How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

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But throughout that trajectory, satisfaction is lower for parents than for non-parents. Meanwhile, the more children a couple has, the less likely they are to feel satisfied with their relationship. Mothers of infants particularly are the least happy: 38% of married mums have high satisfaction, compared to 62% of married women without children. Becoming a parent isn't the only cause of new conflicts, says Stacey Sherrell, a family therapist in California. But pre-baby, couples generally have more time to focus on issues like poor communication. That's more difficult when a child is added to the mix. Mom, just get out of the house. Even if it is only for a half an hour, just leave. It is difficult for real me-time to happen while you’re in the same house as the baby. Divorce is never easy, but it's one of those life events that deserves a serious postmortem… Read more Even when they are asleep, infants as young as six months react negatively to angry, argumentative voices, as University of Oregon researchers discovered by measuring brain activity of babies in the presence of steadily rising voices. Babies raised by unhappily married parents have been shown to have a host of developmental problems, from delayed speech and potty training to a reduced ability to self-soothe.”

When friends warned her that, after children were added to the mix, her marriage would go downhill, she was skeptical. Meh. This book should have been titled "Case study in couples therapy for a marriage between two white, upper-middle-class freelance writers with one child." If you happen to have a very similar personality to the author, with the same stereotype of husband, and one well-behaved elementary school kid, you'll find this book spot-on.

The phenomenon is well-studied among mothers, in particular, in whom it is called matrescence. And these changes, which can range from hormonal shifts that affect behaviour to body image, often start in pregnancy. For the non-birthing parent, seeing their partner change even before the baby comes can be confusing and disorienting. London-based Andy says he and his wife also developed "feelings of resentment" towards each other after the births of their two children, despite having had a "very solid foundation" for their marriage. If you’re yelling and calling names, your kid thinks, ‘If I get in a disagreement, the way to resolve it is to speak more forcefully, more loudly, and to say harsher things to get my way.” It's not surprising, then, that everything Dunn covers in this book I've heard before. Although there was nothing new for me, I probably would still recommend this book, simply because it brings a number of good ideas together into one place, and it presents everything as easy to implement pieces of advice. For example, “I feel frustrated and unsupported when I come out from putting the baby to bed to find the kitchen still a mess and you relaxing on the couch because it feels like I have to do it all by myself and that your relaxation is more important than mine.” Leave the house

I loved this book because it had so many hands-on ideas for improving relationships. And not just marriage, but also how you interact with your children, your parents or in-laws, your neighbors and your co-workers. contemporary parents are less authoritarian and more egalitarian with their children. 'Parents your age like to reason with their kids, like they're little adults with rational minds,' my mother says, rolling her eyes. 'No one wants to be the bad guy.'" (p170)

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids is a witty and practical non-fiction account of the struggles of Jancee Dunn and her husband after their first child was born. Life is unpredictably short, and you and the person you have chosen to be with for the rest of your life are arguing about housework. It's not worth it." Yet he says the changes he says he's observed in his wife still affect their level of physical intimacy. It isn't just sex that is rare now – it's also other types of affection, like cuddling or hugging. "It's maybe a self-esteem thing, where identity gets bound up in being a mom … She'll say, 'I just feel like his mom now, as opposed to more of a confident individual'," he says. "And then, for me, it feels like kind of a rejection."

Five weeks after giving birth, she was diagnosed with postpartum depression. "I just was not loving any of it. I was missing a lot of my old life, and realising what I've lost," she says. what Brene Brown tells me is her 'boundary mantra': choose discomfort over resentment. As she says, 'Ask yourself, 'Am I saying yes because it's more comfortable to say yes now, but I'll be more resentful at the end?'" (p235)Today, while the dynamic of their relationship has changed – and is still evolving – they're in a good place, thanks in no small part to learning to discuss the most challenging freely and openly. The clincher for this book was that it’s just delightfully written. It’s funny and clever, full of amusing and interesting stories, and the research is shared in a way that makes it meaningful and fascinating. For Andy and his parner, their relationship only improved when they learned to communicate better, he says. In particular, "whenever we feel like one of us has gone down a road that they don't enjoy, we have to talk about it", he says.

I think the author was trying to meet a real need in the market of marriage/parenting books, which are usually written for those in breadwinner/homemaker roles, and I think that's why this book gets recommended so frequently in circles without a traditional configuration. It seeks to help couples work through things like how to divide household jobs if both spouses work full-time. It challenges the idea that chores are gendered, which is a worthwhile conversation to have, even if you disagree with her. We are about to enter into a 3-month phase where our roles will shift pretty dramatically, and I'm interested to see how it will go. Though, if anything, I think Christian should have read this book to figure out how to deal with *me*, as I tend to be the one who doesn't see household tasks until they've hit DEFCON 5.Dunn learned the compelling research finding that babies as young as six months release a stress hormone when they hear their parents fighting (and Brain Rules for Baby, the first baby book I read, would suggest the impact starts even younger). Yell Electronically So, obvious disclaimer: I don't hate my husband. After hearing an interview with the author on a podcast I listen to, and running across the audiobook on my library app, I figured I'd give it a listen to see if I could glean any new tips. I was quoting this book so often to my husband he’s decided he’s going to read it, which I’m thrilled about. When I told some girlfriends I was pregnant after the squeals of delight, they warned me that inevitably, during the newborn phase, I was going to hate my husband. This made me nervous because…. I like my husband, and I like liking him!! I mean, the man already has to compete with my fictional boyfriends on a daily basis. Must we throw in post-baby hatred? Honestly, I was scared of who we were going to become once the baby came. When our baby arrived, I began to understand all the conversations I’d heard about a woman’s mental load & the invisible labor of running a household. I won’t go so far as to say I hated my husband, but I will say steam came out of my ears once when he remarked how tired he was after I had spent the night up with the baby.