How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

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One of the first chapters talks about when they go to a marriage counselor who is famous (infamous?) for giving it to couples straight. He immediately helps them identify the major problems they’re each dealing with in their relationship and gives them some tools to help them overcome these poor habits (his unwillingness to help out and her temper). I'm absolutely going to have to buy this as a reference book. So many exercises and experiments to try! 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.

Janina Büehler, a practising psychologist and assistant professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, believes this stigma makes relationship challenges even harder to surmount. "The idea that relationships should just be very satisfied all the time, and we should have sex all the time, and just be happy all the time – that's just not true," she says. After finding themselves arguing often after having a third baby, Holly and her partner chose couples therapy, which research has shown can lessen relationship distress. Initally, she says, her husband resisted, seeing seeking help as a sign that their relationship had failed. a woman's free time is likely to be 'contaminated,' as one study put it, by other things, such as taking care of kids or housework." (p99) We also need to appreciate each other more. At the end of the day and on the other side of all of the experts, Dunn comes to a dozen important realizations. One of which, appreciation, seems to be the magic bullet for most of her formerly-insurmountable marriage woes. It isn't a new message but it is one that is worth repeating.In a commencement speech at the University of Texas, Admiral William H. McRaven, commander of the US Special Operations Command, said that when he was training to be a Navy SEAL, he was required to make his bed every morning to square-cornered perfection—annoying at the time, but in retrospect one of the most important life lessons he ever learned. “If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day,” he told graduates. “It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another.” Making your bed, McRaven went on, reinforces the fact that the small things in life matter. “If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. And if, by chance, you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” What you want is fewer things circulating in your brain, and for as many things to run on autopilot as possible, such as meal planning" (p234) The final chapter talks about how their marriage has changed over the course of her research and experiments, and then sums up 27 things she’s learned. 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.

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.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.