Ray is the third book in the Dad Bod Doms, and is Maren’s offering to the series. We got a hint of his story in the end of Raisa’s Henry.
Ray decided that part of his problem was that his dad bod was a little too dad and not quite enough bod. So, he’s going to go home and start working out so that he can get back into the same shape he was in when he and his wife Ally got married. He had been in the Army, and had really stopped running the day after his discharge, but he’s bound and dtermined to start it back up, with a 10 mile run. And seriously, who goes straight from not jogging to a 10 mile run immediately? Then again, I’ve never run 10 continuous miles in my entire life, so there’s that. And, well, Ray does get some inspiration while he’s out on his jog, so that probably helped.
Meanwhile, his lovely wife Ally wakes up to get her day started, and notices that he’s not in bed, but that could just be that he’s already awake, it happens sometimes. But when she gets down to the kitchen, she notices that the coffee hasn’t been started. And that’s weird. As Ally continues her morning, she’s worried about her husband, but then he comes into the house, huffing and puffing, red in the face, looking like he died 3 days ago, and told her he was jogging. Ally is concerned about why he would be jogging, and running through a series of ideas, she decides that he’s having an affair.
I think that Ray and Ally aren’t are distant as other couples are, but there is some distance there. Part of it is just the fact that being parents sometimes makes it really hard to have time to talk about anything outside of the kid and having 3 young kids makes it really hard to have the time to do just about anything. On top of that, there is a lot of pressure put on women to be the perfect wife and mother, and I think that Ally has a huge dose of that going on. I really relate to Ally because she feels all that pressure and stress and her brain goes to the anxiety place, and that’s where my brain goes too.
I think that Ray is a really good man that really wants to do the best for his wife and family. He works hard at his job, and he loves his family. I think that he misreads Ally’s concerns, and he tries to fix the things as he sees them, which is really all he can do. When Ally does what she does, he really feels blindsided. They both thought that they were talking to each other, but they were really not, which is why Ally is just convinced he’s having an affair.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
In Between the Pages 