I’m a trained actor. That’s what I studied in college and what I have planned on doing with my life for a long time. Recently I took a full time day job so that my chronically ill wife could have health insurance and so that we could pay off some debt. One night my beautiful wife asked me if I regretted working at a regular job instead of pursuing acting full time.

The answer is no, of course not. I love the theatre and it is my passion, but I also love my wife and I regard the promises that I made to her as sacrosanct. Husbands have certain duties and obligations that must be filled. Meeting these obligations is far more fulfilling than achievement in a chosen profession.

A very wise man that I know named Richard Moffat gave a lesson on priorities that reflected the duties of a husband. Those priorities are, in order of importance, as follows:

1. A Higher Power. Whether you are Christian, Jew, Muslim or something else you owe your respect and diligence to something outside of yourself. Even if you are an Atheist, you will find your life more fulfilling if you have something outside of you and bigger than you to believe in. Your duty to a Higher Power should be first in your life, before everything else. If it is, then you will have the proper perspective on life and your spirit will be fed, enlarged, and enlightened.

2. Self. You are not able to help others with all your capacity if you are not functioning at your highest level. You need to make sure you are healthy, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Jesus Christ told the hypocritical Pharisees that they were “whited sepulchres full of dead men’s bones and rotting flesh,” and that before they could tell others how to act they must first “cleanse the inner vessel.”

3. Spouse. The most important person in your life is your spouse. Not your boss, mother, father, or any other. If you treat your spouse as being important, and your marriage as sacrosanct, many problems will fall away without even being noticed.

4. Church/Volunteering. Rendering service is important and good. It builds character and perspective. Notice that I put duty to a higher power above duty to your church. They’re often separate.

5. Career. Far too many men obsess about their careers. They see it as what defines them. Many men do it without realizing they are obsessing. If your career is getting in the way of your spirit, your health, or your relationship, then something is wrong. I truly believe that placing your higher power, your self, and your spouse above your career is a true key to happiness.

6. Social. Friends, football games, and backyard barbecues are wonderful, enriching, and fun. They can also be very time consuming. A husband should not let any of these things interfere with his relationship with his higher power or with his spouse. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of friends and really enjoy spending time with them, but I know where my first priorities belong.

I like Dina over at ThisMarriageThing.com - I participate there as well as in her discussion group at TeeBeeDee.com. It’s all about marriage from the Baby Boomer generation’s perspective.

Dina and I had an interesting conversation a couple of weeks ago about her tagline, It Doesn’t Have to Suck. I asked her what message she thinks it sends. As a marketing tactic, I find it pretty good. It’s catchy, easy to remember. In terms of her blog’s message, however, I think it sets a negative context for the conversation.

Rather than merely acknowledging a problem exists, could we not instead present a solution?
I think a tagline that moves the discussion forward with positive words like “marriage is…” or “marriage does…” would be more conducive to a helpful discussion. Maybe even do away with is or does, and use a more active verb like “seeks,” “rocks,” or “celebrates.”
It’s a subtle distinction and perhaps I’m being a bit nitpicky, but I think that the frame of reference for marriage is all messed up for many people and we need to re-frame the discussion.
The Power of Positive Thought

The power of thoughts has been a subject that fascinated me for a long time. People feel, do, and become what they think. I recommend reading James Allen’s excellent essay As A Man Thinketh and, for those of you with a hard science bent, take a look at the recent cult hit What the Bleep do We Know?

One of the reasons that I started A Good Husband is that there is so much negative attention on the role of husbands and men in society. I hope that I can always maintain an air of positivity. It frames the very nature of the discussion.

I’d be interested in hearing from some of the other internet husbands that I admire, like Dad Balance and Be A Good Dad.

Over the past few months I have had several friends and family members get divorces. At least part of the reason for these divorces has been pornography addiction. Pornography is an awful vice that causes little but heartache and pain.
Forerunner.com offers some useful information here about the effects of pornography on those who view it. The following pieces are some excerpts from that article.

Psychologist Edward Donnerstein (University of Wisconsin) found that brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behavior. Male viewers tend to be more aggressive towards women, less responsive to pain and suffering of rape victims, and more willing to accept various myths about rape.1

That’s more aggressive towards your wives, men.

Dr. Dolf Zimmerman and Dr. Jennings Bryant showed that continued exposure to pornography had serious adverse effects on beliefs about sexuality in general and on attitudes toward women in particular. They also found that pornography desensitizes people to rape as a criminal offense.2

Pornography depicts acts that are not part of regular sexual behavior. Men might feel they are not manly if they do not look like the men on the show, or if the women they’re with don’t look that way.

These researchers also found that massive exposure to pornography encourages a desire for increasingly deviant materials which involve violence, like sadomasochism and rape.3

Feminist author Diana Russell notes in her book Rape and Marriage the correlation between deviant behavior (including abuse) and pornography. She also found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.4

Women experience sexual arousal differently than men do. A man might watch a pornographic video or look at a magazine and be aroused. For many women, arousal doesn’t come without some sort of emotional element as well. In other words, a woman often has to feel emotionally safe and cared for before she is aroused. Pornography doesn’t do this and many men don’t understand that fact.

Researcher Victor Cline (University of Utah) has documented in his research how men become addicted to pornographic materials, begin to desire more explicit or deviant material, and end up acting out what they have seen.5

According to Charles Keating of Citizens for Decency Through Law, research reveals that 77 percent of child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls admitted imitating the sexual behavior they had seen modeled in pornography.

Sociologists Murray Straus and Larry Baron (University of New Hampshire) found that rape rates are highest in states which have high sales of sex magazines and lax enforcement of pornography laws.6

Michigan state police detective Darrell Pope found that of the 38,000 sexual assault cases in Michigan (1956-1979), in 41 percent of the cases pornographic material was viewed just prior to or during the crime. This agrees with research done by psychotherapist David Scott who found that “half the rapists studied used pornography to arouse themselves immediately prior to seeking out a victim.”

The Final Report of the 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography lists a full chapter of testimony (197-223) from victims whose assailants had previously viewed pornographic materials. The adverse effects range from physical harm (rape, torture, murder, sexually transmitted disease) to psychological harm (suicidal thoughts, fear, shame, nightmares).

By the way, all of this research applies not only to use of pornography during marriage, but also to the use of pornography before marriage, even if you stop.

Much of the research that is quoted above talks about pornography addiction. Like most addictive substances, people think they can consume them in moderation and never have a problem.

How likely are men to become addicted to pornography?

There are no hard and fast numbers for the numbers of men who are addicted to pornography but psychologists often say that addiction is a sign of a deeper issue. If pornography is interfering with your personal or marital life, I suggest you seek professional help.

1 Pornography and Violence Against Women, 1980.
2 “Pornography, Sexual Callousness, and the Trivialization of Rape,” Journal of Communication, 1982.
3 “The Effect of Erotica Featuring Sadomasochism and Bestiality of Motivated Inter-Male Aggressions,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1981. 4 Rape and Marriage, 1982.
5 “Where Do You Draw the Line?” 1974.
6 “Legitimate Violence and Rape: A Test of the Cultural Spillover Theory,” 1985.

Companionship Inventory

Each Sunday my wife and I sit down and hold a weekly review that we call Companionship Inventory. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of our marriage, just over five years. It’s important to do this with your partner weekly, independent of children. You can call it anything that you want, but it basically consists of the following four parts:

1. Weekly Planning

We whip out our calendars and (quickly) go over what we have planned for the week, one at a time. We skip repetitive things like work or classes and instead focus on what we’re doing during the evenings and weekends that will interfere with our time together or that we might need the other’s help or presence for. Specific items might include: dinner parties, things we need the car for, going out with friends so I can’t see you then, study groups, or a myriad of other things.

2. Business

Next we mostly talk about finances - what major expenditures we might have this week or in the near future, planning dates, housekeeping issues, future plans like long term goals.

3. Testimony Time

Companionship Inventory is a left over from when I was a full time missionary in Vancouver, Canada. As such, testimony time is a time to share with each other our feelings about what really matters - our spirituality. Some people may not feel comfortable with this, but for the two of us, it’s an intrinsic part of our lives and our marriage. Your testimony time could just include your thoughts on what’s really important to you or what you’ve been thinking about during that week. It’s often the most fulfilling part of our Companionship Inventory.

4. Compliment Time

My wife’s favorite part of our weekly review, we take turns telling each other one thing we admire about the other. We give at least 3 - 5 compliments every time, no matter how angry we might be at each other or how tired we are. It’s amazing how much complimenting the one you love does for your relationship. Whenever we have anyone staying with us we always include them in compliment time and they always enjoy it.

That’s pretty much it - it usually lasts less around 45 minutes. It may not be so for every couple, but Companionship Inventory is the single most important thing that we do that has helped our relationship.