take what we're learning through this transitional part of our life with us. And on that, we will build new skills and it gets better. And that's the thing that people are afraid of, that it won't get better. Well, it can, but you have to make some choices. And again, you're giving some tips about how to make good choices instead of drifting apart to move closer together, to know each other better, even more intimately. And then those intimate parts of relationship will return and be even sweeter. So it is a transition. And again, I'm glad that we can talk about it openly and frankly and be able to give practical tips and how we can better support each other and nurture our relationships.
Tim Carroll (10:19):
Again, that listening piece is just so important and being able to separate really learning how to listen and understand, make that a very, very separate piece from any kind of problem solving or addressing what next steps or anything like that. So again, it's not safe for a dad to talk about feelings of resentment or a mom to talk about feelings of grief if the partner's going to react in a negative way, if they're going to question, if they're going to say, "Well, what the heck is that about?" If they're going to become critical or defensive. And again, I know it's easy to talk about, it's really hard to do. I get that. But just being able to just say, "Well, gosh, yeah, I get it." If a mom is saying, "I used to have a life," that's the way I hear it, actually. In my counseling practice, that's what I hear.
Tim Carroll (11:17):
I'll hear moms say that, "I used to have a lie, and I love my baby. I wouldn't give her up for a second, but I used to have a life and I don't have that anymore. And I'm trying to figure out what that means." Or for him, it's like, "I used to have a wife," is what he's saying. "I used to have a wife. I used to have a partner and I don't anymore, and I kind of resent it." And so again, if we don't know how to listen, if we don't know to how to have this conversation without reacting in a very defensive or critical or blaming way, then those conversations actually become very unsafe and very disconnected. And so we can talk about communication skills and techniques, and I love talking about those. I spend hours and hours and hours and hours every week helping couples learn specific techniques.
Tim Carroll (12:19):
But at the end of the day, we have to start off with something more fundamental, which has to do, really, with an attitude, I think, of the heart, which is like, "Hey, you know what? What you're going through, whatever it is, really, really matters to me. What you're experiencing is really important and it matters to me. And I may be experiencing something very, very different from you. I probably am. But what you're experiencing is really, really important to me. And my promise to you, number one, our child is important.
Tim Carroll (12:54):
And the most important thing in our child's life is that you and I, as a couple, are a team. Number two, I promise you on my way home tonight, or this morning if I'm working nights, I promise you when I get to this point and I hit that landmark, I promise you, I commit to you, I'm going to shift. Because the first five minutes I'm home, I want to focus on you. I want to focus on you. I promise you, I commit to you I want to be an engaged parent. And I want to learn. I want to learn what that means. I want to learn how to be an engaged parent. And I want to learn how to listen. I really want to learn how to listen."
Tim Carroll (13:40):
These are all things that are going to really, really help us to stay connected. And it's tough, because when we're under stress, when we're under stress, you know this, in any setting, it doesn't matter what the setting is, our functioning always diminishes under stress. It tends to. Over time, under stress, functioning diminishes. And so here we've got a couple with a newborn, highly stressed, we're sleep deprived. Remember, the number one technique of enhanced interrogation, I share this with all my young couples, look, if you're a POW and we want to try and extract information from you, what's the first thing we're going to do? Dan, what's the first thing we're going to do?
Dan Bevels (14:26):
We're going to keep you from sleeping. We're going to keep you awake all the time.
Tim Carroll (14:28):
Correct. Keep you from sleeping. And do you know they even play the sound of crying babies to keep people awake? Because there's something about the sound of a crying baby that cannot be ignored. It will absolutely keep you awake. You cannot tune it out. There's something about that sound that we cannot tune out. So we're going to keep you awake and we're going to pipe in loud crying baby noises. That is enhanced interrogation. So we're going to take this couple under extreme stress, and functioning is going to diminish. So we've got to really, really work hard at trying to maintain connection. Another big piece, I know someone will address this more than other time, is just the idea of making sure I'm keeping my own tank full, making sure I'm doing whatever I can to not just be absolutely running on empty, so that as I think about those first five minutes, I actually got something to offer. Because if I walk through the door and I'm absolutely tapped out, it's going to be hard for me to offer anything.
Dan Bevels (15:34):
Well, Tim, we're just about out of time now. What I would love for you to do, if you can though, I would love for you to come back for another episode, because I think that we may have some dads listening to this one and thinking, "Okay, but what about me? What about my day?" Gosh, as we record this, we've been in a pandemic for almost a year now. And I know there are our folks, particularly those that work in healthcare, that they, at the end of their day, they don't have anything else to give. So maybe there's that dad that's listening and is asking, "Who is understanding me and the emotions I felt from my day?" And so maybe, if you would be willing, I would love for you to come back and talk about maybe the flip side of much of what we've talked about today.
Tim Carroll (16:24):
Absolutely. I'd love to do that, Dan.
Dan Bevels (16:27):
Yeah. And I think the other thing maybe in that one we could touch on is, I mentioned earlier, my wife and I were fortunate enough, we had role models in both each of our parents and others, but I know that there are folks that are listening that didn't have that same experience and didn't have a healthy relationship modeled for them. So maybe, again, on that episode, we can talk about some tips that would help those folks that haven't seen this exampled for them.
Tim Carroll (16:58):
I think that sounds great. I'll look forward to it.
Dan Bevels (17:00):
Well, Tim, thanks so much. Jen, anything you would like to add before we wrap up with Tim?
Jen Carroll (17:06):
Yeah. I think that, as you said, this just opens a door to knowledge and skills that I don't know that we've had a lot dialogue about. So I'm looking forward to exploring this some more. And hopefully it will really help many of our moms and dads negotiate successfully through these early demands and transitions that they face as they become parents. So, Dan, thank you so much. Tim, you're my man. I appreciate you, and thank you so much for what you brought to us today.
Tim Carroll (17:48):
Thank you for having me. Yeah,
Dan Bevels (17:49):
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Tim. And Jen, look forward to doing this again, and not just with Tim, but with other guests coming up. I think this is, as always, just another wonderful episode and a great opportunity to share with others and help them grow as parents or expecting parents. Thanks for that as always.
Jen Carroll (18:08):
Thanks, Dan.
Dan Bevels (18:10):
And as we wrap up, just want to remind you one more time, if you have questions, comments regarding this topic or any of the things that we've talked about on this Moms Circle Podcast, you can do that by emailing us at momscircle@floyd.org. And then also be sure to join, if you haven't already, the Moms Circle at Floyd Facebook group. We would love to have you there. It is a great resource for information, encouragement, and support. So find that on Facebook and join us there as well. Until the next time we talk to you, we just ask you to be safe and we look forward to talking to you again real soon. So long.
Narrator (18:45):
Thanks for joining us on the Moms Circle Podcast. Be sure to join our moms circle Facebook group for more conversation between Floyd's experts and moms like you. And if you have any questions about today's podcast or would like to suggest a topic for an upcoming episode, email us at momscircle@floyd.org. Also, if you haven't already, be sure to download My Floyd Baby App for a personalized health newsfeed for every member of your family. You can find the app at floyd.org/baby or in your app store. Thanks for joining us.