For one, the sheer volume of work is not really comprehensible in advance.
But the second major problem is more insidious.
Which brings me to resentment.
She even sought help from an FBI crisis negotiator.
I spoke with Dunn to get her top five tips for not hating your partner after kids.
Let him screw up.
Remember that social pipeline of information?
He has to bond with his kids too, and you have to let him make mistakes.
Get a coffee, or go away for the weekend.
His way is not the wrong way.
But what, you ask, if your husband doesntwantto do any domestic labor?
Then, Dunn, says, you are going to have to learn to …
2.
Stay on your own side.
you better advocate for what you need, orstay on your own side.
(Goodbye diapers, hello baseball camp.)
It means presenting things as a choice: Do you want to do baths or dishes?
and then, after that, Do you want to fold laundry or pack lunches?
Insist on your half-day.
Dunn tells me that weekends should not be a forced march of childcare and chores.
She calls it the everyone sort of wins strategy.
Have sex during Tae Kwon Do.
Who has energy for sex when youre caught in a mudslide?
For others, scheduling sex is the only way to ensure it actually happens.
Nothing like paying for a babysitter to make you use your time productively!
Learn to fight fair.
Know that your baby is affected [by your fighting], Dunn says.
If youre fighting over her head, making a few choice gestures, shes getting those stress responses.
The relationship gurus John and Julie Gottman call thisstonewalling, and its one of the big predictors of divorce.
(Um, maybe because itsenraging.)
Were only a generation or two away from the homemaker/breadwinner model, she says.
I already hate my husband!
We cant necessarily do anything about the mudslide.
We cant necessarily do anything about the gender-role programming we received in childhood (and continue to receive).
But wecanstop and have a conversation about who takes the kids to hockey and who goes through the bills.
We can have sex during Tae Kwon Do.
We can see to it that everyone sort of wins.
And thats how not to hate your husband after kids.
