How Parenthood Transforms Marriage: The Freemans on Love, Intimacy & Connection

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Parenthood has a way of shaking up everything you thought you knew about love. For relationship coaches Aaron and Jocelyn Freeman—known widely as The Freemans—the transition from being a dynamic duo to a family of three tested their marriage in unexpected ways.

From postpartum recovery struggles to financial setbacks to the daily grind of parenting, they’ve lived what so many couples experience: the messy, beautiful, and sometimes overwhelming truth that marriage after kids requires new skills, intentional conversations, and a willingness to grow together.

It’s also the work they now share with thousands of couples through their Empowered Couples podcast, workshops, and challenges. Their mission: to help couples move from dysfunction to function to connection—and to remind parents that intimacy, joy, and growth are possible at every stage of family life.

Meet the Experts:

Jocelyn and Aaron Freeman are certified relationship coaches, authors, and hosts of the Empowered Couples podcast. Married for more than a decade, they’ve built a coaching practice that has served over 40,000 couples through online challenges, in-person workshops, and community events. Parents to daughter Skye, they speak candidly about their own journey of adapting their marriage after becoming parents—and how those lessons fuel their coaching work today.

Q&A with The Freemans

Liz Tenety: How did becoming parents shift your marriage dynamic?

Jocelyn: I really don’t think we anticipated how much it would change our relationship and our dynamic. But it definitely changed what we needed from each other. Our weekends before were filled with like lounging all day together, snuggled watching movies, or let’s go have a long lunch, let’s go to the gym together. We realized that our needs and our ways of connecting had to change. If we couldn’t rely on a date night or vacation, it had to be about how we made each other feel, loved, wanted, connected in the kitchen, in the bathroom, getting ready for bed or getting a few minutes of alone time before bed. We had to adapt and learn to connect in those everyday interactions.

Liz Tenety: Aaron, you were honest about having initial fears around fatherhood. How did that experience evolve for you?

Aaron: When [Jocelyn] told me, I was not initially excited. I was fearful. I didn’t know if I’d be good or not. I didn’t know how that was gonna change our life. I recognize that wasn’t a good response, but we communicated through that. Fast forward, I cannot even imagine my life without our daughter. I mean, and I said this the other day too, I don’t know if I even love being a father, but I love being a dad to Skye.

Liz Tenety: Jocelyn, you’ve shared openly about postpartum recovery. What do you wish more moms knew?

Jocelyn: I struggled to heal after giving birth because I barely let myself rest. I was going grocery shopping like a week after giving birth.I didn’t even give myself the time to rest, to recover. And then in our business, I went back way too soon. I wish I gave myself more time off. And going back to even the relationship, I think a lot of couples resist even the changes to their relationship, but we just don’t wanna keep comparing to the past version beforehand. We want to identify right now in this season of life, what does staying connected look like in this season?

Liz Tenety: You often talk about the framework of ‘dysfunction → function → connection.’ How does that apply to parenthood?

Aaron: When we have a baby, life alters. You’re in this place of dysfunction, and the more you resist the growth and the evolution needed, the more chaotic it’s gonna get. And so you have to start putting in the structure—the communication, the agreements, the calendar things. And once you have that locked in, you can get to this place where you feel you can function better as a team that brings about a sense of peace and harmony. And now, you’re existing in function, but then you have to remember that marriage is about connection. It’s about your understanding, the fulfillment, the joy, the satisfaction between the two of you. And so you have to then take the next steps of going from function to connection.

Liz Tenety: Many moms feel the weight of an unequal mental load. How do you help couples navigate that imbalance?

Jocelyn: When we get married, there’s a whole set of even unconscious expectations that show up, right? Maybe you didn’t even realize it, but because of your upbringing and the community you live in and your culture, you have these expectations of what a husband should be like, what a partner should be like, and this is how they should operate. Talk about those things proactively before every season. We talk about expectations before a vacation. We talk about expectations before visiting family. Because that’s really a communication hack that busy couples, especially parents need to implement more of—anticipating where there could be mismatched expectations.

Aaron: There’s this line then when women are wanting to communicate something that’s more about an emotional need, and men get defensive because they focus on all the things they’ve done in the function domain, and then it feels like they’re not appreciated and you don’t see half the things they do. I think it’s a misunderstanding of when women are trying to share a need for emotional connection and men are saying, well, haven’t you been seeing all the function I’m doing? That’s kind of the disconnect.

Liz Tenety: After a hard season, how can couples rebuild their marriage?

Aaron: It starts with recreating a compelling future. You will go through phases and chapters or even full books, and you have to write a new book. So what pulls you forward is gonna be different. That’s the compelling future. Then you have to go backwards a little bit and say, ‘Look, to be the people to realize this compelling future, we cannot be the people we’ve been. I need to see some changes.’ And this phase, we call them non-negotiables—these few things that have really damaged me and I need those to stop. And then the next piece is to go back and address the emotional impact. That’s like our repair process.

Jocelyn: A year and a half after having our daughter, we made some really big financial mistakes. I mean, we were at our rock bottom financially. We were very afraid. And so we knew we needed to close a chapter. So we intentionally sat on the living room floor and said, wow babe, this has been a lot. Let’s talk through this. Let’s actually close this chapter intentionally. Let’s talk about what we wanna leave behind, what we wanna start, and focus on moving forward.

Liz Tenety: Intimacy often changes after kids. How do you keep that spark alive?

Jocelyn: Intimacy doesn’t start in the bedroom, right? It starts outside. What that means is, in your everyday interactions. We know you’re getting lunches ready, but can you be a little flirty in the morning rather than just walking by each other in the hallway or in the kitchen? We don’t want intimacy to just be something we put on the shelf, or that really occurs too few and far between, so we really invite each other into that space. So what does that look like? Even if I’m not like in the mood because it’s 8:00 PM at night or it’s just during nap time or whatever, intimacy is important to me. So even though I’m not spontaneously feeling it right now, let’s go to the room and let’s create desire in that moment.

Aaron: For the men, men will make some sort of bid for intimacy and then it feels as if it gets rejected. So it really comes down to communication. I think for a lot of the men I talk to, they’re interested in sex and intimacy and it just seems like there’s never a good time or they try to initiate, but sometimes it’s too subtle and not very obvious. So we internalize: ‘Oh, I’ve tried to make bids and they’re not interested and I’m rejected. So I’ll be over here waiting until you initiate with me.’ And then your partner’s like, ‘What happened to them? They’re disconnected, they pull away from me. They must not love me.’ So you just have to have communication about even those small things.

Want more of the Freemans’ wisdom on love, parenting, and connection? Listen to the full Motherly Podcast, available wherever you listen. 🎧

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Relationships, Marriage & Partnerships, Podcast, The Motherly Podcast