How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

Then have what psychologists call an “intentional conversation,” in which you are extremely clear about your need for change and your wishes going forward. “Most men are actually willing to negotiate and compromise, but they expect the woman to be direct,” says Coleman, who cheerfully admits to being a reformed “lazy husband” himself. “Men often do

Real frowns. “But she’s the after-school mom and the cook and the cleaner-upper,” he says. “That would be fine if she didn’t work, but not if you’re both working. What I see happening with guys is ‘Don’t mess with me—I need sleep and R&R so I can fight the dragons for my family.’ But she’s fighting the dragons now, too.” In the old days, he goe

“Yes. You are. And it may get results, intermittently. That’s the seduction of the dark path.” He fastens his unblinking gaze on me. “But the idea that you can haul off and be abusive to your partner and somehow get a pass, that you can’t control it, or whatever you tell yourself to rationalize it, is nuts. Also, your whole ‘angry victim’ role is g

He leans forward. “Tom, what you’re not getting, and this is true for most men I see, is that it is in your interest to move beyond your knee-jerk selfishness and entitlement and to take good care of your wife, so she isn’t such a raving lunatic all the time.” He shakes his head. “The idea that withdrawal is going to work is nuts. You’re a sweet gu

This is followed by a leisurely twenty-minute shower, a late breakfast, a long nap, and then a meandering perusal through a variety of periodicals. Meanwhile, I am ferrying our daughter to birthday parties and playdates. On weekend evenings, Tom doesn’t check with me before he meets friends for drinks; he just breezes out the door with the assumpti

output roughly equals that of my former job as a music writer at Rolling Stone magazine—I may have spent nine hours daily in the office, but a full third of it was dedicated to web-surfing, gossiping with coworkers, and debating what to have for lunch (if we weren’t on deadline, twenty minutes could be devoted to the topic of will Mexican food make

Darby Saxbe, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, explains to me that couples often fall into a pattern of demand and retreat—most often, the woman demands and the man retreats. This dynamic has arisen, she says, because men have less to gain by changing their behavior, while women are more likely to want to alter the st

But equality, as Lean In’s Sheryl Sandberg has stated, is not a zero-sum game. Beyond the most immediate and obvious benefit—that I will cease being, as Real memorably put it, a “raving lunatic”—there are so many others. A Cornell study found that couples with young kids who split housework more evenly reported better and more frequent sex than whe

There’s a world of difference between assertively standing up for yourself and aggressively putting him down. As crazy at it might seem, arguing or complaining can actually feel safer to most of us than simply and directly making a request. So,