Carrie Underwood: My Marriage 'Changed a Lot' After Baby - 'It's a Whole New Dynamic'

"You have to make it a point not to lose yourselves as a couple," she tells PEOPLE in this week's cover

Paul Redmond/Getty Images

Country star (and new mom!) Carrie Underwood opens up about body issues, breast-feeding struggles, and how she makes her marriage work. Subscribe now for exclusive family photos and an inside look into how she’s adjusting to motherhood, only in PEOPLE!

For nearly five years, Carrie Underwood and her husband, NHL star Mike Fisher, were a team of two.

That changed, of course, when they welcomed son Isaiah Michael last February.

“Your marriage does change a lot when you have a baby — it’s a whole new dynamic,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “Neither one of us had really been baby people or been around a ton of babies. We’re learning together.”

The singer, whose new album Storyteller (preorder it here), is out Oct. 23, admits that the added bustle of parenthood can make date-night time a challenge.

“You have to make it a point to not lose yourselves as a couple,” she says. “There’s so much going on, it becomes easy to not focus on your marriage anymore.”

Joe Pugliese for PEOPLE

Of recent high-profile breakups like friends Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, she says, “It makes you want to take stock of your own marriage. Like, ‘What do you need? Are you happy? What can I do to make things better?’ ”

Asked if she would ever consider couples therapy if they needed to she replies, “Definitely, yeah. We’ve never done it, but even if you don’t necessarily quote-unquote think you ‘need’ it, it might just be good to have that space to talk things out.”

When it comes to their own marriage, “I feel like Mike and I treat it like a partnership, which is a really good thing for both of us,” she says. “I’m not the maid and I’m not the cook, you know what I mean? I do those things when I do them because I like to and I want to. You just figure out your roles and the things that each of you do better, and you give and take.”

Joe Pugliese for PEOPLE

For much more of Carrie Underwood’s intimate interview and exclusive personal photos, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

— Michelle Tauber