ExpectingWords.com » Balance & Fairness

Are We Mismatched?

Laurie — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:22:16 +0000

I’ve noticed in my mediation practice that it’s quite common for a spouse to tell me that the relationship was fine until they had kids, and then….”my husband’s flaws blew up in my face!” I usually tell people that those flaws existed before you had children, but you didn’t notice them because forgetting to buy a tape measure doesn’t compare to the impending disaster of forgetting to buy diapers, and being tired and uninterested in cooking dinner is much less harmful than being too tired to bother giving your kid a bath or being too lazy to buy babyproof covers for the outlets. The flaws always existed, but the consequences are much worse when children are affected.

Where does this insight lead us? Since I’m in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to having discovered these new, but old flaws in my mate and myself, I’ll tell you how I handle the dilemma. First, I am a lot more forgiving than I used to be. Both my husband and I have been thrown into a new situation with a baby and until now we hadn’t felt the pressure to fix our flaws. Before baby, my lack of organization might mean I’d pay a bill late, but now that same flaw means I can’t find my son’s immunization record 5 minutes before we head to the pediatrician. It takes time to see how our own flaws affect our kids. That’s why I’m headed to Staples later today to buy a file cabinet. Recognizing my own flaws humbles me so that I’m a lot less annoyed at my husband’s flaws (which he is also trying to fix).

Not only am I more forgiving of flaws, I’m also a lot more aware of how we communicate with each other about the flaws and other mishaps that are the natural part of couple-hood and parenting. Since there are more opportunities to bicker, it’s become incredibly important that we handle those disagreements with tact and skill. This means taking stock of our natural communication styles. On this blog, we just launched a tremendously important quiz that helps you find out your own style. Are you a pushover, a diplomat or a director? Each communication style has its strengths and weaknesses. If both you and your mate take the quiz, then you can find out how your styles interact, for better or worse, and what to do about it. You can get started on the 10-question quiz now.

We can improve, reduce and fix some of our flaws, but there will always be those glitches that linger on for decades. How we handle and talk about those glitches can be the difference between a happily married couple and a divorced couple.

How do you and your mate talk about flaws? Are you more or less forgiving since pregnancy and/or parenthood? If you took the quiz, were the results on target?

Do You Have a Smart Marriage?

Laurie — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:46:01 +0000

Yesterday, I returned from an amazing three day Smart Marriages conference in Orlando. (Check out their perspective on the Number 1 Predictor of Divorce and their Relationship IQ Quiz). While I was there to speak on a panel, I also had the unique opportunity to listen to the leading researchers in the field of relationship education. I was stunned by the strength of the empirical data showing the harm of divorce and the benefit of lasting marriages.

The California Healthy Marriages Coalition collected some of the new research and organized it into pamphlets (with sourced footnotes) here. Some of the highlights are:

Girls with divorced parents are at particularly high risk for developing depressive symptoms during adolescence.
Almost 50% of households with children undergoing divorce move into poverty following the divorce.
In surveying 3,828 adolescents ages 14-16, those living with their biological father and mother were 2.4 times less likely to be sexually active than those living with their mother and her cohabitating partner, and 1.7 times less likely than those living with a never married single mother.
Juvenile incarceration rates for children of divorced parents have been found to be 12x higher than for children in two-parent families.
Men and women in unhappy marriages have higher cortisol levels after waking up and higher self-reported stress and blood pressure throughout the day than those who are generally happy with their marriage.
Higher marital relationship quality predicted long-term survival (over a 4-year period) in a study of 189 heart disease patients, independent of other known risk factors including initial severity of the diagnosis. The most seriously ill patients, if they were in satisfied, low-conflict marriages, lived significantly longer than much healthier patients in less-satisfying marriages.
When marital conflict is high and sustained, children benefit psychologically from divorce. When marital conflict is low, children suffer psychologically from divorce.

So much data, but what does it all mean? What if you are in a high conflict marriage? The answer is marriage education. Research gives us much hope that an individual can dramatically improve his or her relationship with a bit of education. Learning new communication, conflict-resolution and empathy skills are the tools you need for a smart marriage.

A longitudinal study on a well-known Marriage Education program found that, compared with couples without marriage education training, those with the training maintained high levels of relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction and lower problem intensity three years after training; they also demonstrated significantly greater communication skills and greater conflict-management skills up to 12 years after instruction.

Perhaps we didn’t learn everything we need to know in kindergarten. If you want to find out about a marriage education program in your neck of the woods, visit the Smart Marriages website here for a directory of classes. If you don’t need relationship help, then think about a friend who does, and let him or her know that marriage education is an option. Remember that marriage education is NOT therapy, it’s learning new skills that all of us need to succeed in the goal of lasting love.

Have you or has a friend been to a marriage education program? If so, what was it called and did it help? Any recommendations for the rest of us?

Little Blake, as your birthday present, you will no longer be the center of the world

Laurie — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:33:16 +0000

It’s a long title, but that’s the best way to say it. Yesterday we celebrated Blake’s 2nd birthday. It was fabulous. Family friends, in the backyard at our new house, pizza, BBQ, music and fun.

The best part was that Blake was lovingly surrounded by all four grandparents and his great-grandmother. What a lucky little boy!

During the party I was thinking about how next year at this time, Blake will have a sibling. I wonder how this will affect Blake’s personality. He gets so much attention right now, and he has since he was born.

One of our friends here yesterday has a seven-month old boy and she was saying how great it is that she just puts him on the floor with a ball and he’s happy playing by himself for an hour. I overheard this and ran to tell her, “Appreciate this! Do you know that not all babies do this? Blake never entertained himself with a ball for more than a few minutes.” She had no idea. ”You mean every baby doesn’t happily play with balls for hours?” she asked. ”One hundred percent, no. It’s personality that defines how much a child can play by him or herself.”

Soon my theory will be put to the test. Is it nature or nurture? When I’m caring for a newborn, what will Blake do? Learn to entertain himself or become a tantrum- crazy 2.5 year old? Perhaps there will be a few months of adjustment with more attention demands at first, and then acceptance of the new way of life.

Whatever happens, I stubbornly refuse to feel guilty about giving Blake less attention. I think it will be good for him.

So, happy birthday Blake! Next year you will no longer be the center of attention, but we will love you just as much!

Are you expecting another child? Do you worry about how your first will handle it? If you have more than one kid, how did you balance the needs of your kids? Was it harder or easier than you expected?

Every Couple Has a Hot Button. What’s Yours?

Laurie — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:29:20 +0000

It’s taken me two years to figure out what leads my husband and I to bicker about little things like how much our son ate for breakfast and whether he’s trending upward or downward in hour of sleep. This hot button that that creates our fights is… math.

While my husband’s job relies on numbers and calculations, mine relies on words and thoughts. It’s not surprising then that as we experience life with our son, my husband is obsessed with the numbers of our son’s life, while I am not. I’m good at math, but I simply don’t remember how late my early-rising son slept last Friday. “He got up early! Who cares if it was 5:20 or 5:35? It was early!” My husband cares.

Any attempt by me to contradict my husband’s numbers, or to persuade him that the numbers don’t matter, is dumb. We don’t resolve anything and we end up frustrated with each other. So I’ve reached a new place mentally. I will give in to his numbers. He probably does have a better memory for the numbers, so why fight about them? Regardless, the numbers don’t mean much to me. It’s the present moment or the next morning wake-up time that matter. It’s the fact that our son is talking more and more that matters to me, not how many words he knows.

Today I make a pledge: I’m not going to have those dumb arguments anymore. Now that I am aware of our hot button, we can avoid it.

What repetitive dumb arguments do you have? What are the triggers for your couple spats? A certain person? An event? A memory? Numbers? Your child’s eating habits? What would happen if you decided that you would no longer fight about this issue?

Moms, You Deserve to Be Heard!

Laurie — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:30:38 +0000

Mother’s Day 2010 has come and gone, but as usual, on that day many people sent around quotes via email to memorialize the day.

Here’s a quote that someone forwarded to me:

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie”. ~Tenneva Jordan

Those words seemed sweet and endearing, at first. But then I decided that this quote was dead wrong.

In the past, a good mother and wife may have been defined as a woman who sacrifices for others, putting her families’ needs before her own. But nowadays, a woman can speak up for herself and be caring and loving wife and mother. While I think sacrifice is a noble endeavor, some of the time, it is silly, passive and harmful to a family if that is one’s attitude all of the time.

Taking the quote literally, I must point out that the woman who pretends not to want pie (for reasons other than dieting) is behaving like a doormat. Why not at least ask for half of a piece? Am I alone in thinking this? Is it so wrong to be a little selfish?

Amy Oztan writes an entire blog about finding the selfish balance. It’s called Selfish Mom. She writes, “I have no interest in spending all day on the playground, and I don’t believe that my children should be the center of my life. We’re all in this together, but I was here first. That’s not to say that I don’t love them to death, but honestly, I wish being a mom was a five-day-a-week job. With mandatory spa breaks and six weeks of vacation a year. When they have kids they’ll understand.”

Do you think a good mom should ask for a piece of the pie? How is your mom’s attitude toward motherhood different from yours? Do you ever feel guilty for making your needs count?

How to Wreck a Marriage

Laurie — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:43:33 +0000

A recent article entitled “Honey, Do You Have To…?” in the Wall Street Journal by Elizabeth Bernstein explains that a marriage can break up over a pat of butter. She writes:

When Jim Caudill’s first wife sat him down and explained that she wanted a divorce, she had a long list of complaints: He didn’t help enough with the kids. He didn’t do his share of the housework. They were more devoted to work than to each other.

Then she brought up the English muffins. “She said, ‘You never butter them to the edges, you just pat it in the middle,’” says Mr. Caudill, a 59-year-old winery marketing representative in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Mr. Caudill was stunned. But gradually, the message sunk in. “The weight of a small thing can be onerous,” he says. “It’s a symptom of a larger need.”

Don’t sweat the small stuff? Don’t kid yourself.

After reading that excerpt I thought, if you don’t like the way your mate butters the muffin, butter it yourself! But perhaps Jim Caudill’s wife would rather let him butter it, so she can have a reason to be mad at him. I think relationships break down, not from the small stuff, but from our attitude toward it.

I once heard Wayne Dyer talk about his book “The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way” and he shared a story I will remember forever. He was staying at a hotel in the winter. He likes to jog every day, but this hotel didn’t have a gym. Since the hotel was a circle shape with an atrium in the middle, he decided to use the hallway as a jogging track. He had gone around the track a few times when another guest exited her room and saw him coming toward her from down the hall. With an irritated look on her face and condescending attitude she said something like, “What do you think you’re doing?” He answered, “I’m jogging.” Wayne used this anecdote to show an example of a woman looking to be offended. Why should his jogging bother her? He theorized that this woman gets up in the morning and subconsciously intends to find something to bother her, and on that day she placed her irritation on him.

I remember when I was pregnant and an acquaintance and I went to a Big City Moms event for expecting women. We shared a taxi home and on the way we each called our husbands to check-in. My husband was having drinks with a friend. So was hers, but she was annoyed. “You’re STILL out? I’m coming home now, can’t you come home now? They only had appetizers at the event. Can you pick up dinner for me?” I know that social schedules have to change when we are expecting, but to be annoyed simply because your mate is out a little longer than you are? It seemed petty. We live in Manhattan, it’s not hard to order dinner from one of the five take-out restaurants on one’s block.

I believe that being offended is a choice. Sometimes we have good reason to be offended (like if your mate was supposed to pick you up from an event but forgot because he was out drinking with a friend), and other times, we have to use our wisdom to know that our partner’s actions are not about us at all. How your husband butters a muffin or tells you the same story for the third time, or how your wife leaves the cap off of the toothpaste, can either be an annoyance, or something you smile at because it’s just part of who your mate is. Therefore, it’s not about you. So just butter the muffin yourself, nod to the story you already heard and don’t share toothpaste.

What small stuff bothers you? How do you get past it? Do you think the small stuff should matter?

How Take-Out Saved My Marriage

Laurie — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:11:38 +0000

In the last year, while writing this blog, I’ve also been penning the manuscript for my next relationship advice book, “Fight Less, Love More: 5-Minute Conversations to Change Your Relationship without Blowing Up or Giving In,” which will be published by Rodale on October 12, 2010. Not surprisingly, while writing the manuscript, I had my own relationship ups and downs and I share some of them in the book. One of our funny-in-retrospect-only stories is about take-out and I thought I’d share it with you today.

To be fair, my marriage was in pretty good shape when we had the “take-out” incident. My husband and I are a great team, but at times (like all couples) we are no match for the demands of our toddler son. Stress from a little one can wear down anyone’s patience and test any marriage’s mettle.

Several months ago, I had a tiring day of work, and my husband had his usual high-pressure day as an equities trader. The evening arrived and we fell into our typical routine. Our son was on the verge of walking and he was trying to climb everything in sight. One of us, therefore, needed to pay very close attention to him at all times to make sure he was safe. As usual, it was me who ended up being on surveillance duty. My husband was nearby, but somehow I was the one “in charge.” We had never verbally agreed to this division of power. It just happened. When I would use the bathroom or make a phone call, I had a nagging guilty feeling that I had to rush back to my duties.

On this seemingly uneventful night, we ordered take-out Chinese food and my husband announced that he would go pick it up. As I was left stranded at home, again, I became angry. “Dammit, I want to get out of the house for 15 minutes to get the take-out! I want to do the errands!” But I didn’t say this to my husband because it felt wrong. And so I slept on it.

By the next morning I was prepared for a difficult conversation. I couldn’t blame my husband for the situation; I had tacitly agreed to it. And the truth is, how could he know what I wanted if I never said it. Now was the time to re-negotiate our evening parenting responsibilities. I took my own advice as a family mediator and I revealed my feelings without blaming him. I told him that I wasn’t asking for him to be in charge all of the time, or even half of the time. I just needed him to spend a portion of each night as the truly responsible party, so I could have a chance to truly relax, knowing our son was well taken care of.

I’m not kidding when I tell you this: From that day forward, my husband stepped up to the plate. He’s created fun little games with our son that they play every night. They have their own sayings and jokes. When our son needs his diaper changed during the “Daddy play period,” my husband does it, without yelling for my help. Our evenings as a family are more rewarding for everyone.

This story reminds me that sometimes you get what you ask for. I wonder whether other couples have faced the same problem with de facto division of labor.

Before you had a child did you think you and your mate would divide things 50/50? How did it work out? Did you have to negotiate for what you wanted?

A portion of this blog post was originally published as a guest post on The Laughing Stork with Candy Kirby.

Working Woman = Stronger Marriage?

Laurie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:17:08 +0000

In yesterday’s Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope wrote an article called “She Works. They’re Happy.” about a new study from the Pew Research Center showing that divorce rates are lower and couples are happier when… get this… the wife is the primary breadwinner and the husband does a fair share of the child care and housework. While it’s been traditionally thought that female economic independence is a leading cause of divorce, this research turns that idea on its head.

“Wives are now the primary breadwinner in 22 percent of couples, up from 7 percent in 1970.”

“Over all, the evidence shows that the shifts within marriages — men taking on more housework and women earning more outside the home — have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier unions.”

And this increased happiness occurs even when the husband does less than 50% of the housework and childcare. As long as it’s more than older generations of men did, she’s somewhat pleased.

“Even among dual-earning couples, women still do about two-thirds of the housework, on average, according to the University of Wisconsin National Survey of Families and Households. But men do contribute far more than they used to. Studies show that since the 1960s, men’s contributions to housework have doubled, while the amount of time spent caring for children has tripled.”

Who is the primary breadwinner in your house? Do you split housework and/or childcare? Who does more? Does it surprise you that couples are less likely to divorce when the woman works or does this make perfect sense?

Other Posts You Might Like:

How to Train Daddy to MAN UP!!!

The New Normal: Mom’s at Work, Dad’s at Home

Breastfeeding is a Man’s Job Too

The New Normal: Mom’s at Work, Dad’s at Home

Laurie — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:03:02 +0000

It’s been called the man-cession, the he-cession and the manly recession. No matter what we call it, the truth is that men are losing more jobs than women. Of the 6.4 million jobs eliminated since December 2007, men have lost 74% of them. CBS News reported that in 40% of households, women say they are the primary breadwinners. The facts are daunting, and the consequences affect families tremendously.

Will more dads stay-at-home to care for the children?

Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting Are Transforming the American Family, argues that stay-at-home dads are an advance in American family life and that the growing number of such dads is a result of the last 50 years of change, though the trend may have been accelerated by the current economic climate. He points out that while moms may have a stronger initial connection to their newborns because of the pregnancy, Dads can build their connection by taking care of the child. And it seems that many fathers choose to do this.

At-home dads, and daddy blogs, are increasing in numbers every day. The Rebel Dad puts the stay-at-home dad trend under the microscope, offering a list of new daddy blogs every week. The NYC dads group is an example of how stay-at-home dads are using the internet to find each other and gather support and advice from one another. They even give tips on how to achieve a successful at-home dads group in your own neighborhood.

But I wonder, what about the dad who didn’t choose to stay-at-home?

What if he is forced into it through temporary unemployment? Is that dad going to want to do the tasks that are not always considered “fun”? At Good Times Dad, the father presents his blog as, “A look into the thoughts of a (currently, though hopefully not for long) stay-at-home dad to two of the coolest kids in the world…” Just skimming through his posts shows that yes, he is in fact taking care of the mundane tasks of supermarket shopping, making breakfast, dressing the kids and more.

This gives me hope. If both parents can achieve flexibility with their roles as breadwinner and parent, then families have more reasonable options when it comes to weathering the storm of a recession. Nowadays a married expecting mom can ask herself: should I go back to work after I have the baby, should I stay-at-home, or should I go back to work while my husband stays at home?

What do you think about stay-at-home dads? Are you a stay-at-home dad? Is your family considering this option? How do you think it affects the kids? And just as importantly, is the role reversal good or bad for the marriage?

Why Moms Can Be Meanies

Laurie — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:49:07 +0000

Is there something about having a child that makes a woman feel like she’s superior to others? That’s what you might think considering how often moms judge other moms for making “bad” decisions. Now I’m not talking about dangerous decisions, just ones that someone might not agree with, like deciding not to breastfeed, or to put your child in day care, or to have a child when you’re “too young” or “too old,” to let your child watch television, to enroll her in too many activities or too few, or to work full-time or part-time, or to exercise too little or too much during pregnancy. You name it and there are plenty of moms out there willing to shame you for it.

What’s got me started on this topic? A woman named Donna commented on my blog post “The Top 5 Rude Comments Pregnant Women Field.” She wrote, “I’m finding a lot of hostility toward a planned c-section. Maybe I’m just defensive, but people seem to give me the third degree about why I’m doing it and telling me that vaginal birth isn’t that bad. And frankly, I don’t want to share all my medical issues with them and debate what my doctors and I have decided is healthiest for both me and the baby.”

Even before that comment saddened me, I had read another one from Jane, over at His Boys Can Swim. She had posted about her decision to stop breastfeeding her 6-week old son because she began taking medication for Postpartum Depression. The response? Most blog commenters were supportive, but some were meanies and others were such bullies that they didn’t even post their comments, they sent them directly to Jane, attacking her anonymously. Jane’s husband wrote that:

“People [are] telling her that she’s giving up too soon, that she’s using PPD as an excuse to stop breastfeeding, that she really doesn’t have PPD and that it’s normal for her to feel this way, that she should suck it up and keep breastfeeding Monkey [their son] because formula is pure poison, and yet another who claims to have no respect for any woman who chooses not or stops breastfeeding for any reason whatsoever.”

Are you kidding me? What is going on? Why are moms so mean to each other? Does having a child make some women incapable of understanding that there are many loving ways to have, care for and raise a child?

At least it’s not all bad. Over at Dooce Heather has received soooo much hate mail that her friend made a suggestion:

“You should monetize the shit out of it. Collect all the crap that people say about you, put it on a single page, and then litter the entire thing with ads. And I was all, I don’t know as [my husband] Jon immediately turned to [my friend’s] husband Derek and asked, ‘May I borrow your laptop, I’ve got a bit of coding to do.’”

Drum roll please, Monitizing the Hate.

Why do you think some moms are meanies? Are they insecure or ego-driven? Do they think they are speaking for the voiceless children or do they just want to feel good about themselves by putting other people down? Are these moms teaching their kids to be bullies?