This is a guest post from Lissie at The Fascinating Woman.

First off, there is no such thing as a “time of the month.” It does not matter that you have years of evidence to counteract my statement. Want a smooth home life? Then there is no time of the month, instead there are bad days, even a bad week or two. Everybody has those - even men.

Secondly, the only way to make real strides with your wife’s behavior on her bad days is to give her the loving support she needs on her good days. The areas with the biggest impact will be listening ( i know, groan,) general helpfulness and speaking her love language.

Listening. Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard, “you never listen!” Great! Which of course means that you are capable of listening, otherwise you wouldn’t have known to raise your hand, right? Here’s a secret, “you never listen” is code for “you don’t give me your undivided attention when I’m talking to you” and “you aren’t remembering what I said which must mean that I’m way less important to you than the guys on Sports Center, so why don’t you just marry them! They can clean your dirty socks!” But those are both a bit long, so instead we say, “you never listen.”

Here’s what you do to fix the problem. Every day-every single day-you give your wife 10 minutes of your undivided attention. Set a timer. Maybe it will be at the same time, maybe not, but it must be every day and it must be undivided - no playing with the dog, looking at Facebook, catching the basketball highlights, scanning the newspaper - UNDIVIDED attention. Then you listen. When 10 minutes is up you’re “off the hook.” She can finish her sentence, but not start a new one. Do this for one month and two amazing things will happen - your wife will talk less and you’ll remember what it is she said.

When she’s having a bad day set the timer for 30 minutes, or have several 10 minute sessions. She will get upset. She will say something like, “I’m not a boiled egg. I don’t have a timer on my feelings or on how long I want to talk.” Just let it roll right off you. Tell her you love her and of course she’s not a boiled egg (resist the impulse to make a joke here…RESIST IT!). Tell her it has nothing to do with her, you just love her so much you want to make sure that you are giving her your undivided attention - which can only last so long. She’ll sniff and say something like, “You seem fine to give your undivided attention for three hours to a game.” I know she’s just baiting you, but don’t bite, instead take a deep breath and say, “what do you want me to do?” “I don’t know,” she’ll plaintively say. Think of how much you wanted to be with this woman forever and gently say to her, “would you like a bath, or some pizza, should we watch a movie, etc.” This is the correct response. Offer something she generally likes but won’t involve you having to listen anymore - what’s that? Yes, this is the same tack you used while you were dating. Yes, it still works.

General Helpfulness. This means something different to every woman. But I bet you know the ones that matter to your woman. Go on, tick them off. (Let’s see . . . be home on time, take the trash out, clear the table when I’m done, put the socks in the dark colors hamper, hang up my towel, return library books on time, etc.) Here’s how it works, imagine you’re a supervisor or you work in some sort of hierarchal environment, now imagine that almost every day the same employee won’t put the paperwork in the right slot, won’t put the tools back in the toolbox, won’t speak kindly to the customers, etc. Is he your favorite? Of course not.

Speaking Her Love Language. I understand that “A Good Husband” already recommended The Five Love Languages. It’s an excellent book, but you don’t necessarily need to read the whole thing, instead take the quiz. Only the really confused won’t know what their love language is. Personally, I like to be praised, to be helped, to have quality time with my husband, to receive love letters and chocolates and I may be sad on occasion if I’m not getting enough, but the only thing that is going to make me really crabby is not being touched enough. For this reason I tend to be clingy when I’m having a bad day (or standoffish but it’s really obvious which way I’m feeling) I mean attached at the arm, side, hip and leg clingy. Can’t get enough attention. It happens every time, but it happens much, much more if during the preceding weeks I wasn’t touched enough. For this reason my husband’s go-to response when I won’t be comforted is, “May I give you a foot rub?”

Thirdly, and lastly, sometimes you just need reinforcements. Which means other women, something sweet (usually chocolate,) and something salty. If she won’t call her friends you can call them for her - she may even be annoyed with you at first, but it’ll pass. (If her friends are busy though don’t tell her you called them and they couldn’t come, not unless you want a gelatinous mess of her tears, your sweat and ground up tooth enamel to deal with.) When she isn’t having a bad day encourage her to hang out with her girl friends (or to make some.) Depending on the woman it may take some time. Remain encouraging, it’s in your best interest. A woman who regularly has time with uplifting girl friends is generally happy, cheerful, kind and less talkative at home.

For Wives:

Just because he now remembers what you said does not mean that he agrees with you, that’ll have to be worked out on it’s own. But don’t accuse him of “never listening” instead say what you actually mean, example: “the fact that you refuse to ever buy me something I want for my birthday makes me feel like you don’t care. if you want to surprise me on my birthday then I would like to receive other gifts, or at least spending money, throughout the year”

Praise his helpfulness. Any helpfulness.

Respect his time and attention. Ask politely on days you need more attention, and don’t ask when he’s in the middle of something. If after three months you find that you need a larger chunk of undivided attention daily, ask for it politely. Be aware though, what you really might need is something else. Like for everyone to eat dinner together at the table. Or to go out on dates. Or to have the children spend two-four hours quality time with their Father so you can have quality time with yourself. (Start with two hours, and add more.)

Get a pain reliever that helps you if you need it. Personally, I use Pamprin Multi-Symptom, and I take at least one every day during “that” week to help me be more rational. Also, if your method of birth control is making things worse consider getting a different one.

Have girl time. You need it. Your husband needs you to have it. Have girl time.

This is a guest post from Lissie, my beautiful wife, over at The Fascinating Woman.

score in the bathroom. More room and more time, who doesn’t love that? I grew up in a household with eight women - and only one bathroom. Getting married was a revelation in the glories of pampering. I had space for make-up, and skin creams and hair products and time to luxuriate in a bubble bath. From experience, I can promise that if you give yourself permission to revel in this newfound freedom your husband will respect - even want it for you - and he’ll take reasonable steps (read: hang up the wet towel, lower the seat, rinse the hair bits from the sink) to ensure that you remain blissfully feminine.

The Fine Line: Just because he lets it be “your” room don’t make him feel like he’s entered enemy territory; put your unmentionables away, stock bars of plain soap, allocate him his own area.

opening jars. There’s just something so reassuring about having someone around who can open the tough jars, reach the high shelves, move the heavy items and give piggy back rides. The best thing you can do here is let your husband help you and praise him lavishly when he does. My husband loves to be praised, but the words would get stuck in my throat or garbled by my tongue from lack of familiarity. So for a while I went overboard-on purpose-when he went outside to get my something from the car I’d say, “Look at my strong man going out to brave the elements for his little delicate wife. Such nice strong, rippling muscles to bring me the milk. And see how thorough he is, even putting away the milk and closing the door.” Take my word for it, it works.

The Fine Line: If you’re asking for help every few minutes you’ve taken it too far, either move things from the high shelf or get a step ladder. Of course you can-and should-ask, but just like you don’t want to be a short-order cook he doesn’t want to be a piece of heavy machinery.

warming. Even if you don’t know the scientific reason men are generally warmer than women (and actually shouldn’t it be the other way around since women have more body fat?) - the fact remains that men are generally warmer than men. When you borrow the sweater off his back it smells like him and it’s really, really warm. Or when you get in bed you have a really good reasoning for snuggling - so he can warm you up (warning: this can lead to him really warming you up). My good husband will even lie on my side of the bed to warm it up for me. I get warm bedding and he gets to be cooled off on his side - we both sleep better. It’s a win-win. So don’t complain that you’re so cold, just ask to be warmed up.

The Fine Line: Just because you want to walk around the house in December in shorts and a tee shirt doesn’t mean it’s fair to turn the thermostat way up (what’s he going to do walk around naked and still sweat?) You can wear more clothes. And there’s always exercise, intense house cleaning, baking, or a hot bath to warm you up as well.

taking out the trash. There’s something about smelly, heavy, exposure to the elements tasks that just screams “man!” (Although that ought to mean that men change more diapers . . .) Growing up I had to take out the trash on the days I did the dishes, but when it was bitterly cold or just plain gross I could usually sweet talk my younger brother into doing it for me - just call him a strapping boy and promise to make cookies for him later. I find that the same approach works on a husband (and I don’t want to hear any flip about “rewarding him” we reward dogs for sitting and husbands are way nicer to have around) An added tidbit: sweetly asking at the same time day after day means that he’ll eventually make a routine of it. Though I suggest you continue to be appreciative and regularly make cookies.

The Fine Line: Don’t nag! And don’t do it yourself. There have been two instances where the trash was left waaaaaay too long. Once in the bathroom and once in the kitchen. Instead of taking it out myself or nagging I just ignored it. There has been no problem since.

Hello helpful, loyal (thrifty, brave and kind) readers. I appreciate all of you and your insight. Some of you may not have noticed, but a woman posted a comment on one of my popular posts, The Xbox Conundrum, about how her husband won’t stop playing video games.

Perhaps you all might have some helpful suggestions for her?

“My husband get’s up in the morning and the first thing he does is turn on Guild Wars. He ignores his job until around 10:30 a.m. sometimes until noon or later, then finally takes off to do his rounds. But because he get’s such a late start, he’s out working until 7 p.m. at times. He is in pest control so he has appointment windows of 4 hours, and he’s usually late to most of them. So when you people out there are waiting for some guy to come over for an appointment, realize he might be at home gaming waisting your time. So,… when he get’s home at night, he gives me a kiss and says how was your day, pretends to show me his time. We tak about what food we will eat and sit for a minute. Which is really obvious that it’s applied behavior, only to passify me and can’t wait to go log into his Guild again. Of which he proceeds to play until 2 a.m. in the morning, or at least midnight. I go to bed alone almost every night. We have sex about twice a month. So what do you think?”

I responded to her asking for more details and she provided the following:

“oh yes,I have talked to him many, many, many times. The right way in the first 3 1/2 years, with love, patients and understanding. He kows I grew up with 5 boys and I don’t act like a reguar girl. I “get” men better than the average woman. I don’t just want to complain about something, I want answers and solutions just like a man cause that’s what my brothers taught me. So much so that I can hardly even relate to women very much. I also don’t put him through long, drug out conversations. I give him “cave time” etc, etc. I know the deal. Trust me. Then with the overwhelming frustration, I began to loose myself control with how I presented my feelings. I just can’t take it anymore. Frustration doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel now. I’m lost in absolute sorrow because he just doesn’t care. I’ve been reading about gamming addiction and he definately has that going on as far as I can tell. I’ve tried to talk to him about that too. He agreed, then fails to make good on his promises….. On any of his promises I’m afraid.”

Anonymous, I hope that you are still watching. The community here can provide some useful insight.

Any suggestions, anyone?

Have you ever read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich? I highly recommend it.

For those of you who have never read the book, one of the things that Hill suggests is that you form a mastermind group for your life. Find people who have skills and attributes that you admire, or that you lack, and make them a part of your life.

Henry Ford was a great example of someone who did this. Ford grew up illiterate and uneducated. He had a dream of being rich, however, so he began to surround himself with skilled, educated people. They showed him how to get what he wanted.

I suggest that we do the same with relationships.

When I first got married, I can honestly say that I had no idea what kind of work goes into sustaining a long term relationship. I just didn’t know how it was done. I needed a lot of help. I got that help from not only my wife, but also from my bishop, a couple of good friends my own age, a couple of good friends who were older, and from reading several books on relationships.

The mastermind idea is different from my post on calling in the cavalry for particular situations. Calling in the cavalry means finding experts to take over for particular situations or events. You mastermind group doesn’t step in and do certain things for you. Instead, the relationship mastermind group performs two essential functions:

The mastermind group provides advice on particular subjects. Every once in while my wife does something that doesn’t make any sense to me. I can call up a member of my mastermind group and say, “Hey, my wife did this. What do you think I should do?”

The mastermind group becomes a think tank. When talking about relationships in general with your think tank, you should feel like they are providing useful, uplifting, and enlightening information and insights that will help you. They are the people you can bounce the “what ifs” off of.

In closing, some disparate thoughts on the relationship mastermind group:

- Business people often form mastermind groups to make sure their businesses succeed. There’s no reason that we can’t do the same for our relationships.

- Your mastermind group can be formal or informal, but you should definitely have one.

- Make a list of five to ten people who have relationships that you admire. Those people should be in your relationship mastermind group.

- You should evaluate the success of your mastermind group every year or so to make sure that its working.

- Be a part of someone else’s mastermind group. It’s called paying it forward.

It’s becoming a bit of a weekly tradition, but ya’all seem to enjoy it.

- On your way home, go to the bank and pick up two rolls of pennies. That’s one dollar total. Take your wife to the nearest public fountain. Hand her one of the rolls of pennies and then take turns tossing pennies into the well and making wishes. Make them out loud so that you can share them. After all of your pennies are gone (that’s 50 each, so this could take some time), go grab something to eat somewhere and talk about the most surprising/interesting/fascinating wishes that your partner made. You can find out why they made those wishes. It’s a great way to get to know something about your partner you never knew.

For more date ideas, click here.

- Go to the theatre. For some reason, a lot of people automatically link the theatre with romance. Taking your date to see a play at the last minute is a great idea. You can usually check your local paper to find out what’s playing, and if you call the theatre, they will often have discount tickets or coupons available. Also, if you’re a student, you can get last minute tickets (with an hour of the show starting) at a steep discount. Since it’s last minute, make sure you call to see if it’s sold out.

- Go stargazing. It’s getting warmer now. On the way home from work, grab a roast chicken from your local grocery store, a loaf of bread from their bakery, and maybe some cheese and something to drink. Grab your wife and drive up a canyon or out to a rural area, spread a blanket out on the ground, eat dinner and watch the stars when it gets dark. If you want to do a little more planning, local universities often have stargazing parties

- Go Clubbing. If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, dress up and go to a night club. How long has it been since you did that? My wife and have done this a few times since we got married and it’s absolutely hilarious to us. I get a certain voyeuristic pleasure out of watching all the single people grope around trying to impress everyone….but I like to watch people. If you find the right club, you might even do a little dancing, eat some good food, and/or sing a little karaoke.

Just a reminder friends, there is no such thing as a sure fire, slam dunk date idea. The reason these dates work is because they have a huge potential for failure. That’s good for any date. It makes the best stories when something goes wrong. Couldn’t get to the theatre on time and they locked you out? The date then becomes about how well do you improvise, and how comfortable are you with your date?

I’d love to hear some of your stories.

Looking for more date ideas from A Good Husband? Click here.

On a relationship forum that I participate in regularly, there seems to be a great deal of “divorce him” talk going on.

People visit these relationship forums because they are looking for advice and help. While I don’t expect online forums to deliver professional advice, I would expect people to give advice that isn’t damaging. People come to these forums and ask for help with difficult situations of all sorts. Many of them are beyond my scope to help with, but the people in these forums were quick to suggest divorce, among other options.

Divorce is an ugly thing. We all know that. The national divorce statistics hover (in many cases have dropped below) right around 40%. Divorce has some serious negative side effects for those involved including a lowered life expectancy for men, a lower financial standard of living for women (and their children by extension) caused by the gender gap in wages, and children suffer from a loss of interpersonal skills and a lack of correct interpersonal relationship modeling.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that while there are a few good reasons for divorce, like abuse or infidelity, suggesting divorce as an initial option is hardly conducive to helping. If there were ever a case for two people who could have felt justified in getting a divorce without using the excuse of abuse or infidelity, it was my wife and I.

Our first year was pretty darn rough. We both made pretty much every relationship mistake that you can make, plus we were really young, both in college, my wife was very sick, and we had no money.

We sought out advice. We were counseled to communicate better. We tried several different discussion formats. Some worked, some didn’t. I had to learn how to share my feelings. She had to learn that not every part of the relationship has to be perfect. We were told to lower our expectations. We were told “that’s just how it is” and that we’d better get used to it.

Despite all of the well meaning advice we were given, I know that the thing that kept us together and made us want to keep trying was not only did we love each other, but we recognized that marriage is a covenant. We had made a promise before God and each other that we would stay together forever. We endured a year of unhappiness, and a second year of uneasy discomfort, before we started to really figure marriage out.

Our marriage isn’t perfect now. We’ve been married about five and a half years and we still have the occasional disagreement. Feelings still get hurt, but we’ve figured out how to handle it. We could have gotten divorced but now we’re glad we didn’t. We both feel it was worth it to work through the hurt. Our greatest joy is each other, and I believe that it will stay that way for the rest of our lives because we are both willing to work at it rather than take the easy way out.

Inspired by this guy —>
I don’t know where he comes from, but he’s got some good ones.

“Aw, Honey, you look tired. Why don’t I make dinner tonight.”

“Can’t your mother stay another week?”

“Let’s just cuddle tonight.”

“Why don’t you drive the remote tonight?”

“You know, I don’t know where I’m going. I’ll pull over and ask for directions.”

“Can I do the dishes for you?”

“Would you like a footrub?” (my wife’s personal favorite)

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.