Scorekeeping, the endless tit-for-tat over who's working harder, who has it tougher. Does this sound familiar? “I paid all the bills, bought a birthday present for your mother, read Goodnight Moon five times, took four six-year-olds to Chuck-E-Cheese . . . and that was just Tuesday. . . .” “Excuse me, but did I not make the kids breakfast every morning last week, including the morning it made me late for my presentation, when I really should have gone in early? And I picked up the dry cleaning without being asked, and I did bath duty three times last week. What more do you want?” The three of us have at one time or another been serious scorekeepers. We’re not proud to admit it, but there you have it. We each had different styles and our own way of letting our husbands know the score. Notice we are using the past tense. That is somewhat aspirational, but we have improved enormously and we’re still working on it. Meet the Silent Sulker, the Quarterly Exploder, and Exacto Woman:




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