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A dash of problems at work, a cup of tiredness from caring for the kids, and your child’s emotions boiling over on the floor—the perfect recipe for parenting stress in your marriage. As Kristin stood at the stove, attending to simmering pots, the sounds of the kids playing turned from laughter to whining and then screaming. Todd opened the back door, worn down by his day, unprepared for the whirlwind he was walking into. With both our stress levels already high, we exchanged regrettable words and both emotionally shut down. Tense parenting moments like these can test your marriage and create distance between you. If you let it.
In a 2023 study by the Pew Research Center, 41% of parents said parenting is tiring, and 29% said that parenting is stressful “all or most of the time.” Life is full of daily pressures, and when one spouse is feeling overwhelmed, the tension can spill over into your marriage relationship. Add in parenting challenges, and it can begin to feel like you’re not on the same team anymore. When couples support one another, use healthy coping strategies, and manage stress together, they enjoy a more satisfying marriage. But when spouses fail to cope personally and manage stress together, conflict and distance can build. Spouses experience different daily stressors, respond to stress in various ways, and have differing relational needs. Learning to understand one another’s personal experiences and how to best support each other might feel confusing, frustrating, or even impossible.
How you manage your stress levels and respond to everyday tense moments can either harm your marriage or create deeper intimacy and happiness. These are some simple ways you can support one another and cope with parenting stress together:
1. Focus on the Immediate Problem
When one or both of you are feeling overwhelmed, conversations about bigger problems are likely not going to be very productive. Agreeing to focus on the current situation will be more effective. Try these steps:
- Pause. Take a moment to stop what you are doing and take a break from the situation and conversation.
- Take three slow, deep breaths together.
- Say a simple prayer like, “God, please give me strength and patience.”
- Put your argument aside for the time being and address the problem at hand. Find a way to help each other and work together to get through it.
In our example above, Todd could have said, “Let me change my clothes, and I’ll take the kids outside so they can get some energy out, and you can get a break.” Or Kristin could have said, “Can you take over for five minutes so I can get a quick break, and I’ll come right back to finish dinner?” You don’t have to find the perfect solution as long as you are helping one another.
2. Look at the Bigger Picture
Often, these intense moments are signs of the accumulated underlying stress in our lives that we might not even recognize. In order to cope with stress together and support one another, you will need to open up and share your personal experiences and needs. Just talking about your stress together can actually help lower your stress levels. Take these steps to better respond to stress:
- Following a strained interaction, at a later time when the tension is lower, talk about what happened. You can say, “Honey, you seemed stressed earlier. What was going on?”
- Reflect on all the factors and different stressors you were both facing. Were there other areas of your days adding to the pressure of the tense moment?
- Brainstorm effective ways to handle a similar situation in the future.
- Learn to recognize your own stress response. How do you feel in your body? What thoughts and emotions come up? What was the stressor(s) that prompted your reaction?
- Learn the signs of when your spouse is overloaded and ask him/her to share what it feels like for them and how you can help.
- Communicate your needs to one another. You can say something like, “I’m stressed because . . ., and this is how you can help me _________________.”
3. Regularly Reduce Your Bodies’ Overall Stress Levels
In order to be effective in the long term, you will need to support one another in reducing your stress levels daily. When your body remains in a chronic state of stress, the chemicals in your system and connections in your brain actually change. This can cause negative effects, including lowered libido, mental health symptoms, weakened immune system and health problems, burnout, and less effective problem-solving. But when you are operating in more regulated bodies and minds, you can be more supportive of one another and manage stressful moments more effectively. Consider trying some of these tips for destressing and growing closer:
- Connect when it’s not a stressful time. In our new marriage book, we share the benefits of establishing a daily check-in with one another. This time is for talking only about how you both are doing. You can ask, “How’s your day going?” This will give your spouse an invitation to share and vent if needed. Then, you can offer emotional support and possible solutions if your spouse would like you to.
- Destress together. Some activities that can help lower your stress response systems include hugging, giving and receiving a foot or hand massage, holding each other, and sitting outside together. Brainstorm new ideas that will work well for you as a couple.
- Pray together. Sharing faith practices such as praying, reading Scripture, and attending church will help lower your stress levels.
- Consider Philippians 2:4 and put your spouse’s needs above your own by offering a parenting break and encouraging him/her to engage in a stress-reducing activity such as exercise, a hobby, talking to a friend, or relaxing.
- Walk together regularly. This can be one of the best ways to improve your physical and mental health and connect as a couple. Try setting a regular time to walk around the block.
Finally, one of the best ways to reduce the strain on your marriage is to remember that only God is perfect (Ecclesiastes 7:20). Lower your expectations. Don’t expect your spouse to be the perfect parent and wife or husband. Extend grace to one another, assume that you both are doing the best you can and rely on God to help fill in the gaps. Couples who grow strong marriages have learned how to stay connected and support one another in coping with life’s stresses. And couples with a strong marriage and regulated stress levels are more effective at parenting their children. We encourage you to pick one of these tips and support one another in a new way today.
