My partner and I went to couples therapy before and after our baby was born. It helped us deal with conflict better.

• When I was eight months pregnant, I asked my partner to go to couples therapy with me.
• We had been arguing more frequently and I thought it would be a good idea.

This past February, when I was eight months pregnant, I told my partner it would be a good idea for us to go to couples therapy. We had been together for almost seven years. Though I had been to therapy myself for years, my partner had never gone himself, and we'd never gone together.

We were weeks away from bringing a newborn baby into our world and I was severely overwhelmed. My anxiety about giving birth was at an all-time high, I was picking fights with my partner about anything, and I felt like we weren't on the same page anymore.

He agreed to try out two sessions with me: one before the baby was born and one after. Both sessions were geared toward problems we were facing at the time, and they were incredibly helpful. Here's what we learned during our therapy sessions that helped us get through the end of pregnancy and the start of our new journey as parents.

Couples therapy pre-baby

Right before giving birth, I realized that talking to a professional could help me and my partner come together and be a strong team as we approached a major life change. During this session, I asked the therapist to share what we should expect when we become parents.

We learned that parenting can bring up new conflicts, but a game plan can help

The therapist told us that when we had the baby, we could find ourselves getting into more heated disagreements than ever. We already felt like that was happening during the final weeks of pregnancy and we shared that with her.

She said that since we'd be dealing with so much, from exhaustion to hormone changes, it might be harder to handle those arguments. She suggested coming up with a game plan for how to deal with conflict.

Scheduling time to talk about conflicts helps us communicate with cooler heads

While this was hard to do in advance, we decided on two main things. First, we'd never fight in front of the baby if at all possible. If something was bothering one of us, we would bring it up when the baby was sleeping. Second, we decided to try communicating through written words instead of talking. Since I can be impulsive when speaking and say things I don't mean, the idea was that writing could help me slow down and organize my thoughts.

We tried this out first before the baby arrived. Whenever we were having a disagreement, we scheduled a time on the calendar to have a text-message conversation about it. I noticed that staying verbally silent and writing down my thoughts allowed me to respond to the situation in a more clear and concise way. This helped us move through problems we had that would have lingered before.

Couples therapy as new parents

A month after giving birth, I was dealing with a lot of the tough parts of being postpartum. My hormones were surging, my body was recovering, and the exhaustion was making me an angry person. During the month between sessions, I felt like I was super upset the majority of the time, and my partner and I fought frequently.

However, we did implement the techniques we discussed after our first session. When an argument was brewing, I instantly removed myself from the conversation.

I'd take a short walk or go into another room and sit there quietly. I asked my partner to give me space and allow me to think in silence. I would write down my thoughts, and sometimes even create a script to read to my husband. This helped cool the tension and it made our conversations more productive. They sounded less like arguments and more like discussions, which wasn't something I was used to doing before our first couples therapy session.

Creating clear boundaries with friends and family is crucial

In our second session, we talked about our need to protect what little time and energy we had by creating boundaries with well-intentioned friends and family. When she asked us what the majority of our arguments were about, we figured out that without boundaries, we were letting other people infiltrate our lives during a vulnerable time.

We had family and friends eager to come over and meet our baby. None of them offered to help us and that's what we needed from the people in our lives. Instead of asking them to bring dinner or help clean up, we hosted and entertained them. When they'd leave, I'd be fired up with anger and resentment.

I wanted to be around people during this time, but I needed people to step in and help. Since my partner was saying yes to letting anyone come over whenever they wanted, our conversation with the therapist helped us set boundaries to prevent this from happening.

We made a new rule that people could only come visit two days a week and only for 30 minutes a visit. We also put up a boundary that people could only come over during certain times of the day and not whenever they wanted. If they wanted to stay longer, they had to either help with a household chore or step into the kitchen and make us a family meal. While there was some pushback, my husband and I made sure we kept true to our boundaries, no matter what.

Implementing this helped put an end to a lot of the recurring arguments we were having. It also helped me curb some of the postpartum anger I was directing at my partner because of the lack of help we were receiving from people in our lives.

We both need quiet time alone to feel like ourselves

When I got pregnant, I understood that having a baby completely changes your life, but I didn't realize how that would make me feel. I was no longer able to do any of the things that had previously made me happy, from workouts to coffee chats with friends. We both work from home, so we were spending the vast majority of our time with each other and the baby.

While we enjoyed these moments, we both felt like we were losing our identity as individuals. We also found that spending so much time together at home was taking a toll on our mental health.

In therapy, we discussed trying to take designated and preplanned alone time during the week. We each started taking 30 minutes a week for ourselves. My partner would go for a run, meet a friend, or sit outside and meditate. I would go for a slow walk, grab a meal at a restaurant, or read a book. As the months went by, we increased this to an hour or 90 minutes a week.

Having individual time helped us decompress and adjust to life as new parents and allowed both of us to feel more like our old selves again. This is reflected in how we show up for each other in the relationship and ultimately how we treat one another and our child.

When you're preparing to become a new parent, you're often faced with a lot of changes, emotions, and tough conversations. While seeing a therapist together brought both of us out of our comfort zone, it ultimately helped us have an unbiased voice of reason to help us sort out the things we were going through. We're now five months into parenthood, and I have a feeling we'll have a third session soon.