During and after the early years of parenthood, the sexual relationship may change and need re-tuning. Couples with Teenage Children Teenage children bring new challenges that test parents to be both firm and flexible. Couples need to be a strong parental team and become comfortable with their adolescent s growing independence. The couple s attention will gradually shift away from raising children towards refocusing on the couple relationship, as off-spring begin to create their own life and eventually leave home. Elderly Couples Retirement and old age brings both gains and losses for a couple.
Partners have more time available for personal interests as well as for their relationship.
They also have to find ways to cope with the ending of their work life and professional identity, with a shift in physical abilities and with increased health problems. A re-strengthened relational bond will help an aging couple overcome potential boredom and loneliness, and allows the couple to enjoy the later seasons of their joint journey in a relationship that fulfills deeper emotional and spiritual needs. Divorce is more frequent in remarriages than in first marriages, because remarried couples usually face more challenges than couples marrying for the first time. Either one or both partners have been married previously, and the ending marriage may have left emotional scars and unresolved issues that affect the new couple relationship. Children may be expressing their sense of loss and their unhappiness about the changes in family arrangements with uncooperative or acting-out behaviors.