Carmella loves being a mom and says she has a happy marriage with Corey Graves, but that doesn’t mean becoming parents didn’t put some serious pressure on their relationship. She admits resentment started building after their first child because she felt like the “default parent,” and keeping those feelings bottled up eventually pushed them into marriage counseling.
While speaking on her Hot Mom Sh*t podcast, Carmella explained that this wasn’t about Graves being an absent or uninvolved father. The problem was the mental load she automatically felt responsible for as the mother, including all the little things that have to happen before the family even walks out the door.
“You can have a great partner, you can have an involved dad and all of that, but like when you’re the default parent, which most of us moms are, there’s resentment always just because it’s like, like I have to do all these things or like the unspoken load that moms carry.”
A recent family trip to the zoo gave Carmella a pretty good example. While everyone else could think about going to the zoo, she was thinking about lunches, snacks, formula, diapers, wipes and everything else the kids might need once they got there.
“Like every time we go out for the day when we have the kids, we went to the zoo the other day. I’m like, ‘Okay, I have to pack all the lunches, like bring all their snacks, make sure we have enough formula for Bram. Do we have enough diapers and wipes?’”
Graves actually noticed how much preparation she was doing and questioned whether every parent really went that far. Carmella’s response was basically that this is what moms do.
“Matt was looking at me, he’s like, ‘People don’t do this.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean people don’t do this?’ He’s like, ‘You’re like packing them, like cutting up their watermelon and making their sandwiches and cutting avocado.’ And I’m like, ‘Moms do that. That’s what moms do.’”
She joked that a dad might handle the same zoo trip very differently. Instead of preparing everything beforehand, he might simply realize the kids are hungry once they arrive and buy them some chicken tenders.
“Because dads would go to the zoo and be like, ‘Oh, we don’t have any food. Let’s go get some chicken tenders.’ And it’s like, that’s not what I want to do.”
The bigger issue wasn’t necessarily everything Carmella was doing. It was that she wasn’t talking about how doing all of it was making her feel. After Dimitri was born, Carmella said that resentment kept piling up without her ever bringing it up to Graves. Eventually, she reached a breaking point, and that’s when the couple realized they needed therapy.
“And I do get resentful sometimes. And it’s helped so much to have therapy to help with that because with Dimitri, I had so much resentment that I never ever ever brought up until like I blew up and that’s why we had to go to therapy.”
Carmella was also careful not to paint that as some sign that their marriage was falling apart. She described herself as being in a “happy marriage,” but acknowledged that this was still something they needed help learning how to communicate about.
“There’s just that, like, the load that moms take on that I think over time, if you don’t talk about it, if you don’t bring it up, and I’m only speaking from my own experience.”
Therapy apparently changed things considerably by the time they welcomed Bram. Carmella said her second postpartum experience was much smoother because she and Graves could finally talk through issues that she previously would have kept to herself.
“And since then, it’s been so much better. Like this postpartum with Bram was so smooth and so great compared to Dimitri because we had therapy and we were able to talk through all of the things that I bottled up for so long with Dimitri.”
Even now, there are times when Carmella wants Graves to recognize just how much is running through her head. That includes doctor’s appointments, school, clothes, changing diaper sizes and noticing when everyday supplies are running low.
“So sometimes I need Matt to realize like, ‘Hey, I am doing all these things,’ all of like their appointments, their school, their clothes, their, ‘Oh, we have to move up in the diaper size. We have to make sure that we… oh, we ran out of diaper cream or we ran out of this.’ Like it’s all of the things that we do as moms.”
Carmella doesn’t believe Graves was intentionally leaving that responsibility on her shoulders. The problem was letting the resentment build without saying anything, and therapy gave them a way to deal with those feelings before they reached another breaking point.
What do you make of Carmella being so open about the resentment she experienced after becoming a mother and how therapy helped her marriage? Let us know in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
