Expectant Fathers

Lesson 2: What DO Men Worry About During Pregnancy?

The Importance of Getting to Know Each Other...Again! Part One

As a time of reevaluation and activity in your life, pregnancy and early parenthood may well stimulate an appraisal of your most deeply held values and beliefs.

Allow me to begin with a story. Several years ago, I was thinking about some of the expectant couples with whom I’d worked. It was a clear, cloudless day and I was driving to a speaking engagement that was about two hours from my home in Columbus, Ohio. Why, I thought, do so many couples (about 10 percent) in this country choose to terminate their relationship during pregnancy? Why do another 30 percent of couples end their marriages within two years of having their babies? Why do so many expectant fathers have sexual affairs, or become “workaholics,” or let their health and lives deteriorate during pregnancy; a time when they should be celebrating and becoming closer to their spouses? What keeps some couples so strong through a pregnancy that they withstand, and actually enjoy, one of life’s biggest challenges, while others fell apart?

Then it struck me. It was one of those scenes you look at but don’t see. I had passed along this road dozens of times and the automobile scrap yard on my right meant I was half way to my destination. It meant little more than that to me. But this particular day as I passed this “almost there” marker, traffic slowed to a stop. Probably another jack knifed big rig up ahead, I thought, so I’d be stuck here for a while. This is when I really saw the wrecking yard.

The cars were each crushed to a two foot height. Their tires and wheels were gone, windshields popped out, and probably anything salvageable such as the engines and seats had been removed. There they stood, stacked one on top of another. Each painted a different color like twenty foot high towers of flattened tin cans. The scene was an odd rainbow of metal where their colors contrasted one from the next like a vertical rack of coats made to be worn by Joseph in the Bible. There must have been one hundred stacks of crushed cars arranged on acres of land and each pile was unique from any other. Like a neighborhood, narrow paths ran between the neatly arranged towers; and cannibalized car parts were arranged along the separating walkways waiting for someone to adopt them. It was difficult to know if the cars were new or old, coupes or sedans, or perhaps there was a fun convertible somewhere among the piles. I assumed all of these cars would soon be reduced again to blocks of raw metal.

As I looked upon the scene, thoughts of previous cars I’d owned flashed through my mind. My favorite automobile from years ago was probably in a junk heap just like this. But each new car began its time with me regarded as something special and exciting. They were metallic ornaments of my personality. Each model made its own statement about me, the owner; mechanical signs to the world of who I was and what I wanted the world to know about me. When these vehicles were brand new, I showed them off to neighbors, friends, family and anyone showing the slightest interest. Destinations were unimportant because it was the simple pleasure of driving that I wanted. They were bathed and pampered with regular checkups; every small detail was attended to. I even read the book that came with the vehicle just to be thoroughly knowledgeable about every switch and button. But alas, eventually these cars would probably wind up in one of the many colored piles labeled junk. Car lots become junk yards over time.

Traffic began to move away from the scrap piles but I continued to think of the meaning behind this scene. The arrangement of cars piled along street-like paths led to my thinking about neighborhoods I’d seen that consisted of broken families. These were neatly arranged in housing developments or simple single family homes, separated by easements and streets. Each of these houses or apartments contained a story; and each story began with enthusiasm and hope. Maybe it was a new relationship with someone that would be proudly shared with friends and family. Maybe this “someone special” brightened their lives with love, commitment, and devotion. Given an endowment of love, they would become a couple and then a family.

Every new car acquired has a pleased and proud owner at the wheel. Each new car can be described as having wonderful features that will provide a measure of pleasure well into the future. As the traffic jam became clear and I drove on, the scrap yard faded behind me. And yet I continued to think of how different so many relationships would be; how different so many families would be; how different so many futures would be if each relationship partner had known about and truly understood the changes occurring for each other over time.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every couple beginning a family could experience it as a time to improve their relationship together? How different the national numbers would be on divorce, single parent homes, and so many other indicators of social deterioration if every couple delivered honesty, empathy, loyalty, devotion, compromise, and a mutual understanding of each other? To achieve this hopeful outcome, couples must first look at how relationships change over time.

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