Same Page Parenting- When we become parents, it can be surprising how much we change, adapt or surive those first few years. Many parents feel like they are struggling and juggling so much. Others have feelings of lonliness, shame or resisting change. Clinical Counsellor and author Martina Nova has some fantastic insight and wisdom for parents having these conflicting feelings.
Martina, tell us about your background and why you are passionate about helping parents.
I’m a registered clinical counsellor based in British Columbia, and my career has taken me through several different parts of the mental health field. I’ve worked in community mental health, within health authority systems, and now in private practice where I focus on trauma, relationships, attachment, and parenting dynamics. I’m also an immigrant. I moved to Canada from Slovakia, and that experience shaped the way I think about identity, family systems, and the different expectations we carry across cultures. It gave me an early awareness that there isn’t just one way families function, and that many people are quietly navigating competing values between how they were raised and the lives they’re building now.
On top of that, I’m a mom of two and an able-bodied, cisgendered person living inside the realities that many parents are facing today. The mental load, the shifting identities, the pressure to be everything at once. Therapist, partner, parent, professional, and still somehow a person in your own right.
My passion for helping parents really grew out of seeing how much they care and how little support many of them actually have. In therapy I see adults unpacking childhood wounds that were never acknowledged or understood, and many of them are now raising their own children while trying to break those same patterns. Parents today are incredibly thoughtful and intentional, but they’re also exhausted. They’re trying to raise emotionally healthy kids while juggling work, relationships, finances, and their own unresolved experiences. If we can support parents in understanding themselves, their relationships, and the dynamics inside their families, that has a ripple effect far beyond one household. It changes the emotional environment children grow up in, and that matters deeply to me.
Many parents are struggling with juggling so many things at once. From relationships to keeping up with a home, work to children, it can seem like too much at times. How can parents take a look at their mental load and make time for themselves and their relationships?
The first step is usually just naming the mental load out loud. A lot of it is invisible. It’s the remembering, the anticipating, the planning, the emotional labor of keeping everything running smoothly. Many couples assume things are divided fairly because they both feel busy, but when you slow down and really map out what each person is holding in their mind all day, it can be eye-opening. I often encourage couples to sit down and literally list everything that keeps their household functioning. School forms, birthday gifts, meal planning, remembering appointments, noticing when the kids need new shoes. Once it’s visible, it becomes something you can redistribute rather than silently carry.
And when it comes to making time for yourself or your relationship, it doesn’t always have to be big gestures. Sometimes it’s protecting small pockets of time where you’re not in “logistics mode.” A walk together. Sitting on the couch without phones. Even ten minutes where you’re talking as two people rather than as managers of a household. Those small moments matter more than people realize.
Tell us about identity shifts. How does one parent deal with another parent’s identity shift without feeling like they’re losing the person that they knew?
Parenthood changes people. Sometimes in beautiful ways and sometimes in ways that can feel disorienting to a partner. When someone becomes a parent, parts of their identity often shift quickly. Priorities change. Energy levels change. What once felt easy might suddenly feel overwhelming. And the other partner can look at that and think, Where did the person I knew go?
What helps is recognizing that identity shifts are normal during big life transitions. Instead of assuming something is wrong, couples can get curious about what’s actually happening for each other. The question becomes less about “Why are you different?” and more about “Who are you becoming right now, what do you need from me, and how do we stay connected through that?” Relationships evolve alongside the people inside them. When couples talk about those shifts openly, it tends to feel less like loss and more like growth.
Parents are afraid to talk about the emotional distance that some feel towards their partner or their family. Do you have any wisdom so they do not feel so alone?
One of the most painful things many parents carry quietly is the fear that the distance they feel means something is broken in their relationship. I hear this often in therapy: “I love my partner, but I don’t feel as close to them as I used to.”
Parenthood rearranges the emotional landscape of a relationship. Energy gets redirected toward children, sleep becomes scarce, responsibilities multiply, and suddenly the couple that once had space to nurture their connection is operating mostly in logistics mode. Who’s picking up the kids, what needs to get done, who’s handling the next crisis, etc. What I want parents to know is that distance doesn’t automatically mean the relationship is failing.
More often it means the couple has been surviving a demanding season of life. Relationships move through phases, and parenting is one of the most intense transitions a partnership can go through. The turning point usually comes when couples are able to talk about that distance without blame or shame. When someone can say, “I miss us,”instead of “You’ve changed.” That kind of honesty can be surprisingly relieving, because many partners are quietly feeling the same thing but are afraid to say it out loud. Naming the distance doesn’t create it. It’s often the first step toward finding your way back to each other.
How can parents navigate parenting challenges with their partner without losing their voice?
One thing I often remind parents is that healthy relationships require room for two perspectives. Parenting can bring up strong opinions, especially when our own childhood experiences are influencing how we think things should be done. Losing your voice usually happens when someone feels like keeping the peace is more important than expressing how they really feel. Over time that can lead to resentment.
It helps when couples shift from trying to “win” parenting debates to trying to understand each other’s experiences. Why something matters to them. What fears or values are underneath their position. When both people feel heard, solutions tend to emerge that honor both voices rather than silencing one of them.
Tell us all about Same Page Parenting and how this is going to help families.
Same Page Parenting is really a guide for the conversations couples often don’t realize they need to have until they’re already overwhelmed or arguing about them. The book is organized around some of the biggest pressure points that show up in modern parenting. Chapters explore topics like mental load and invisible labor, gender roles in parenting, discipline and values, communication during conflict, navigating extended family boundaries, identity shifts after becoming parents, postpartum mental health, neurodivergency, intimacy and connection after children, and the impact of our own childhood experiences on the way we parent.
Each chapter follows a structure that helps couples move from understanding to actually talking with each other. It begins with some psychoeducation about why that topic matters — the research behind it, what we know from psychology and relationship science, and why it tends to become a tension point for many families. Then I share a personal story or reflection from my own life or my clinical practice so readers can see how these dynamics show up in real relationships, not just in theory. Parenting is messy and human, and I wanted the book to reflect that honestly. After that, I include a resource for each topic so couples who want to go deeper have somewhere to turn whether that’s a book, framework, or idea that might support them further.
The Conversation Starter
The heart of the book is the conversation starters. These are questions designed to help couples explore these topics together before resentment builds. What makes the questions unique is that they’re broken down across different stages of parenting: pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, early postpartum, toddler years, young children, teenage years, and even adulthood when children eventually leave home. Parenting evolves over time, and the conversations couples need at each stage evolve too. When couples feel like they’re on the same page, parenting becomes a lot less lonely. That’s really what the book is trying to support.
