Real leans back. “Good,” he says. “Your job walking out of here is to be more giving—physically, with helping around the house, and emotionally. I want you to open your heart, share more, listen better, cherish more. Verbally cherishing your wife with compliments, for example, is a good thing for her, good for Sylvie to see, and a good thing for

Real frowns. “But she’s the after-school mom and the cook and the cleaner-upper,” he says. “That would be fine if she didn’t work, but not if you’re both working. What I see happening with guys is ‘Don’t mess with me—I need sleep and R&R so I can fight the dragons for my family.’ But she’s fighting the dragons now, too.” In the old days, he goes

“Yes. You are. And it may get results, intermittently. That’s the seduction of the dark path.” He fastens his unblinking gaze on me. “But the idea that you can haul off and be abusive to your partner and somehow get a pass, that you can’t control it, or whatever you tell yourself to rationalize it, is nuts. Also, your whole ‘angry victim’ role is

women do countless invisible tasks. This is the time-gobbling labor that will likely never show up on any sort of time use study. One is “kin work,” which Smock defines to me as “giving emotional support to relatives, buying presents and sending cards, handling holiday celebrations, things like that.”

Sociologist Michael Kimmel, director of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities (yes, this exists) at Stony Brook University, says that men tend to pitch in more with childcare than with housework—but as with housework, they’re selective about the kind of childcare that they will do. “What happens in a lot of middle-class families is that

Then have what psychologists call an “intentional conversation,” in which you are extremely clear about your need for change and your wishes going forward. “Most men are actually willing to negotiate and compromise, but they expect the woman to be direct,” says Coleman, who cheerfully admits to being a reformed “lazy husband” himself. “Men often do

I explain, as calmly as I can, that mothers have a particular pet peeve about feeling judged and inadequate, especially when the hundred things they do with smooth efficiency pass without comment.

There’s a world of difference between assertively standing up for yourself and aggressively putting him down. As crazy at it might seem, arguing or complaining can actually feel safer to most of us than simply and directly making a request. So,

Darby Saxbe, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, explains to me that couples often fall into a pattern of demand and retreat—most often, the woman demands and the man retreats. This dynamic has arisen, she says, because men have less to gain by changing their behavior, while women are more likely to want to alter the