How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

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Her recommendations are actionable and accessible (she generally provides both paid and free alternatives).

Lifehacker is a federally registered trademark of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. I am grateful to live and work as an uninvited settler on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' continuous connection to Country, waters, skies and communities. I’m just, so, tired,” I said to my husband, staggering toward the kitchen table and tenderly sitting down.And I’m certain that this period—when we are in the thick of responding to the needs of our tiny, beautiful humans, with a little less time and patience for one another—will strengthen the bond we’ve built, and deepen our ability to empathize. If you don’t have both partners fully taking ownership, then you’ll stay stuck in the employer/sullen teenage employee dynamic.

However, I believe that the book will be helpful to any new parents or soon-to-be new parents, as it outlines actionable strategies on how to prepare for and manage the flow of work that comes with having a new person enter your family. As I stated in my post about emotional labor, invisible work only stays invisible if we don’t shed light on it.The physical sacrifice we make during pregnancy and the emotional toll a newborn takes on us gives no room for romance. Here’s what I know for sure: motherhood is quite likely the hardest transition you’ll ever go through. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. Dunn is honest about her shortcomings in the book along with her husband’s, her issues with anger control being central to many of she and Vanderbilt’s fights. I could have avoided a lot of bruised feelings by simply telling him that sex was off the table for the first six weeks (If I got my mojo back during that time — bonus!

Instead of having the same fights over and over, Dunn and her husband must figure out a way to resolve their larger issues and fix their family while there is still time. to begging and pleading with the universe for a night that would bring a mere two hours of consecutive sleep was a shock to our systems. When their partner made them feel respected and appreciated, desire levels zoomed upward—particularly for women. This sets up a bad dynamic where the mother takes over completely, and he becomes more and more uncertain of his abilities and retreats.You are not alone, and with the right support, it’s not only possible, but probable to be the kind of mom who can believe in herself, meet her emotional needs (without the guilt! I would randomly pull it out during fights about who does what, letting him know that, in fact, I was the more tired one— I worked harder! Dunn and her husband went to couples therapy—and even consulted with an FBI crisis negotiator—to learn to fight fair, and to fight away from their daughter.

Dunn wrote this book after reaching a breaking point in her own marriage surrounding division of labor (much of it “invisible”) and the angry, vicious fights that came from it. Before this pandemic and parenthood, Sam was an avid traveller who split her time between cruising down the coast of California and frolicking on exotic beaches in Asia.He’s compulsively punctual, so he’s in charge of all things time-sensitive, like bill-paying and taking his daughter to her classes. Gender roles are engrained in all of us from birth, despite our best attempts to mitigate societal influence. At the same time, moving forward with an open heart and self-supporting mindset can make motherhood the joy it’s supposed to be. To me, she continues, “and maybe it will help that person get out of their marriage—to ask themselves, ‘why am I letting myself be treated like this? This information puts mothers, even on day one of parenthood, way ahead of fathers in terms of know-how and expertise.