Couples Counseling For Parents
Couples Counseling For Parents
Sometimes I Think Parenting Is Easier Without My Partner—How Do I Tell Them?
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Ever feel a strange sense of relief when your partner is not around and you're handling the parenting duties solo? Let's be real, it's not uncommon. Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP discuss how partners can talk about this sensitive topic in a way that brings understanding and connection.
Hello and welcome, Mrs Couples Counseling for Parents. They show about couple relationships, how they work, why they don't, what you can do to fix what's broken.
Speaker 2:Hiya parents Our Dad Dr Steven Mitchell and our Mom Erin Mitchell.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Couples Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Steven Mitchell.
Speaker 2:I'm Erin Mitchell.
Speaker 1:And on today's show we want to talk about a topic, erin, you're going to introduce.
Speaker 2:So if something that comes up a few times over and over and over both, I mean honestly, steven has told a lot of people. If you ever want to know what's happening in Erin's and my relationship or at our house, check our Instagram page.
Speaker 1:Because she's just done a post about our real life.
Speaker 2:But when something happens, both like in our relationship, and then we find ourselves talking about it with a lot of couples, which makes sense, right, if it's coming up, it's coming up. It seems to me like this maybe is something that we should just talk about, and one of these things recently has been, well, one of these things always, but something that just feels like the intensity feels important is this idea of I hate that I feel more at ease in my parenting when my partner is not around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think most parents in any partnership feel this to some degree at some point. Certainly not all parents were not saying like you should or you better, or I don't mean like that, but it's something that comes up and I think it's something people feel bad about.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's true, so they try not to feel this, and that, I think, is where the problem happened and would you say because I'm thinking, would you say that both partners might feel this equitably, or would it be the primary kind of default parent who feels it?
Speaker 2:As the primary default parent. I feel like you should answer that question. No, because I'm the primary default. I think you should. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, the reason I asked the question is because, I don't think I've ever really thought to myself man, this whole parenting business is a lot easier when Aaron's not around. But I think you most certainly have felt this whole parenting business is easier when that guy's not in the room.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's what I would say. So I posted on our Instagram page earlier in the week a post about this.
Speaker 1:then I put it on the screen. Is this your answer to the question, Because I feel like you just went. I just like.
Speaker 2:I'm going to read it and then I'm going to come back to what you asked.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're dismissing me.
Speaker 2:I don't want to dismiss you. I want to pause you, okay. So here it is. I'm going to read through it and then I, because I do think I tried to have some of the things we hear from both the default and the non default parent, because I do think both parents feel this. Sometimes, though I do think the reasons, how and why, and the intensity is different.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I think one of the major ones that we hear about is that when my partner's not around, I'm not hoping for their help. When they are, I am hoping for it, and I'm often disappointed. Okay Now, your turn. Let's go over the other.
Speaker 1:When my partner is around. I'm anxious, I'm not doing it right.
Speaker 2:When my partner is around, I feel like I can't be as attentive to my kids as I'd like.
Speaker 1:My partner is often gone and in the transition back to them being around, we all seem confused and disappointed. It's never like we expect it will be.
Speaker 2:I just think that we're just disappointed.
Speaker 1:We're just disappointed.
Speaker 2:I think you think that's wrong?
Speaker 1:No, I don't. I just am laughing because I think it's it's true. I think our family has felt that way about me before, but I think the okay. We're going to talk about more of these.
Speaker 2:Okay, parenting seems to stress my partner out when they're around and stressed, we're all stressed. Everyone's more stressed out. Okay, so I think that there's differences. I think that I think, if you feel like this, I mean you can, I'm gonna say this thing and then you can stop the whole show so you don't have to listen to the rest of it.
Speaker 2:If you feel this way, it does not have to mean something is wrong. It simply means something is important and worth talking about, worth investigating, worth exploring, worth sharing. How and what you share about that, though, matters a lot.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that's right. So you're saying don't feel bad that you might feel this way.
Speaker 2:You don't have to feel bad. I'm not trying to tell anybody what they should feel.
Speaker 1:Well it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with your relationship.
Speaker 2:I think the feeling is important.
Speaker 1:No, or your partner or you. This is a normative thing. That happens. The key is how you talk about it.
Speaker 2:Correct and how you interpret it, which I think those are kind of one and the same. True, so if I interpret this like you seem to be stressed as a parent, so we're all stressed all the time when you're around. A few things I could interpret about that is you don't like parenting, you don't like being around our family.
Speaker 1:Right, or you're a problem. You make your family worth yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's something worth exploring. I don't think that that's a thing that you just need to be like, now that I know that's what I think. Whoa, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is like whoa, that interpretation matters a lot and is worth saying.
Speaker 1:So let's take this one. This the one I laughed at because I think that it fits. My partner is often gone and in the transition back to them being around, we all seem confused and disappointed. It's never like we expect it will be Just a moment of self-disclosure here. You have said that to me before. Did I quote myself you might have, and so this is an experience we've had before and I think that, to your point of how you communicate it and then how it's interpreted, really impacts how this conversation goes.
Speaker 2:So when this was a primary conversation in our houses, when Stephen was working for 12-hour days and then in eight-hour day, and that was his short day. Basically I was just gone a lot, but this is the thing Very often the reason this other partner is gone is for work, high-demanding job, or they travel for work or military firefighter these types of jobs where there is understandably and expected, prolonged times away the reunification is always this highly anticipated for us. Dad's home, dad's coming.
Speaker 1:Two hours. Dad will be home soon. One hour till Dad's home.
Speaker 2:And then it's like Dad's home and it's just like ugh.
Speaker 1:You've let us all down, you've made this worse. Well, so this is how. So, let's say, when this conversation wasn't going well between the two of us and it was communicated, hey, when you come home, it feels worse and we feel disappointed. We've been waiting, we've been excited, we've been looking forward to you coming back home, and then you come home and it almost feels like it would be better if you didn't come home. So I think that that's sort of what I would never have said that. No, no, no, but think about it.
Speaker 2:I would never have felt that either. We wish you wouldn't have come home.
Speaker 1:Right, but I think how it gets interpreted is important. So that's the interpretation that I maybe heard, like that's how I metabolized.
Speaker 2:I hear I'm sorry, that's how.
Speaker 1:I took it into my.
Speaker 2:I guess you were saying that's what I was really wishing.
Speaker 1:That's how I experienced it and thus think about that. I'm gonna get really defensive or my feelings are gonna get hurt and I'm not going to really hear what you're actually trying to say, and I think that that happened. I think you might you express that feeling. I interpreted it in like oh you wish I just wasn't here.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think we can play this all the way out, but I think if you're being honest and honestly, we talk to couples.
Speaker 1:I am trying to be honest. I really am. Every day I wake up and I'm like you know, what I'm gonna be honest today.
Speaker 2:Are you finished?
Speaker 1:Probably not. At least you're honest, just all's I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Just be honest we talk to this couple often.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I mean this because it's a real. It's such an intense feeling and it's confusing and we love each other and we don't wanna feel like this. So, and I'm saying this couple, but like this type of couple this couple who? Was having this interaction and they were not a particular couple. It's a mutual feeling.
Speaker 2:I think you come in the door or the use in this scenario and you're like I was expecting it to be great and it also doesn't feel great for you. I don't think it's like I'm disappointed and you're not. I think we're both mutually like this is not how we thought this was gonna go. We didn't think there would be immediate tension. We didn't think there'd be any stress.
Speaker 1:We didn't think there'd be. Yeah, you both thought it would go better. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think. It's just like I'm the only one feeling this way and you thought it was going great Right.
Speaker 1:no, no, no no I don't think I ever thought it was going great, I think. I just I think that it was always hard to kind of feel like you know what it ends up feeling like is like you're not part of the group. You know everyone's been having and I think this is what was true for me you know everyone is together and having, not that it's all magical, but like you're spending time with the kids and you're getting this time together and they love it and you're a great mom and it's wonderful, and I'm gone and I don't get that. I miss that. I, you know, and I'm gone because I gotta go to work.
Speaker 2:For us.
Speaker 1:Yeah and like, and then I come home and what I really want is I just wanna be a part of the group and I wanna have fun too and I wanna have this connection with the kids, and yet also like I'm tired and I'm stressed and I can't and I just it's not working out the way I want it to work out. And then I get, and then you tell me it's not working out the way you want it to work out and that's, and then it feels really, it just feels bad, and I think that, like, and maybe that's not the way it is for everyone in this particular situation, that's definitely the way it was for me, I think. Oh, I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:So I think there's some things that happen here. I think there's some hyper attunement that can be misplaced. So I think I mean again, we're just gonna keep using our example, because we're not talking about, we're talking about a feeling right. So, like for us, it would be primarily me and our two oldest waiting for Steven Now. Waiting creates a feeling, in kids especially.
Speaker 1:They love it. It's like they're like they wake up. You know I wake up and say I'm gonna be honest. Kids wake up and we're like mm Can't wait to have to exercise and patience today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's hard for them. So by the time Steven walks in the door they're a little bit amped, they're a little bit like so excited to see you and they have 17 things they've been waiting to show you and it's like it all comes out right and that it can be a little the flood Everyone gets flooded. I think in different ways, and then I can be hyper attuned to how Steven responds to that. And if it doesn't go like I was expecting, which to be clear.
Speaker 2:I have been regulating myself all day when I've been in patient or bombarded. Or stressed or stressed or our kids wanna show me things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've been overwhelmed. I mean you're overwhelmed here, but you've been dealing with it.
Speaker 1:And I've been working through it and then I sense I get even like the tiniest feeling that that might happen and I'm Angry mm-hmm and then you sense that and it's like, oh great, like I didn't do something right, or I'm like I think you know, kind of micromanaged, or you know I'm not allowed to walk in and feel like a little just one right, one second right to like right because, yeah, I'm thinking like I know you haven't been perfect all day, you know, I know you've been regulating and trying, but I mean I'm sure no one, you've had the privilege of no one catching your bad moment so my feeling of this might activate the feeling in you of, when my partners around, I'm anxious, I'm not doing it right, so I get hyper tuned to Steven and I
Speaker 1:could tell, I would walk in and and I like, if I didn't have a smile on my face or if I, for like one moment, I didn't like Immediately greet everyone with eye contact, like I would know that it was, it was like over so I would love, in this moment, to be able to say I was not that it's not but but to be perfectly honest, I think this is a nervous system reaction.
Speaker 2:Nervous system reaction, so like I wasn't like actively trying to like take off those boxes of like eye contact check Three second.
Speaker 1:Sure felt that way, but like I.
Speaker 2:What if? I did sense like if my nervous system sense like he's stressed or he's already annoyed or he's anything other than blissfully happy that we have all greeted him with all of our energy.
Speaker 1:I was hurt yeah, and I do. I do recall moments of like like. Driving home in the car just thinking like, like, trying to like. Come on, you can do it like, like, like, just and again you were not like. That maybe makes you sound like you were like awful you work is the feeling.
Speaker 2:I don't mind the representation, because of course that's not my intention, but I think that was the impact. I think that's what it made me very.
Speaker 1:It did make me anxious and I was pretty walk in and like say like you people yeah, I was pretty sure I was gonna get it wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's what we're talking about is the feelings of like, why can't you just be happy to be with us, like great, I'm just gonna get this wrong, and I think that is what we are trying to say to our partners, rather than it's a whole lot easier when you're not here, or like right you know what? Why don't you take that extra shift? Or you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, we're better off where. You know what, I'll just do it. I'll just I'll just do it. You, you know, whatever, I don't know why I do bother to come home.
Speaker 2:You know, at least at work people respect me, people are glad I'm around, I have camaraderie, like I mean, these are things, are ideas of things we hear.
Speaker 1:Yeah this, this feeling and, to some extent, have said right and then and then that's where you know partners begin to feel isolated and alone and like they don't have a partner, a place to belong or the partner that they want In, and I think much of it is again or the parent for their kid they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think sometimes what even maybe. I wouldn't get activated exactly, but if I saw disappointment in one of my kids faces sure same thing. My nervous system is at an eleven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, and again, I think the the what you're talking about is it's how it's interpreted, it's how it's expressed, right. So so I think the where things have to shift in this conversation is I think what what you were saying is is the thing that was maybe the most helpful thing for me is when you're like look, all day I've been here, we've been waiting, we've been excited, we've been looking forward to you coming. We miss you. We want you to be a part like, like, like our, our life and our days are better with you here. I, as a parent, have been working super hard to, to, to like kind of navigate the day, and when you come home in a way that feels like you're not equally excited or equally, like, kind of ready to engage, that I think what you can be, that makes me feel worried, that makes me feel sad for the kids, that makes me feel whatever the feeling words might be there.
Speaker 2:Which are going to be specific to your story. Right, this is a story and that's true, right, right? So what would you say?
Speaker 1:the feeling words were specifically for you. Like we feel, disappointed feeling like okay, like, so you're making me Steven when you come home that way. It makes me feel like you're disappointed, disappointed in me, disappointed in kids in your life.
Speaker 2:You know those kinds of things like we this. This is just another stress in your day.
Speaker 1:So you expressing those things in Okay and more or there's more, there's more, just being honest really mad, because we've resolved this conflict, have we not? I mean, I feel like you're trying to stir things up.
Speaker 2:I'll stir that we were so excited and like well, that was foolish oh, that you shouldn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should. I should have tempered. How much I wanted to see you and I should have prepared our kids to be like silly. For that I feel silly.
Speaker 2:And I don't feel silly, I feel angry. I don't like that kind of disappointment, that kind of embarrassment that kind of vulnerability. I protect against hard and fast, and I'm just mad right so that comes out is your problem. You made us feel this way. You did all these things. You came in right Right you're, but but that's not fair. That's not true.
Speaker 1:Let me just be extra clear right, right, but that's where the strategy, but it's not Healthy and that's where the conflicts started and began. But when you're able to express it the other way, that we just want tender that helped me go oh, I, get I, get it, I. And then I was also able to express, you know what, like, what I said, like I am excited to be home. In fact, I feel so sad that I'm not here, that that you get the other times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that that I'm at work all day and I'm missing these kind of moments of connecting with you, with you and the boys, and that when I come home I'm tired and I'm exhausted and I'm like stressed out and that, in a sense, what you get is that like that energy, like I hate that that's happening. And so when I feel like like there's I'm doing something wrong or I'm not doing it right, like it makes me feel like I don't belong or like I'm not wanted here and that hurts my feelings and that that is what generates my response.
Speaker 1:What would you say?
Speaker 2:your response and I think it's important to say your reaction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah my reaction generate reactions.
Speaker 2:Responses generate responses, and so my big reaction of like fine, never mind, I'll do bedtime. You clearly need some time.
Speaker 1:We're. Yeah, I mean, I think I would just withdraw and get upset, or I might you know, you know, I think that that's how it happened. Really, I don't.
Speaker 2:I would have said further withdraw. But yeah, how does that look?
Speaker 1:Oh, um, I don't know. You tell me, I don't.
Speaker 2:I think you'd engage with your phone, sure.
Speaker 1:I just get quiet, just like story, kind of go, go away Check the day's stats and scores.
Speaker 2:I said a thousand times like you're not even a person who loves sports as much as you seem to love sports Like what is happening? Yeah, well, yeah, I mean I do, I do like sports. Yeah, I mean, if I'm being honest, if I'm being honest, I really do. I walked into that one, yes.
Speaker 1:But yes, so. So that would be my reaction, but but you're expressing it in a way that is vulnerable. Allowed me to kind of find that vulnerable kind of understanding for myself and then what that, what that does is that shifts how I interpret what you're what, what you're expressing, so that I know that next time I come home and, let's say, I'm stressed and Aaron Doesn't you know, she's not a perfect person and she Comes with some energy, what I'm not you're not yeah, I'm shocking to all, but you know you're not a perfect person and you might express something Along these lines.
Speaker 1:still, even after we have this great, lovely conversation of understanding and in what I can do is I can hear that and I can interpret it like oh, this is what she's talking about, this is this, is that feeling that she's having, and I can say like hey, like did Is it some? You know me being on my phone when I came in the house did it make you feel like you were silly for being excited? Like it? Did it that kind of thing? And you can be like absolutely, I could be like Totally, I hear you my, my mistake.
Speaker 1:or I can just say like, hey, this is, you know, it was Super important phone call that you know, Someone was telling me something really important about their life and I just felt like I couldn't ignore it, whatever, and we can kind of move on from that moment and you cannot feel silly and I can feel like I belong and we can have a different experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think, though I, when you just said that I was on my phone when I walked in the door. That is a thing, and I think it's a. Thing very clear About what we expect. These coming reunifications, these coming backs, these transition back together to look like Is so important and it feels self-evident because it should be obvious. This is me talking right now, see, it should be obvious you should be able to figure this out, steven. Well, that's what it seems like. Like it because I'm like that's basic human connection.
Speaker 1:Not my experience, like I can't. I can't remember any experience in my Life, my childhood or ever like where there are these great reunions with anyone coming and back home from the day Look okay, so this is another so that's why it's not so all so just being honest the kid of Divorced parents.
Speaker 2:So three times a week I had a reunification with my mom. Three times a week I was gone. Three times a week I came home and if my mom would have been on the phone when I walked in from having been gone for two days, would it hurt my feelings.
Speaker 1:I totally get. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, but. But I think that these are the things that seem to make a lot of sense, and there's that I need to know.
Speaker 1:Yes, that I need to know why there's so much energy around it and that you need to know, like, oh, like that was not Steven's experience, like no one really Experienced people.
Speaker 2:I don't really like that story. To support that, I just say.
Speaker 1:I just saying like that wasn't how we did things. We did not greet people with warmth and smiles.
Speaker 2:I am aware in my home so I think, though, that saying like this is what you're walking into. If you are coming home from work, having been gone for seven hours, or seven days, or seven months, or If it's 7 pm, this is what I know, you're gonna be walking into a hot mess of kids, because yeah, bedtime, and it's a hornet's nest, and I'm expecting- Hornet's nest of kids.
Speaker 1:I like that. I mean primarily, I mean me. It's true, it's true.
Speaker 2:But, like I'm expecting that, you're gonna come in and you're gonna wrestle for seven minutes and you're gonna, like, give them all your best energy because they're so pumped, and then you're gonna help me shift everybody towards bedtime. Sure, oh yeah, I'm just yeah, yeah, it's just being clear, like yes, and you're gonna say it's 7 pm. I've been gone for seven months. Seven hours, seven weeks, doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no becoming tired. I'm gonna be doing my best and this is the very conversation we had, I remember, and I think we've actually even shared this before on the podcast and you were just like, look, I need you to come home and I need you to come home with some smiles and some eye contact and some energy. And that was about based on this conversation and that was a, I thought, a completely reasonable request. And I would coach myself up on the ride home.
Speaker 1:I'd be like Steven, I know you're tired, I know you got a lot going on, but you know what you can come in and do anything for 11 minutes, you can come in in a different way and to be quiet, I mean, like the way I want to come in, the way I want to be mindful about coming in and reuniting with kids and you like it was a good thing, but I did. But I think some people can feel embarrassed like that you have to like kind of talk yourself through that, like I don't, I do not feel embarrassed that I had to do that, like that's what I had to do because I don't know, that's the way it was.
Speaker 2:It's important for you to share what's happened in your life, not just to hear. Yes. I'm glad you're like taking what I'm saying from our end, but my point is that there has to be a shared communication about how we're all coming back together, yeah, and so my expression would be like look, I've spent all day dealing with people who are in very intense interpersonal crises and situations.
Speaker 1:I've been managing multiple people and and all kinds of sort of levels of leadership and things like this, and I have I've been talking in front of people and doing therapy all day long and I am an introvert and so that has ruined me for the day. So I'm coming in just sort of spent, but that doesn't mean I can't, you know, make those adjustments. But but for you, that being helpful, for you to know, so that you, you know kind of like oh, you know, I get maybe why his face looks so tired.
Speaker 2:Right, so I think having like a global understanding of like this is the feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is something else that we hear all the time. I think I'm adding a whole another idea, but I'm going to try not to Don't do it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to anyway. It's so confusing. We're all from this topic.
Speaker 2:So what I was most aware of was that I was angry and that is what I communicated a lot of the time. That never generated any movement in this conversation, and I would say I'm sharing what I'm feeling because it's true I was feeling angry, but that is not the layer the vulnerable and I think that's what we're trying to say Like to get to a generative, productive, connective conversation in this conflict means both partners, because I think to, I must say to your point, but I said it, to the point I made to double down what I said, because I think we're both feeling this.
Speaker 2:I think we're both feeling some level of dis-ease, some discomfort around this, to both think about what's going on, like I feel. I think when you said like I feel left out and I come in and I'm like I'm not a part, like yeah, I just.
Speaker 1:I just created stress and you're like it'd be better if you weren't here. Ooh, it was like right in that core place of like oh I guess I'm not a part.
Speaker 2:And, I think, a lot of default parents. The person who's there already feels alone. So you come home and it's like now you're physically present and I'm just as emotionally alone. That hurt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that does, that does, and I think that those are the kinds of things that you have communicated to me that feel very impactful to me. Like those are the kinds of things like I might not remember a lot of things that we talk about. They're just being honest, I'm listening about 33% of the time. But that 33%, when you share those like nuggets of like really how you're feeling, like I've like, those resonate Because partners care yeah. Just being honest.
Speaker 2:Well, if I'm just being honest, the other parts are probably when there's like anger and defensiveness right Like protective strategy meets protective strategy reaction, reaction. But when we're talking about like, this is yucky dynamic. We've got going on right now.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I think we both feel like this is a garbage situation and we make each other feel bad. What is going on?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm hurt, I'm sad, I feel lonely, I feel left out. Those places we care about, stephen, can never tell me. I'm going to say never, maybe I don't.
Speaker 1:When I'm listening 33% of the time and I hear a nugget like that, I care 100% of the time.
Speaker 2:Neat. Yeah, I just mean what we communicate. How we communicate matters. Your feelings that something is important they are Now how we interpret that and how we then communicate. That matters to how this conversation is going to shake out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so it's really common.
Speaker 2:If you feel any of these things, or your own version, important, that's just information, that you're trying to find some connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so there again, how you explain this and the feelings behind it really shapes the interpretation of it, and I think that's the wrong order.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, the feelings behind it, then how you communicate that.
Speaker 1:Say all right, then say the order.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you have to know.
Speaker 1:Be honest for the listeners and tell them the order, in case this is the 33% of the time they're listening.
Speaker 2:I think we have to know first. I think we need to not just share our reaction.
Speaker 1:Know how we feel.
Speaker 2:first, Recognize we're having a reaction and then ask ourselves before we share our reaction? And then invite a reaction, like I'm having a reaction. What is happening?
Speaker 1:And that is important. Yeah, like I'm noticing that I wish you weren't here. Okay, so I'm not going to lead with that. What I'm going to do is think about, like, what is it about them being here? Like what is the feeling that is generating that reaction? I wish you weren't here. And sharing that feeling correct is what helps you access, like the vulnerability is matched with vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said it Truth. Today's show was produced by Aaron and Stephen Mitchell. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit the follow button and leave us a rating. This helps our content become more visible to others who might enjoy it and it lets us know how we can keep improving the show. And, as always, we're grateful for you listening. Thanks so much for being with us here today on Couples Counseling for Parents, and remember working on a healthy couple relationship is good parenting.