A/N: For all of those who were disappointed with my other new story, "It Don't Come Easy," because it wasn't Bethyl. Here's a Bethyl story for y'all. Now, please be patient and don't get your panties in a twist. As you all know, and even if you don't, my stories are NOT sappy, rainbow and sunshine love stories. So if that's what you're looking for, don't expect to find that here. Just like an old, hand me down car, this story has a lot of issues.

But, enjoy and as always, please review!

Wife Swap

Chapter 1

"I think this could be good for all of us," Lori said with a smile.

Beth just blushed and looked down. "It'll certainly be interesting," she said.

Rick and Daryl sat there staring at their plates of food and listening to their wives talk.

"Exactly how the hell are we supposed to explain this to everyone?" Rick questioned after the women had finished talking.

"There's really nothing to explain," Lori answered. "In fact, we don't have to explain anything at all. It's not like we are actually swapping."

"No offense, Rick," Beth began, "but if I actually had to sleep with you for this, I wouldn't do it. None of us would. It's just an experiment to see how well we handle separation from our spouse's and a way for us to learn and make our marriages stronger."

"Well, look who got brave all of a sudden," Rick smirked.

"You've been quiet. What do you think of this, Daryl?" Lori asked as she took a sip of wine.

"It's a shitty idea. I don't wanna be swappin' wives with no one."

"Is that right?" Beth laughed. "You'd be into this if you were swappin' for Miranda Lambert."

"That's different 'cause that ain't ever gon' happen."

Six months earlier...

Lori squeezed Rick's hand as they sat down on the couch.

"It's alright," she whispered. "We need this."

He scoffed. "Sorry if I find little comfort in that."

"May I ask what it is you find little comfort in?" A voice said from the doorway.

Lori and Rick looked up and he shook his head.

"I find little comfort in my wife draggin' me to a marriage counselor."

The counselor smiled. "First of all, Mr. Grimes, I'm Dr. Karen Linson and second, I'm not exactly a marriage counselor or at least I don't consider myself a traditional marriage counselor. My methods are all about finding peace, stability, comfort, love and more importantly yourself in a marriage. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you need to talk to me or each other about your problems. Sure, talking helps and you do need to talk but that's not all a marriage is made of. You simply cannot build a foundation on talking alone nor is that all it takes to fix it."

"So what are we gonna be doin'?" Rick asked.

"Well, when Lori came to me asking for help, I explained some of the things to her. Lori, would you care to tell your husband why you came to see me to begin with?"

Rick clenched his jaw, trying his best not to say anything as Lori looked at him to try to explain.

"I…um…well, I came to you because we've been having some problems. We don't talk about them but that doesn't make them go away and since Judith was born, things seem to only be getting worse."

"Don't try to blame this on Judith," Rick said as he jumped up from the couch.

"Rick, have a seat and listen to your wife," Dr. Linson said.

"Listen to her? You just said talking wouldn't fix things," Rick snapped.

"Rick, please sit down. I'm not trying to blame Judith. It's just that since she was born, we don't talk about us, we don't try to make time for us. I thought that having Judith would help us, make us more of a family. Don't get me wrong, I love her so much and I'm thankful we had her but we shouldn't have tried to fix our family that way."

Rick took a deep breath and looked between Lori and Dr. Linson then shook his head.

"Maybe this will help," Dr. Linson said, standing up and handing Rick a pamphlet. "These are some of the exercises I use to help couples. The two of you should look over them, discuss them together and then you can decide whether or not you would like to continue with this. It's completely up to both of you."

Later that same day….

"It's just so frustrating," Beth sighed and put her head in her hands. "Daryl and I have been trying for a while to have a baby and it just seems to be pullin' us further apart."

"Oh sweetie," Lori said as she sat down next to Beth. "When the time is right, you and Daryl will make wonderful parents. It'll happen but maybe you shouldn't try so hard. You've only been married for a year and half."

"It doesn't matter how long we've been married, Lori. We've been trying to have a baby for years. Hell, we tried to get pregnant our senior year but we've never even had a false alarm."

"Look, Bethie, every couple goes through this. Do you think it was easy for Rick and I. And for you to just be starting out in your marriage makes it even more difficult. Give yourself time to just be with Daryl."

"And what if that doesn't work? What if he leaves me? What if he finds someone else?"

"That won't happen. He loves you."

"Some days I don't think he does."

Lori poured them some more wine and smiled.

"I may know a way to fix things," she told Beth after they had each taken a sip.

"What do you mean?"

She reached into her purse and pulled out the pamphlet Dr. Linson had given them.

Beth looked it over. "Marriage counseling? Are you crazy, Lori? Do you even know Daryl?"

"Yes marriage counseling and yes I do know Daryl. That's precisely why I'm suggesting this. Maybe if you can get Daryl to go, Rick will go too."

Beth looked over the pamphlet again and smiled to herself. "I'll bring it up but I know Daryl and I know he'd rather be shot than do things like this."

"Well, if this doesn't work then you can try shooting him."

"You really are crazy," Beth laughed.

"Can't say for sure. The jury's still out on that one."

Hell no! I ain't goin' ta talk ta one of them head doctors. You can go all ya want but I ain't."

"Daryl, if you would just stop and listen to me for just a minute you'd see that I'm not tryin' to force anythin' on you!" Beth said as calmly as she could. "I want you to choose to come with me on your own."

"Why tha hell do you want me ta go? It ain't gon' change nothin'. You're always gon' be bitchin' 'bout tha same shit."

"I want you to go because that 'same shit' I keep bitchin' about is our lives, our marriage! Why won't you go? Why can't you just sit down and have an actual conversation with me about this?"

Daryl slung his crossbow over his shoulder and started towards her. "We cain't change anythin', Beth. You know I ain't good with this shit so why do ya even wanna talk 'bout it? An' why bring someone else into it?"

"I thought maybe she could help us," Beth mumbled.

"She cain't help us. She cain't help you get pregnant, she sure as hell cain't help me get you pregnant. If that's all the fuck you wanted you shouldn't have married me."

"If you're just goin' to act like this, why did you even ask me to marry you?!" She finally shouted.

Daryl looked down, "I didn't think you'd say yes."

Beth choked back her tears until she heard his truck crank up and pull out of the driveway.

"Shit," Daryl mumbled to himself as he looked down at his phone to see nine missed calls from Beth.

"Trouble with the wife?" Rick asked, handing a beer to Daryl as he took a seat.

Daryl shook his head in response.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah an' she wants me ta go see some marriage doctor with 'er."

"It wouldn't be Dr. Linson, would it?"

"Yeah. How'd ya know?" He looked up curiously.

"Lori's been tryin' to get me to go see her. Said it'd be good for us. I finally went with her but this doctor seemed like she had a few screws loose of her own."

"What'd y'all talk about?"

"Nothin' really. The doc kept sayin' it would be good for our marriage, help us grow and shit like that."

Beth tapped her nails on the counter and stared at the pamphlet Lori had given her.

Without a second thought, she grabbed her car keys and drove into town.

Once she was in the parking lot of Dr. Linson's office, it took her a moment to catch her breath and get up the nerve to go inside.

She wasn't sure what she was doing here. She wasn't even sure if Dr. Linson would see her since she didn't have an appointment but it was worth a shot.

"So, tell me what seems to be the problem," Dr. Linson said after she and Beth had introduced themselves.

"I'm really not sure what the problem is," she answered truthfully. "I don't know if it's me or him or both of us but there's a big problem and we can't seem to find common ground."

"I can tell you that from my experience, there's never one person to blame for the problems in a marriage and marriage isn't the cause of most of the problems. It's often the individual person you are outside of the marriage that brings everything to the surface. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your husband?"

"Like what?"

"You can just start off with little things. How you met, how long you've been together or married, what do you do for a living and what does he do, what kind of things do you enjoy doing together and separately in your free time."

"Oh…um….we've been together since high school and we've been married for a year and a half. I'm a teacher at the elementary school and he's a mechanic. I sing at events in my free time and he usually goes hunting in his but there's really not much we do together anymore."

"Not much you do together anymore? What do you still do together?"

"We watch tv or we'll go out with friends but that's about it and even then it's not something we do together."

"I see. This may be too personal but how is your sex life?"

Beth huffed. "Nonexistent."

"You've only been married approximately eighteen months and you're not having sex at all. Do you know why?"

"We quit having sex about the time I quit taking birth control…."

"Okay," Dr. Linson interrupted her and held up her hand, "I'm sorry to interrupt you but that's never a good way to start off. Did you just quit taking it or did you talk to him first?"

"Both….kind of."

"No, Mrs. Dixon. The answer can't be both."

"Well, we'd talked about having kids and had planned on it but once I stopped taking the birth control, it was like he wasn't interested in me after that."

"A baby is a big change, Mrs. Dixon. Have you thought or asked him how he feels about this?"

"I've tried but he doesn't really want to talk about it. I even started taking the birth control again last month but he still doesn't want me like he used to. It's been longer than that since the last time I brought it up but today, he stormed out of the house because I suggested we come here. He thinks this is all about me wanting a baby but it's not. I want him and if a baby isn't part of our future, that's fine."

"Have you tried telling him that? In the exact words you just used?"

"No," Beth shook her head. "I guess I haven't said it exactly like that but I've tried to."

"Then I think you need to. He's probably scared and doesn't know how he truly feels about this and he may just want to know that it's him you want. Not the image you've created in your mind."

"How do I make him listen to me and actually hear what I have to say?"

"All you can do is talk to him and hope he is listening. I may not believe that talking and listening are the most important things in a marriage but they certainly help. You need to be able to communicate with your spouse. Now, you can set up an appointment for both of you to come in and see if that can help if you'd like. As I'm sure you know from the pamphlet, I don't charge for the first four visits. That's the first initial couple consultation, the two individual consultations, and then another couple consultation. After that, it's your choice whether or not you would like to continue with the program. Do you think that's something both of you would be interested in doing?"

"He wouldn't but I'd like to."

"It's wonderful that you are so willing to do this for your marriage but this program only works if you are both committed to it. Do you think you can get him to come in?"

"I can try," Beth answered nervously. She wasn't sure what she would do to get Daryl to come in with her but if it meant they could work out whatever was wrong, she would try it. At this point, she would try anything.

Dr. Linson smiled and reached for her appointment book. She scanned the pages as she flipped through them.

"It looks like I'm booked for the next week so how does two weeks from today sound? That should give you plenty of time to talk things through with your husband and if you decide not to come, please call."

"That sounds good. I'll try to get him in here."

"Okay," Dr. Linson stood up and held her hand out to Beth. "I look forward to meeting your husband."

Beth shook her hand and took a deep breath.

This wouldn't be easy but nothing with Daryl ever was. If it were, he wouldn't be the man she loved and wanted.

She didn't have a plan but she knew she could find a way if she tried hard enough.