Couples That Work

2

When the Honeymoon Ends

Let’s return to Cheryl and Mark.

Five years before baby Annabel was born—as you may remember from chapter 1, just twenty-four hours before Mark quit his corporate job to join a friend’s startup—Mark and Cheryl had met in Chicago. Mutual friends set them up on a blind date, ice-skating on a freezing December day. She was working in a bank, he in a software company.

In those years, they rarely discussed their careers and made ample time for their friends—both had attended college in the city and had a broad social network. Like many new couples fortunate enough to have two good jobs in their early thirties, they worked hard and played hard. Marriage did not change that. After their wedding, they purchased a small apartment ...