Some thoughts for gentlemen about adding some focus to the most important relationship in their life.

Dear Gentlemen, Your marriage and relationships in general, just don’t happen. Like the honing of your golf swing or the creation of that perfect garden, they need attention and effort. The multitude of pressures that lead relationships from their starting point of love passion, respect, and hope, to apathy, complacency, repetitiveness, and discouragement are often allowed to take hold rendering the outlook for many relationships bleak. And while millions of dollars are spent to find solutions in books and therapy trying to “fix” one another, maybe there is a slightly different, simpler approach to add to the arsenal: men assuming an It’s All About Her approach. Good is not good enough. We should all strive toward a happier and more fulfilling life through having a phenomenal marriage. Is this back to the future? Maybe, but my observation is that it is easy for the Guys out there (me included) to either become relationship lazy or are just forget that there are things that we can do to have a more fulfilling marriage. Now, when I talk about the laziness of some of my fellow husbands, I am NOT talking about your efforts to provide for your family and bringing-up the kids , spending the endless hours supporting their academic, athletic and artistic activities. I am talking specifically about HER and the relationship with the most important woman in your world, your wife. And, I am not suggesting that you guys are the problem, but that you have an opportunity to be part of the solution. Look, you are married to a woman that you love. Yes, that feeling may have grown up as you did (hopefully), but she is the most important woman in your life. And in whatever way she may express it to you, and she is doing so every day of her life, you are the most important person in her life. My suggestion is that you Lads strongly consider doing a few kind things once in a while that will either elevate your lovely wife to the stature she deserves, or make sure that she maintains the lofty position to which you have already raised her. Am I advocating that we all “wuss out”? Absolutely not. While the old phrase “Happy Wife, Happy Life” applies, for those of you resisting a proactive approach, some introspection and thoughtfulness may help. I suggest that you find and execute on a ways to have fun in your marriage and maintain respect and consideration in the relationship. And yes, I’m also suggesting that you dig into the memory banks and pull out some good old fashioned, romantically-inspired mush to make your wife feel like a queen. Guess what, Dorothy? We are definitely not in Kansas anymore. The world is a dangerous place. The stresses and strains on our familial and marital relationships are real and many. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or marital /family therapist. I am just a regular guy who’s arrived at this position through the love of my wife -- and comments from her friends that I should provide a few tips to their husbands on how to do a few nice things for them once in a while. In my recently published book, It’s All About Her (Library Tales Publishing, 2013), I share a number of suggestions about how my fellow husbands can add more romance, fun, respect and love into the relationship with their wives. As I have discussed my thoughts with couples, one of the frequent questions I get is, “Why is it All About Her?” To answer this, I offer to the you a perspective on who is this woman you married? She is complex, multi-faceted, and ever changing. No rocket science here, you knew this from the first time you believed that she either changed her mind or made an inexplicable (in your mind) decision. The challenge we have in fully grasping what makes our beauty tick is that we like things in nice logical boxes….repeatable, predictable, and unsurprising. The problem with this is that first, we ain’t gonna find this in the organism with the XX chromosome configuration, and second, even if we could, wouldn’t that be boring and dull? Instead, please let me suggest an alternate view of your world by introducing you to the many women to whom you said “I will,” when you told your wife, “I do.”. The Lover This is the woman that you viewed from afar, inspired you to summon the courage to ask her out, and joined with you in a passionate physical and psychological match. Where is that woman? She is probably sitting across the room from you now and sleeping beside you every night. If you haven’t seen her in a while, don’t despair, she is still there wanting to be desired. OK, maybe the sex may not be as frequent (and I am not going to cover that issue here…I will leave that to Masters and Johnson, the Kama Sutra, and your imagination), but consider that it is not her testosterone level that has been steadily decreasing since age 18. It is not her love handles that made your guttage threshold (the age at which your waist and age are the same number) get pushed out 10 years. You have to admit, when it got easier to get, you may have become a little lazier about your presentation….and if this doesn’t apply to you, well bully for you! Speaking of bull … The point is, The Lover is still there, she may just be hidden behind the school lunches, the occupation, the chauffer duties, and the various other jobs your wife has had to take up over the years. Seek and you shall find her. The Partner This is the woman that after your heart and loins calmed down, you envisioned as being the teammate with whom you could make a life. Depending on when you first saw your Partner, those dreams may have been changed over the years. The key is that somewhere in your incredibly logical and dependent mind, you envisioned someone that would, and subsequently committed to, stay with you through thick and thin. And if you are like most people, you may have the feeling that it has been “thicker” than you thought it would be. What is pretty cool is that you haven’t been alone through those times, your Partner has been there with you. Congratulations. She is still there, joining you in the things that neither of you probably expected that you would do in your life when you were in the dream state of your relationship. But as you continue the adventure of your life, you have both learned that the path has many turns…some fun and good…some not so fun and painful. But who has been there? Your Partner. The Caregiver Any married man that has ever really left his mother, has looked for and found a “replacement” Caregiver. Let’s not go down the path of the thought that you only have one mother and that no one can replace her…given. But we are a dependent lot. If you don’t suffer from the lowering-of-your-pain-threshold syndrome when your wife is present, you are always able to clearly articulate the incredible amount of pain that you are suppressing. If you are honest with yourself, the little boy inside of you still needs the feminine touch, word, thought, and action that is in the DNA of every woman. And to whom do you turn when you are in need of this treatment? The person that has brought you ice-packs and heating pads when you were fully capable of getting off your fat derriere and securing it yourself; the darling chef that has re-written culinary history to create that which only you consider comfort food; and the Mother Teresa figure that has tolerated your periodic regression to the mentality of a 4 year old, as you so bravely fought off that bane of human existence, the common cold. The Confidante Remember that time that you shared the first secret, embarrassing event, or unpopular opinion with that woman that is accompanying you to your 1000th youth sporting event or artistic performance? She’s the person who didn’t judge you, didn’t laugh, and whose trust you could always count on. Not sure who you run with, but there are not a lot of people on this earth that you can rely upon in that way. And in those situations that OUR female side makes a cameo appearance, and we just need to vent or express our feelings, I am guessing that your first choice isn’t the guys walking up to the 1st tee with you on Saturday mornings or bringing the beer over for Monday Night Football. It’s the woman who shares your name and life. The Most Amazing Woman in the World …and weren’t you lucky for getting her! OK, clearly a certain amount of all of these people make up that rather complex woman you call your wife. The primary reason for her complexity is the burden she carries in caring for your fragile ego and managing your emotional state. Without this responsibility, she would have only her own relationship challenges with which to deal. But she has taken on the incredible task of managing yours, as well. Not an easy chore, but one for which, whether you know it or not, you are very grateful. Before you rush to arrange my flogging, consider these questions: To whom do you speak first when you have achieved a victory of any level of importance? Who acknowledges it and joins in your pride, regardless of the importance, and sometimes with little knowledge of the real importance? Who still expresses her appreciation of you as a physical specimen, regardless of the destruction that the years of genetics, abuse, and/or inactivity have wrought on your appearance? And why is the casual hint or supportive suggestion of how you could better take care of yourself usually tempered with such qualification as to hide what the objective observer might see? Who looks through all of the faults and sees the person that you really want to be, even when you may be light-years from that ideal? How many times have those conversations concerning your unrealized potential, that could have been incredibly ugly, been turned around by her to be a ‘glass half-full’ discussion, as opposed to the rather disheartening alternative? I pose these questions, because I am convinced that there is either a class offered in elementary school that has been hidden from all males through a grand conspiracy; some form of divine or alien intervention; or a genetic wiring difference in women which enables then to know how to manage the male ego. And while this is executed with varying levels of sophistication and skill, it is a talent possessed by most women. And when combined with all of the other responsibilities that I mentioned , I think it becomes clear why it IS and SHOULD be ALL ABOUT HER . As you start to consider the range of things that you could do, if you are starting to feel a tingling in your wallet, relax, Bubba. The phrase, “you get what you pay for,” does not apply to your wife. A good marriage cannot be bought Many things that can bring back that loving, romantic You create little or no financial burden, but they do require your time and thought -- the two most valuable things you have to give. So there is the set-up, Lads. At the end of the day, it is really all about CARING, COMMUNICATING, and CONNECTING…and of course HER! Love it up, my friends.