Trisha Ashworth - Id Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper: Loving Your Marriage after the Baby Carriage

ID TRADE MY HUSBAND

for a

HOUSEKEEPER

loving your marriage after the baby carriage

TRISHA ASHWORTH and AMY NOBILE

Copyright 2009 by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ashworth, Trisha.
Id trade my husband for a housekeeper : loving your marriage after the baby carriage / Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile.

ISBN 978-0-8118-7168-6

Chronicle Books
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

www.reallygoodmom.com
Some names in this book have been changed.

for Eric and Paul,
Your love and laughter is the inspiration for everything else.

CHAPTER 1
BEYOND THE BITCH SESSION
(Why We Wrote This Book)

CHAPTER 2
WHY DONT WE HAVE ONE OF THOSE HOLLYWOOD MARRIAGES?
(Expectations vs. Reality)

CHAPTER 3
HAPPY WIFE, HAPPY LIFE
(Make the Choice to Be Happy)

CHAPTER 4
SISTER, HE AINT YOUR GIRLFRIEND
(Communication Is Key)

CHAPTER 5
WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHY IS HE IN MY HOUSE?
(Prioritizing Your Relationship)

CHAPTER 6
IF I HAVE SEX FOR ONE MONTH STRAIGHT, WILL IT BUY ME THE WHOLE YEAR?
(Make Sex a True Investment in Your Marriage)

CHAPTER 7
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

quiz no. 1

You need this book if

Check all that apply:

You spend more time with Mr. Potato Head than your husband.

Youre psyched when your husband goes on a business trip because you wont have to shave your legs.

You think sex is something people do on soap operas.

Youre green with envy upon hearing that your best friends hubby knows how to sew on a button.

Youve fantasized about spraining your ankle just so you can spend some quiet hours alone in the emergency room.

Your last date night was when you were dating.

You consider your five-year-old to be more mature than your husband because your five-year-old knows how to clean his room.

You wonder what the FedEx guy does for fun.

You fondly remember the days when your biggest stress was buying the right tampons.

Your husbands idea of a great day with the kids is going to the hardware store and then to Best Buy to check out the new plasma TVs.

You spy on your husband doing the dishes because it turns you on.

Your bras can stand up and walk away on their own.

You find yourself asking your preschool daughter if her daddy ever says nice things about you.

You rationalize not washing your hair for another day because it will save you twenty minutes.

Getting ready to go to an amusement park with the family might throw you into divorce court.

The last time you wore a sexy nightgownlet alone lingeriewas on your honeymoon.

Your husband knows every major league baseball players batting average but doesnt know your kids teachers names.

If theres one thing MORE TABOO THAN ADMITTING YOURE A TRAIN WRECK OF A MOTHER, its saying you think your marriage is running off the rails. Were not talking about a little good old-fashioned bitching, like when youre in a bad mood and you tell your girlfriend at the grocery store that if your husband doesnt start forming a more intimate relationship with the bathroom hamper, youre thinking of forming an intimate relationship with someone else. Sounding off like that is acceptable, cathartica normal part of life. Whats hardand not so acceptableis making an honest, gut-wrenching assessment of the honest, gut-wrenching state of your marriage. Particularly if youre in a marriage that involves kids.

Lets face it: Kids, god bless em, are a marriage bomb. You pop one out andwham!your whole relationship is scrambled like an omelet. Your family role is now split: One minute youre a wife, the next youre a mom (though most of the time youre expected to be both). The stress level in your house explodes. Too tired to make dinner, too frenzied to communicate, too wrung-out by the undersized darlings clinging to your hands, legs, and boobs to have any interest in clinging to the big darling beside you in bed, the seeds of resentment take root, and quickly bloom.

We explored this a little in our first book, I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids. In our research we talked to hundreds of moms coast-to-coastsingle moms, working moms, stay-at-home momsand found that one of the biggest issues on mothers minds today is how parenthood affects our relationships with our spouses. Before kids, he used to come home from work and give me a hug. Now he walks in the door and immediately says, OK! Everybody needs to calm down! Everybody needs to lower their voices! Are you kidding me? one mother of three told us. Of course, some mothers have happier marriages than others. One lucky mama told us, My husbands mantra is Happy Wife, Happy Life. He can clue into what makes me happy and support that. But for each cooing mother we talked to, we heard from one (or two, or three) who were losing their minds. I dont know how to ask for help. I just know how to scream at my husband, was a familiar refrain.

What we learned from our interviews was that the pressures and challenges of modern motherhood have created a new set of obstacles for married couples today.

We thought wed deal with this by writing a nice long chapter about husbands and leave it at that. Yet once I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids came out, we started getting stopped on the street by women whod read the husband chapter and said it really resonated with them. They asked us for more. More quotes from more women about what their marriages are really like. More discussion about why kids seem so incompatible with conjugal bliss. More about