Few life events bring more joy than the arrival of a baby. If you notice the elation giving way to some other, less pleasant emotions, do not panic. You and your partner can make adjustments, including couples therapy or marriage counseling, to keep your relationship as happy and healthy as your child.

The birth of a child marks its parents with a profound sense of joint accomplishment. Pictures of glowing mothers and proud fathers holding their treasured newborns reveal the happiness that unites them in their new role as a family.

As with any dramatic change, however, the addition of a baby to a couple can bring strife along with bliss. What once was a pair of people preoccupied with the relationship between them becomes complicated. As parents, they have to manage their relationship with each other, as well as their respective relationships with their child.

Frequently, baby blues are related to intimacy. Mothers tend to become absorbed in nesting and nurturing. The intense physical connection between mother and baby is both exhausting and satisfying – not a combination that is likely to put her in the mood for love of the grown-up kind. New mothers may find it hard to shift gears from mommy to lover, frustrating their partners. The differences in sleep and work schedules that arise from having a new baby can further cut into time normally allotted for romance.

Experiencing discomfort from these changes early on is normal. There are several things you can do to keep the frustration from causing a permanent rift in the couple:

• Accept physical changes. Embrace the way your or your partner’s body has transformed to nurture new life, and support bringing back aspects of it that can be controlled to pre-birth status in due time. Hypnotherapy can be extremely helpful in removing mental and emotional blockages related to body issues.
• Allow the baby to have his or her own sleeping space. Not only is putting the baby in bed with you bad for your sex life, but it also can lead to a cycle that gets more difficult to break the longer it persists.
• Schedule dates. As soon as the child is old enough, find a babysitter and make regular plans for time together as a couple. Look at it as an adult getaway rather than a lack of spontaneity.
• Take time for daily romance. Don’t wait for date night to bring home flowers, cuddle, kiss and say, “I love you.” Do something like this at least once a day, every day.
• Remember the long view. You and your partner will be together long after your children have grown up and left home. Being a good spouse or partner is just as important as being a good parent, so give both relationships equal attention.

You might find that all this is easier said than done. If that’s the case, individual counseling or marriage counseling can help with the transition to your new life. Sometimes there are underlying or more serious issues (such as postpartum depression) that need to be explored. Other times, people simply find they need an outside expert to help them use concrete tools for change, such as dialogues and schedules.

Whether you seek help or not, be open to change. You are not losing a husband or wife; you are gaining a partner in one of the most honorable endeavors a human can undertake. Enjoy your child and each other, so that you can savor the accomplishment of successful parenting long after it is over, together.

“How can you mend a broken heart?” the Bee Gees famously asked in the 1970s. The answer to this question is the same as the answer to the next question in the song: “How can you stop the rain from falling down?”  You can’t. Feeling sadness after you lose someone that you love is as natural as water falling from the air after it has condensed into drops. You simply have to open to acceptance and wait for it to pass.

Unfortunately, many people don’t want or know how to do that, as I’ve observed over my years of offering counseling to Las Vegas couples and individuals. To shield themselves from uncomfortable emotions, people may bury themselves in work, throw themselves into exercise or partying, or numb themselves with drugs and alcohol – anything to keep grief at bay.

The trouble is, that doesn’t work. Like other emotional traumas, a broken heart needs to be acknowledged. Healing requires attention and patience. If you deny yourself this process, the cause of the pain goes untreated – even though it may be temporarily forgotten – and so the pain will return again and again.

When I see clients suffering from a broken heart, the first thing I do is let them know that it is okay to grieve. I also encourage them to be gentle with themselves, to consciously create a comforting space in which they can tend to their sadness. Rest, a short vacation, certain foods and music are examples of things used to create such a space.

Then, we can begin to examine the particular aspects of each situation. Some broken hearts are complicated and require significant counseling, exercises and homework to get to the cause. Others are fueled by deep wells of emotion that take time to drain. Hypnotherapy is an excellent tool for working through grief, and it may be part of the plan each individual client and I will work out together.

As you face the daunting task of mending your own broken heart, the most important thing to know is that it cannot be put off. Although it may seem hard to believe at the time when you are hurting, the day will come when you can open your heart to others, trust again, love again and – as the Bee Gees said – “live again.”