Reignite the Passion after Becoming Parents
This blog is a little different to our others. We were recently contacted by Carla Crivaro, a Sex, Love & Relationship Coach who wanted to speak to you, our Tappy Toes parents, about some work she has been doing with fathers.
The wellbeing of our little dancers and their parents is a priority for all the team and franchisees at Tappy Toes. When we heard about the work she is doing and how she is supporting fathers we wanted to show our support too.
Carla works with men and women who want to reignite their passion after becoming parents. She has found increasingly with her work with men a ‘pattern’ which she is keen to speak about to make the men themselves aware, but also mothers, grandparents and anyone else who knows a father. The phenomenon she refers to she has called The Forgotten Father. We ask Carla some questions below about The Forgotten Father.
What is the Forgotten Father?
The Forgotten Father is men who experience struggles at various stages in their journey to parenthood.
I’ll break it down into three parts. Some men struggle with all three, some men, just one or two.
- The first signs that men are struggling are during pregnancy, as pregnancy can be a trigger for some men
- Some men are affected by being present at the birth
- There are men who experience being a parent itself as challenging and lonely
What is Happening for Men in these Situations?
- In pregnancy, the reality of becoming a father can become overwhelming for some men. When they see their partner’s bump get bigger it starts to feel real. Some men can feel excluded during the pregnancy, as everything happens to mum and it can feel like they have little to no involvement. They are just ‘watching’. This can affect a man’s sense of self, his esteem and how he views his relationship to the baby.
- During birth, a man is watching the birth happening to the mother. He wants to help and do something to ease the pain, to ‘fix’ what’s going on. The inability to ‘do’ anything can leave a man feeling not good enough. His body can react to this inability to help as a form of trauma and could later on affect how he is able to connect to his partner at an intimate level.
- The next situation can simply be that when the baby arrives and receives all the attention, the father can feel on the outside, like a spare part. His access to affection is reduced because the new mum can easily feel ‘touched out’. The frequent rejection means the man can begin to feel lonely and not desirable.
How Might Men React to one or all of These Three Stages?
Men can react in different ways and I have broken them down into the 3 main ones which many mothers will recognise.
- The man withdraws and finds other places to ‘be’. He may stay longer at work and offer to work weekends or work away. Perhaps he will join clubs and show little interest in being at home with the family. He may avoid being involved on ‘family days out’ at the weekends. At home he might find jobs to do around the house so as not to be involved with family.
- Another common behaviour is trying to do everything possible to keep their partner happy. If she is upset and he is blamed he apologises, even if it isn’t his fault. He will try everything to please her and in the process completely self-abandon and lose all sense of boundaries. This man will begin to feel emasculated.
- The third type of reaction can be any attention is better than no attention and the way a man might do this is through derogatory comments or making jokes or quips, all as a way to get a rise out of their partner. Men behaving in this way just want to be ‘seen’ but don’t know how to ask for what they need.
These men are desperately craving the attention from their partner and finding anyway to be able to deal with it, whether that’s by ‘protecting’ themselves from the pain of rejection by withdrawing, doing everything to get praise or doing anything to get themselves noticed. This behaviour isn’t conscious, in the fact that they aren’t ‘choosing’ to behave like this knowing what they are doing. In fact, it’s a survival mechanism they likely learnt as children. Many men experience shame for their behaviour and they feel unable to control it. It’s a part of their inner-child crying out for love and not knowing how to ask for it.
What to do Next?
What is important to remember in this is that it isn’t the woman’s responsibility to ‘fix’ the father. Listening to how he feels is supportive without trying to change anything or give advice, just letting him talk about what he’s going through. Finding ways they can reach compromises on things that he might need can help. When researching about any aspect of parenting, rather than making the decision all by herself, the mother can come to the father with the information and ask his opinion on it so he can feel more involved. Find time as soon as possible to just be together the two of you for physical affection. It doesn’t need to be sex, just regular cuddles on the sofa can mean so much.
It’s important that the father gets support by meeting other fathers and talking openly about how he feels in a dedicated space. Or, if there are wounds that are being touched which are a bit deeper and are tapping into old stories of ‘not being good enough, ‘not feeling loveable’, etc then one-to-one support would be more helpful.
If you would like to learn more about The Forgotten Father you can do so by reading here:
To contact Carla for support then you can reach out to her at hello@carlacrivaro.com
