I’m not much of a reader, but after a trip over Memorial weekend to the Frio River, I snagged a book from a friend and literally was not able to put the thing down! I was up until midnight 3 nights in a row just flipping through the pages as quickly as I could to make it to the finish line. I started the book on Monday and finished it Wednesday afternoon if that says anything about how good this book was.
Normally I would think that sharing a book review would make for a boring blog, however this book was a constant reminder that I’m a wife and a mother. You know… some books take you to Never Never Land and make you forget your “real” life focusing on what’s make believe and forcing you to live in a pretend world if only for an hour or two while you read 75 pages at a time. But this book did the complete opposite and all I could think of was my REAL life! And since blogs are about real life stuff, this one seems appropriate to share. 🙂
You can read the back of Emily Griffin’s “Heart of the Matter” to know that the possibility of a plastic surgeon husband cheating on his stay at home wife with the mother of a patient is a distinct possibility; I promise I’m not ruining the book by divulging the underlying tones that are already written in the synopsis on the back of the book that anyone can pick up and read at a book store.
As I was learning about the characters of this book I noticed a strikingly similarity between myself and the stay at home mom character. For one, there’s the obvious; I’m a stay at home mom and she’s a stay at home mom. But there was much more to it than that. I’m definitely not to the tennis lesson, baking muffins for the school class, and competing with other stay at home moms in my neighborhood point yet; however, my sole focus is on my family and so is hers. Sure I have friends, hobbies, and family, but at the end of the day, I have no outlet from my household, mother, and wife duties. And honestly, I don’t want another outlet. I could easily go back to work and still feel proud of the mom that I am to Lincoln, but as Vanessa would say, “that’s just not in my DNA” and I would never look at a job as a career the way that I do motherhood and wifehood. With that said, as I was flipping through the pages and learning about the stay at home mom character and listening to her dwindling marriage with her plastic surgeon husband I realized something… this woman has lost herself to her kids and her husband! Her plastic surgeon husband fell in love with a vibrant, career driven, independent woman and now she’s turned into the quintessential Wellesley, Massachusetts version of a Stepford Wife worrying about private school applications, impressing her hoity toity tennis playing friends, and making sure she bakes the perfect muffin for her daughter’s school class. The stay at home mom had lost her passion, was never happy, and focused on things that didn’t really matter, rather than her marriage. Not that worrying about muffins and playing tennis justifies a man cheating on you, but I think it proves that relationships are still work regardless of how complacent your life becomes.
I have literally felt sick to my stomach the past three days while reading this book and I can guarantee my husband is tired of hearing about the book, cheating, and having the light on at night while he’s trying to sleep.
Back to the point…. Oi, I desperately don’t want to be THAT woman!!! When Wesley walks through the door, I already want to follow him around like a puppy dog waiting for a pat on my head, hear about every detail of his day {okay not really}, be asked about every detail of my day {this is more like it}, and have 100% family time until we go to bed. I want to tell him about Lincoln’s 18th tantrum of the day, the banana that got dropped all over the floor, how the toilets are sparkling, that his shirts are ironed, clothes put away, and any new things that Lincoln learned for the day.
Throughout the book, the stay at home wife can feel the disconnect beginning to creep up in their marriage and starts feeling a sense of paranoia about her husband possibly cheating. Never in her wild imagination would she think that her husband would do such a thing to her… or to their children. At one point, the stay at home mom is sitting around sipping on tea with some of her tennis friends talking about cheating husbands and gossiping about neighborhood drama. Each of them go around the table asking one another what they would do if they found out their spouse was cheating… forgive him completely?… kick him out?… stay married out of comfort of your lifestyle, but never really forgive being forced to sleep in separate rooms?… or beat his car with a baseball bat?…
I don’t think anyone ever really knows how they will act in a situation involving cheating unless they are faced with the misfortune, but I’ll tell you one thing, reading this book made me look at being a stay at home mom/wife in a new light. No longer will I have great expectations for my husband to live up to when he gets home from work. He needs time to decompress too. While I may have been at home all day, he’s been somewhere too. My decompression is him, but his isn’t always me. Sometimes he just wants to mow the lawn and weed-eat. Also, it’s important to note that he fell in love with an independent, passionate, and outgoing woman so the last thing I want to be, mom, wife, or not, is anything less than what initially gave him butterflies. I want to be a rock star mom and wife, but I never want to lose myself to my family…
The best line in the book that finally gave me warm fuzzies was…
“Love is sharing a life together…”
Yes it is indeed… And there’s nobody in this world I want to share my life with more than my husband… and Johnny Depp.
Sure bad things can happen to all marriages not just the ones where the wife/mom stays at home; however, since I’m a stay at home mom and the main character is a stay at home mom, I obviously identified with her character. Thank the Lord my husband isn’t a pediatric plastic surgeon and we don’t live in Wellesley, Massachusetts, because then I might be really paranoid!
So how would you react if your spouse cheated? A baseball bat to the car sounds perfect, right? Do you believe stay at home moms can “lose themselves”?
I think all women can lose themselves. Sometimes I feel like my husband is a widow to my work and that he may find someone that is far simpler and has less career ambitions. It’s important for all of us (working moms, stay at home moms and women in general) to continue to make our relationship a priority when the dynamic changes. Great blog, Allison and I’m so proud of you for reading a book!
Touche… yes, we all can get “lost”. Haha! I read 3 books on my honeymoon too. New goal; 1 book per month!
I will say I probably WON’T be reading that book…one of my dearest friends’ husband recently ‘fessed up to an affair, and that has prompted plenty of thought and conversation in our household. I can say I would not be able to forgive (or forget), so we would likely divorce, for both our sanity. And even though I don’t stay at home (I work full time and go to grad school full time), it’s still hard to consolidate his “decompression” with mine. However, I will say I think you’re lucky–any many who “just wants to mow the lawn and weed-eat” is truly a keeper! Thanks for the insight.
You’ve got a point… When you’ve got it good sometimes you can forget; Yes, one of his major flaws is his green thumb and his obsession with our lawn!!!
Sorry to hear about your friend. I will say the book had a great ending and really made me stop and pause…
I really enjoyed this blog girl. I think most stay at home Moms and working moms have the potential to lose themselves in the Mom role and neglect the wife role…or be it partner role. Some of the best things that I learned growing up with a brother and father (for a good part of my life) was that men do not wish to be bombarded the moment they walk in the door with our talky talky. Men are just..men and they aren’t dying to know all the details of our day immdiately upon their arrival home. They want to change, get a drink, take a poo and watch Sportscenter or whatever for a while. Not to say that they are not thrilled to see us and their beautiful home and children. But men are simply different than women and this is a huge point.
I think that it is so important to put your marriage first, then kids I know this sounds ridiculous and I do NOT do it perfectly by any means but if that relationship isn’t strong,open and loving then the other parts of the family begin to suffer I think. My husband is gone 2 weeks at a time and home 4 days. It has been this way for 17 months. ANd he is SIX hours away. However he works 12-20 hour days and is in Odessa and I have nothing but complete trust for the man. But I know there are moments for both of us that we can feel insecure. Being older now I do not get jealous and things of that nature much anymore plus my hubs thinks I am the most beatiful gal period( thank you Lord) Being a Momma is an all consuming job, stay at home or not so it is easy to have that become our identity. Thank you for bringing attention to a common and unfortunate topic. It is a good reminder for us to be ourselves first and constantly grow together in our marriage.
-Lizzie
I like this post…and this book is waiting for me on my Kindle, along with 4 of her other books 🙂 Good goal Allison on reading one book per month. In just the past few years I got big into reading again and it is my escape from life. Love it.