In case you’ve ever wondered how to squash a marriage, there are exactly two systematic ways to do so, and only one way to resurrect it.

Squashing method #1: stay home together with three small children for two and a half years.

With Doug out on injury and I opting for the stay-at-home mom route, here is an excerpt of a typical conversation between us:

“It’s almost time to pick up Eva from school.”

“Why don’t YOU pick her up?”

“Because it’s your turn.”

“Do you like to eat?  Because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m pounding a chicken.”  (At this point I should probably mention that there was a mallet in my hand.)

“I can’t even hear you. What is she (Anna, shrieking like a woman from behind the shower curtain in a horror movie) screaming about?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you go find out?”

“Because you’re her mother.”

“And you’re her father.”

“Guys aren’t good at consoling babies. It’s not in our nature.”

“Since you love nature so much, why don’t you go pitch a tent and live in it?”

“Why don’t YOU go pitch a tent in my pants?”

How to turn a losing argument around: distract the opposition with a lewd sexual comment that doesn’t even make sense. There was a time I thought this quality in my husband was endearing. Now it just made me want to drive a tent stake through his vitals.

Then something funny happened. I got a job.

It was a sweet little part-time gig, tutoring math in a charming elementary school ten minutes away from my house in Simsbury. I would pull one to four polite, suburban kids out of class and play math games with them. There were virtually no papers to correct, no elaborate lessons to plan. The kids were always excited to see me. Next to my decade teaching math to 150 unruly inner city teenagers in Hartford, I’d found my own little piece of pedagogical paradise.

There was only one teeny, tiny little problem. At the end of a good week, I was lucky if I cleared $300. I was penniless.

Which brings me to the second way to squash a marriage: take each other by the hand and stand on the brink of financial ruin.

For a year I scrimped. But I never saved, because there was never anything left over. When my colleagues ordered lunch, I pulled a peanut butter sandwich out of a Spiderman lunchbox. My kids were the only ones in Simsbury who couldn’t order 95-cent books from Scholastic book club. When the Girl Scouts came to our door, we turned off the lights and hid.

The thing about rock bottom is I don’t mind when I hit it. Because every time I do, some miracle always bails me out.

Case in point, another funny thing happened. Out of the blue, the principal of the school I taught at in Hartford called. I got my old job back.

Suddenly, my suburban sweethearts morphed into profanity-spewing, gangsta-rapping, algebra-dodging creatures of the city. My hours doubled. My ten-minute commute was replaced by a 90-minute drive through highway traffic. Every night I came home with a bag stuffed with papers to correct and lessons to plan. But I didn’t mind, because now I was making in one day what it took me all week to earn in Simsbury. Doug’s staying at home amounted from being an annoyance to free childcare. When I went to sleep at night, I no longer dreamed of strings of electric bills and mortgage statements coiling themselves around my neck.

For a solid two weeks, to say I splurged would be an understatement. I brought out my wish lists on Amazon.com and triumphantly clicked “checkout.” I finally replaced the dinosaur of a TV on our kitchen counter with a flat screen. I bought cute little jackets with matching boots for every season. I ate so many Girl Scout cookies I grew my own merit badge. Whenever my kids wanted something at the store, I said, “Sure, throw it in the cart!”

When Doug began to comment on the number of boxes arriving from UPS, I transformed into Daffy Duck on Loony Toons, stuffing a genie back in the bottle after uncovering a Saltan’s treasure. “IT’S MINE, UNDERSTAND?! ALL MINE! DOWN DOWN! GO GO! IT’S MIIIIIINNNNNE!”

That’s when something else happened, but this time, it wasn’t so funny. Doug, who wasn’t too keen on being a stay-at-home dad, made a miraculous recovery. His two-plus-year hiatus was over. It was time to go back to work again.

This didn’t mean an extra money, mind you. We’d been collecting from workman’s comp all along. Nope, this only meant one thing. We had to hire a nanny.

Our nanny has a nose ring, a tongue ring, and tattoos. Her name is Ashley, and she is anything but Mary Poppins—but then again, I’ve never clicked with the conventional type. Out of nearly a hundred applicants, I chose her because she was the one I could sit down and chat with like we were old friends, with no phoniness of hyped-up sales pitch or awkward silences in between. Even though she confessed she’s not the world’s best cook and at twenty-three, not the most experienced house manager, she got right down on the floor and played with my kids. She even let Eva give her a manicure. Anyone who will let a four-year-old paint her nails bright yellow is OK with me.

There is an instantaneous sigh of relief when a woman finally accepts that she can not do it all by herself and allows someone else to do it for her. Every day for the next week, I came home to a clean house, dinner on the table, and happy kids. And the funny thing about clean houses, ready-to-eat dinners and happy kids is they make your spouse, sitting admidst it all, suddenly attractive again.

Which brings me to how to resurrect a marriage, in case you haven’t figured it out. Hire someone else to do the cooking, cleaning, and baby-sitting.

Suddenly, it was as if someone put a Band-Aid on all my problems. The mortgage company stopped sending me hate mail. I could walk through my house without getting a sports injury from leaping over toys. Turns out Ashley can cook. I stopped staring at Doug and wondering why I married him in the first place. For one magical moment frozen in time, every facet of my life was working out all at the same time.

At the end of the week, I sat down and wrote out Ashley’s check. I subtracted it from my paycheck and noted the difference.

After paying the nanny, I make less than I did at my cushy part-time tutoring job in the suburbs, and I’m dining out of a Spiderman lunchbox again.

It’s my life. Someone’s got to live it.