fatnerHOOD

“You may be asked by family members, colleagues or neighbors, “What’s it like being a father? Well, what do you answer? Do you talk about the sleepless nights, about being pushed to sleep on the sofa? Or do you yourself want to sleep on the sofa in order to get any rest at all? Or maybe you and your wife have agreed that you will look after the baby at night so that your wife can gather her strength for the day? The world is upside down, isn’t it? And yet you still have to deliver at work, right? 

Maybe you are also a little jealous of the baby? Especially fathers who were not allowed to be in the room where the birth took place (e.g. due to the pandemic) might need to deal more often with the  feeling of jealousy. If the man is treated as “a dangerous microbe carrier who threatens the life of his wife and baby, it is not surprising that he is jealous of the baby and feels superfluous” (translated from:Kitzinger, S., Natural Birth, 1983, p. 346). The medical staff at that time, in the 1980s, tended to regard and treat the man as a “disturbing factor”; perhaps also because he was rather less familiar with the processes of a birth?

After the intense time you spent together with your wife enjoying the pregnancy, do you now feel isolated? Do you feel alone now because you miss your wife as a companion? Do you have childhood experiences of being alone, of being left alone? Maybe your body and soul remember the feeling when you felt alone as a child because a sibling was born? Did you perhaps not overcome something there? Or is something that has always been suppressed intensified by the birth of your child? Look carefully at what life throws at your feet. 

I wish you that your wife continues to reassure you that you are still loved and needed by her and that you are a unique, wonderful husband and father. 

I wish you a peaceful and harmonious parenthood that enriches you both. Your partner as a woman and you in your role as a man. 

You know the quote: “It takes a whole village to raise a child”. Yes, parenthood is a social task. I wish you that you can build your village. Would you like to talk about the work-life balance, the compatibility of work and family? 

Partnership problems – counseling for fathers

Now you have been a father for a few months or maybe even years? You can’t do it anymore; you don’t see and don’t have a chance to develop any more? You are treading water as a couple and are no longer doing yourselves, as a couple and especially the children any good? 

Are there no end to smoldering or open conflicts? What are conflicts actually? 

Conflicts, in the sense of active confrontation, are sometimes unavoidable. Conflicts certainly characterize human coexistence.

“Take every situation as an offer for your decisions. Take and give as you want responsibly for yourself and others” (translated from:Cohn, R. C.: https://www.rci.at/tzi/was-ist-tzi/postulate/). According to Ruth Cohn’s statement, we could accept stressful conflicts (for our own personality development) or we could leave them alone. So, man: run away or face the issues?

You decide how you deal with conflicts. Depending on how you shape your life. Why do conflicts arise in the first place? People act out of their own understanding of their roles and subjectively often feel that their own concerns are paramount. 

 Conflict should not be a taboo

Repressing conflicts because they could supposedly be interpreted as inability or weakness provides fertile ground for further conflicts to build on. A never-ending story. It makes more sense to approach conflicts in a process-oriented way than to possibly fall ill from them. 

Ask yourself: What does the conflict do to me? What other areas (beyond) have to do with the conflict (or the development of the conflict)? How did I deal with conflicts in the past? How am I dealing with it now? How do I prepare myself when a conflict arises? 

Do you perceive conflicts as a necessary part of living together? Does a conflict bother you? Are there issues or events between you that you would like to discuss with a neutral third person? 

Couple mediation

Conflict support can be provided through mediation, in which the respective parties develop sustainable solutions themselves and in person through a process. 

Are you suffering from chronic grief in your relationship? Then mediation would make sense; but it only makes sense if you both really want it. 

Mediation aims to create a win-win situation between partners through a neutral third party. It is not about who is to blame, what is (subjectively) true or what is not, it is not about: 100% right and 100% wrong. 

However, views should be exchanged in a future-oriented way, because you and your partner are conflict experts in your own field. The responsibility for clarifying the conflict, and in particular for finding your own solution, lies with both of you. I would like to encourage you and awaken in you the confidence to get to know the process of mediation online. 

Mediation means that an impartial person, the mediator, helps you to develop constructive and concrete solution strategies. The mediator merely mediates between you in order to create a new basis for a future (more or less) togetherness. 

On the basis of your personal needs and your individual ideas of justice, a win-win situation should arise because you yourselves have brought about this GOOD SOLUTION FOR ALL. 

“You cannot not communicate”, says Paul Watzlawick (translated from: https://www.paulwatzlawick.de/axiome.html). Communication always has to do with a counterpart, i.e. with a person with whom or which we are in relationship (whether we want to or not). 

Use mediation to address the conflict with the other party in a solution-oriented way, as conflict is a necessary part of living together. 

Learn to allow positive communication with the conflict partner under the guidance of neutral mediators.

You will dialogue objectively and calmly, because you are both interested in viable solutions that will later be adhered to by all participants on the basis of binding agreements. In this way, you will also practice  accepting contradictions. 

With mediation, a conflict resolution without defeat, but with concrete agreements, is sought and realized because you work out the solution yourself. After each mediation session you will receive a short protocol: a written agreement drawn up by all sides, as a mutually beneficial contract which represents the goal.

Demarcation: Law – Mediation – Therapy

 If you have time and money and want to submit to a later legal decision, you aim for a legal dispute (lawsuit, evidence, etc. within the framework of procedural law).

Anyone who prefers future-oriented and sustainable solutions to conflicts, or at least wants to give them a try, uses the mediation process. Mediation also promotes a constructive conflict culture in socio-political terms. 

In the first meeting it is clarified whether the respective personal responsibility (autonomy) is pronounced enough to be able to start a mediation at all. A power imbalance between the conflict parties that cannot be balanced would be problematic for the process. Both parties should be psychologically/physically stable. 

Mediation procedures do not replace legal advice, which is reserved for lawyers. Mediation helps the parties involved to reach an agreement on a procedural level. 

Are you already thinking about a legal dispute? In mediation, you can develop solutions that a judge might never have thought of in a court case. 

My role for your conflict management, for negotiation and decision-making processes is:

  • To create a safe space for you,
  • To be a neutral, empathic discussion guide for you during the process of mediation,
  • To creatively facilitate you in finding agreements, in common problems,
  • Establish confidentiality 
  • Online mediation available via Zoom  

The aim is that you feel better with the solution you have found for yourself than if you had not done the mediation.