Even as she insists parenting was one of the best experiences of her life, she also lives with a lot of roads not taken. I grew up acutely aware that my mom felt like she became the primary parent without really getting a clear say in the matter. I think I am вЂњchoosing my choiceвЂќ around parenting, that I am breaking a generational spell. He does the vast majority of the cooking and cleaning and I am the more hands-on parent - spending time on the floor with the girls, navigating the majority of tantrums and night terrors. I think I am comfortable with the parenting dynamic between my husband and me. (I didnвЂ™t think I would write publicly about it, and yet here we are.) But another part of me was so triggered by the incident, made so instantly enraged, that it freaked me out. I knew it was a story I would tell my girlfriends later. HereвЂ™s the truth: Part of me thought it was funny. We spit words back and forth at one another, never penetrating the Teflon wall that had been erected between us the second I registered that plateвЂ™s unmistakable clink in the sink. I couldnвЂ™t believe he couldnвЂ™t understand why I was upset: Precisely because it felt like he had abandoned ship for something as small and stupid as a bite of pie. He couldnвЂ™t believe I was so upset about a bite of pie that he didnвЂ™t even ask for. Long after both girls had fallen asleep, we argued in the dark of the car. I felt like he had jumped ship right when I needed him most. I then threw a tantrum that far outshined my three-year-oldвЂ™s. I barely hadВ a biteВ of pie that someone handed to me as I was saying goodbyes.вЂќ I momentarily kept my cool, gathering up the rest of our things and saying my own hasty goodbyes.ДЄs we drove away, our three-year-old still losing her shit, I took a deep breath and calmly asked, вЂњWere you eating a piece of pie?вЂќ My stomach dropped - in a nanosecond I knew he had been eating a sweet dessert while I was dealing with a hurricane of sweaty limbs. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him holding Stella, while also setting something down in the kitchen sink. After what seemed like a strangely long time (and yet likely no more than a few minutes), I headed back into the house to see what was up. Then John went back into the hostвЂ™s house with Stella. John packed the car and handled our other daughter, while I got screaming Maya in the car seat. It was one of those вЂњall hands on deckвЂќ moments - batten down the hatches, weвЂ™ve got a toddler-sized storm to weather.

I told him that I would get her out to the car if he would grab the bags and our one-year-old. In other words, it was probably beyondВ time to leave. I donвЂ™t think our sexuality is the only realm in which women experience this kind of discord between our bodies and our minds, or between the story we tell and the story we actually experience.Д¬ase in point: My husband John and I were at an evening barbecue this summer when our then-three-year-old daughter devolved into a screaming, crying, kicking mess when we told her that it was time to leave. As it turns out, womenвЂ™s sexuality is vastly understudied. When scientists measure our arousal physiologically and compare it to what we self-report, there is a discrepancy. Straight women, it turns out, have the largest concordance gap. вЂњThe extent to which our physical arousal and the arousal we experience subjectively match up.вЂќ I recently learned a fascinating term: вЂњsexual concordance.вЂќ According to Jaclyn Friedman, author of the newly released book Unscrewed, it means:

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