The Intimacy Drift in Parenthood Part 1

Is becoming ships in the night, inevitable?

Photo by our friend Cora Photography, at home on the Sunshine Coast before our second son was born.

Hey team, Tully here. It’s been a while since I last wrote to you. I’ve been deep in the fatherhood trenches of a toddler who really values 1:1 time and connection and a newborn, while looking after Kat and our home the best I can.

I’m sure many of you understand! I also haven’t forgotten about the Pulse Podcast here, I’m just awaiting a couple of hours of solitude to be able to record some episodes for you all. It’s coming this week!

Today I’d love to introduce the concept of the “Intimacy drift”, with the intention of a part 2 coming out where we then explore solutions for it.

Have a read, and I’d love for you to get amongst the comments so we can all speak openly about this and unpack it a bit.

If you’re reading this via email, I encourage you to download the substack app as it’s a lot more user friendly and gives you the opportunity to be apart of the chats and conversations taking place. It’s free and I’d love to have you contribute!

The Intimacy Drift in Parenthood.

It’s a thing.

Those early months and years after baby arrives, shift things.

As they should.

The deep Rite of Passage into parenthood SHOULD shift you both deeply.

If two people shift and change this deeply, surely the way they relate intimately will shift too.

What I’ve come to learn is part of that shift, is an initial drift.

Not only are things changing so much for both parents internally but then you throw in a bit of sleep depravation, a drastic reduction in quality alone time, more real and perceived stress, consistently changing routines/rhythms, the emergence of previously suppressed traumas/emotional patterns because you now have a little loving mirror with you all the time and SO. MUCH. MORE.

It’s huge. The drift is real. For many of us.

I also feel like it’s necessary.

Without the drift it would be really hard to move and expand into the next evolution of intimacy. It would be hard to let go of the old.

What if instead of resisting the drift (which shows up as feeling resentment, frustration, apathy, shame and/or embarrassment) we instead acknowledged and embraced it?

What if we prepared for it?

What if we talked about it openly?

What if we contemplated how we could best navigate it instead of wishing it wasn’t there?

I feel like this would create so much space for what is trying to emerge.

What is trying to emerge, is a deeper, richer and more connected experience of intimacy than we’ve ever touched before.

I feel like as a community we get to start shifting the narrative about how the transition into parenthood impacts relationships.

This will take intention and effort, but I can think of few things that are more worthy of our intention and our effort.

How we relate to each other as parents plays a HUGE role in the blueprint of how the next generation will experience their lives. Seems like a worthy endeavour to me.

What’s your experience of the “Intimacy Drift” been like? Was it what you expected, which parts caught you off guard, and was there a certain part of parenthood where you felt it the most? Let me know in the comments below. Then I can put together a “Part 2” of this article where we can explore a more solutions based focus on how we can prepare for the drift, and embrace it actively rather than passively.

Big love,

Tully

PS. If you’re currently in the “drift” and the stress, tension, conflict and resentment that comes with that, AND you’re ready to trade that in for the ease, connection, mutual understanding and intimacy that is actually available - join us for the next intake of the Liberating Love Relationship Mastery program. We start Oct 31st.