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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!  (more…)

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.”  (more…)

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.       (more…)

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. (more…)

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 (more…)