Is Your Marriage Baby Proof?

How Does Your Marriage Rate?

By Shel Franco

Marital Bliss. Nothing challenges it like introducing another person into the relationship. And while your new baby is hardly the same as an office romance, the mother-child relationship can have remarkably similar effects on your marriage. If you're wondering how well you and your spouse will weather the newborn storm, this is the quiz for you!

You and your husband are arguing more often and drifting apart. Your best course of action is to:
Get pregnant. Something this momentous will certainly bring the two of you together.
Find a marriage counselor and schedule a joint session.
Book a romantic vacation.
Each week, you and your girl friends get together for a night out. Your spouse:
Sits home and sulks, feeling jealous over the time you spend with friends.
Encourages the evenings out because he sees how much you enjoy them.
Goes out with his buddies.
A typical evening meal goes something like this:
You cook. You both eat. You clean up while he watches the news.
The first one home prepares dinner. You both eat. You both clean up.
You and your spouse meet at your favorite trendy restaurant and share a cozy table for two.
In your marriage, intimacy equals:
Sex.
Conversation, inside jokes, holding hands, passionate kisses and lingering hugs.
All of the above.
It's Friday night. Your plans include:
Seeing your husband off to the local bar and preparing for his Saturday morning hangover.
A rented movie and some microwave popcorn.
Dinner and the theatre.
When you and your spouse disagree:
It quickly turns into a full-blown argument with one of you leaving the house in anger.
You agree to disagree and come to a compromise.
You change the subject.
Your desire to have a baby is:
Not encouraged by your spouse.
Shared by your spouse.
Governed by the 5-year plan you envisioned while you were in graduate school.
As the pregnancy progresses, your swelling body prompts your spouse to:
Relentlessly tease and joke about the added weight.
Adoringly caress and kiss you belly.
Buy a sexy negligee in your pre-pregnancy size and include a card that reads: "Hang in there. You'll be back to normal in no time at all."