How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

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A couple years since the birth, they have found better ways to communicate and strengthened their relationship. It should be a national embarrassment that there are only four countries that offer no paid parental leave to anyone,” says Kimmel. “And they are Lesotho, Swaziland, Papua New Guinea—and the United States.” Find ways to get Dad involved and continue to encourage and reward his engagement with the baby. This means stop criticizing the way he dresses the baby, feeds the baby, or changes a diaper. Dad feeling competent is more important than the baby wearing coordinating outfits. I now strive to keep my requests to one sentence—or even just silently involve him in what I am doing. If I’m emptying the dishwasher, I hand him some bowls. (What is he going to do—throw them on the floor?) If I’m folding laundry, I push a pile his way. If I’m making dinner, I hand him a knife and some vegetables. This tactic works a lot better than brooding, or raging that “I’m doing everything around here,” an observation that swirls around with nowhere to land.”

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. A friend of mine recently said, about her husband and new baby girl, “He would take a bullet for this kid, but he might forget to put a hat on her.” Remember that social pipeline of information? He doesn’t have it, and if you don’t let him learn, you’re engaging in “maternal gatekeeping,” or keeping him from participating in the nitty-gritty of childcare. 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. Are we required to attend birthday parties of classmates my daughter barely knows? We are not. A helpful way to discern if the kids are actually close is to ask my six-year-old, 'Do you know this child's favorite color? How about their pet's name? How many teeth have they lost?' Good friends are in possession of this vital information." (p106) I'm absolutely going to have to buy this as a reference book. So many exercises and experiments to try!

It helped "a lot". Holly realised just how much her perspective on their relationship needed to change. Only when she saw those types of posts online, says Holly, did she feel less alienated. "I realised … this is more common than I think – it's just that people don't talk about it." Once she understood she wasn't alone, she moved away from blaming herself for her rage, and instead figuring out why it was she felt this way. She also felt more comfortable opening conversations with her partner. Honestly one of the best parts of this book was just realizing how common these issues were. It’s enabled me to give a bit more grace to my husband when I feel he’s not helping eno Once she started writing and researching her book, however, she realised that wasn't the case: some 95% of the couples she spoke to said they'd struggled after having a baby, but felt like they were the only ones, which added "shame on top of everything else that young parents are going through", says Dunn. When I first brought it home from the library, Bart raised an eyebrow and said, “I’m not sure what I think about that book.”

Know that your baby is affected [by your fighting],” Dunn says. “If you’re fighting over her head, making a few choice gestures, she’s getting those stress responses. We were in a pattern called ‘Demand-Withdrawal,’” in which one partner tries to get the other to do something, or to engage and communicate, and the other one just shuts down. The relationship gurus John and Julie Gottman call this stonewalling, and it’s one of the big predictors of divorce. (Um, maybe because it’s enraging.) 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 think that many, if not most women can relate to the cover image of this book. The harried, flustered mother just trying to get by day by day with as much sanity as she started with, while her frustratingly nonchalant husband casually lives life by the seat of his pants. Probably because he has what we don't...a wife looking out for everything! 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.

Dunn and her husband each get a half day off (one on Sunday and one on Saturday) where they can sleep in, go on a long run, or meet a friend for breakfast. Even if they are home, the other parent is in charge until lunch. You need to advocate for what you need, or stay on your own side. Now, this advocating can mean losing your temper and screaming that he needs to get off his ass and fold a load of laundry, or no it’s not okay to take a long nap after a long hot shower after taking a long solo run all morning, or you can have a civil conversation and divide up the chores. And keep having that civil conversation, weekly or monthly, as new responsibilities crop up and others fade away. (Goodbye diapers, hello baseball camp.) Dunn was hesitant when talking to friends about her marital issues. "I just felt too embarrassed. And I felt like everybody else was handling it better than I was," she says.

Dunn talks about her “everyone sort of wins” approach to weekends, making sure they take the time to discuss what things need to happen for each person to “sort of win” that weekend and then making sure that they happen. For her part, Dunn had to learn to control her temper, which a therapist told her was verbally abusive, and to ask directly for help, rather than spiraling into a rage cycle when her husband couldn’t read her mind. I'm not proud to say that the main reason I haven't had her do anything more arduous is that I haven't had the patience to teach her how to do chores, nor to remind her to do them." (p171) 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. Don't let the title of the book scare you away from reading it; it's wasn't a terrible read. Jancee Dunn did her research and was able to cite several reputable scientists, researchers, therapists and other professionals to discuss many aspects of young family life and relationships. This is by no means a self-help book for the reader, more of a narrative about the author's life.It's led to "verbal jabs" and frustrating conversations that rarely resolve anything. "It never ends well for us,” she says. In Virginia, US, Erin always considered herself a busy, independent person with multiple hobbies and interests. One of the most important to her was fitness – she even worked with a personal trainer while pregnant. But after her son was born, that time and freedom to care for herself vanished.

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. Next, there’s a bunch of talk about dealing with weekends (you know you’re a parent when the weekends are harder than the weekdays), followed by a section about having children help out in the home (you guys – this chapter alone is worth the price of the book). After that, the book is divided into sections about the major areas of conflict in marriage. First, there is housework (surprise! to no wife ever). Then a whole chapter on how to fight so that it’s both effective and doesn’t destroy your relationship or scar your children.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. 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.