Research has shown the vast majority of relationships change after having a baby. A 2021 study from the University of Born showed that, on average, relationship satisfaction fluctuates over time – and declines during the first 10 years of being together – whether couples are parents or not.

Many expectant parents spend weeks researching the best crib or safest car seat, but spend little if any time thinking about the titanic impact the baby will have on their marriage - and the way their marriage will affect their child. Jancee Dunn is honest, smart and funny. Her truthful writing style makes me feel understood and less alone with my issues in the world. We assumed that we had worked out all of – or at least the majority of – the kinks in our relationship, and that we had a nice, solid foundation with which to build a family," she says.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. Even discounting the final chapter, there's a lot of repetition. Dunn even manages to recycle some of her jokes into several locations. 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). Like many expectant parents, they’d spent weeks researching the safest car seat but little time thinking about the titanic impact the baby would have on their marriage — and the way their marriage would affect their child.

You have no idea how your identity will shift until you have that kid," says Sherrell. "So, all of a sudden, I care about things that I didn’t before. And my partner's, like, 'Who have you become? Why do you care all the sudden that I’m playing video games?' You become a new person – and your partner has to accept a new partner." time out, photo, and "I know that what I'm about to do is going to cause you harm, but right now, my anger is more important to me than you are." (<\3) can't believe how many hours I squandered fuming, in the hopes that Tom would intuitively leap in and help me out. With hindsight, I see that my expectations probably increased because I spend so much time around moms who offer constant and unthinking support: when Sylvie recently ran toward me on the playground, crying with a bloody knee, one friend handed me a wad of tissues, another a bandage, a third a lollipop for Sylvie, all without a break in our conversation" (p248) 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. Jancee's tone aside, the advice and conversations that she and her husband Tom had about raising a child in today's world were very insightful. Tom and Jancee's interactions made me examine my own interactions with my wife and daughters.

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.) 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.” maternal gatekeeping--in which mothers can swing open the gate to encourage fatherly participation, or clang it resolutely shut by controlling or limiting Dad's interactions with kids" (p37) Some couples can't recover from these conflicts, and find themselves splitting up ­– even when they've put in a lot of effort to salvage their relationships. Yet not all couples who have seen their marriages affected after having children are primed for permanent conflict or divorce. 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.