Because otherwise, your wife will talk like the wives on the blog My Husband Is Annoying. Is that how you want her to feel about you, and talk about you to her friends? Or do you want to be the ever-entertaining, still slightly mysterious, exciting yet dependable center of her world?
Whenever he suggests a bet, the stakes are always the same: sex or some form of sexual activity. For the sake of all involved, I won’t go into details. But for all the women out there, you know what I’m talking about, right? It’s never a wager for money or for who’s going to do the dishes or for who’s going to walk the dog(s) in the rainy cold.
And no matter how healthy a couple’s sex life may be, the man will stillmake the stakes of a bet about sex. For example:
Man: Wanna make a bet on the football game?
Woman: Sure, why not? What do you want to bet for?
Man [with that look in his eyes that pretty much just says it all]: Oh, I don’t know…got anything in mind?
[And then this is when the man tries to get all coy in the hopes that the woman will pick up on the suggestive tone and say it herself for some reason.]
Yup, I know I’m generalizing here. And maybe it’s just my husband that does this on a regular basis though womehow, I don’t think so. But believe me, the next time the subject of betting comes up, you can put money on the fact that if he loses, I’ll be making him do the dishes…no sexual favors necessary.
Mistake: if you want a sexual bet, and your wife is not the type to pick one, then “got anything in mind” comes off as pathetic passive-aggressive subservience. If you want something, take the lead!
my husband has a habit of asking where I am even when it’s clear I’m right in the next room. I’ve gotten used to this and there are times I even find it kind of endearing. He’d often say, “Where’s my baby?” and I guess I was expected to reply, “I’m in the kitchen” or some such thing. (I’m aware this line of questioning would make much more sense if we lived in a large, multi-story house but seems fairly ridiculous in a 500 square foot 1 bedroom apartment. Still, I do occasionally like to humor my husband.)
But lately the conversation goes more like this:
Husband: Where’s my baby?
Me: I’m in the kitchen, getting a snack. [This is most often where I am and what I'm doing. I probably spend the majority of my time at home in the kitchen getting snacks.]
Husband: No, my baby.
You see, I guess I’m no longer his baby. I’m now just the person carrying his baby. And I seem to have lost my name, too.
Ok, if you have a special term of endearment for your wife which has established a history, don’t suddenly start using it for someone else in her presence! This is just common sense.
In our kitchen we have a smallish white trash can. When my husband Bill has an item that is too big to fit in the trash can, such as a pizza box or his “Silk” soy milk cartons (shown in the photo), he will set it BESIDE the trash can instead of just taking the thing to the outside garbage bin, which is literally only 16 footsteps from the kitchen trash can! 16 steps. I walked the distance to check.
Ok, if your wife needs to measure the number of steps for a chore she wants you to do, you got problems. Could be that when she complains, you argue or ignore her, so she isn’t feeling heard. Could be she doesn’t feel supported in the relationship, and this chore has become the touchpoint for how she wants you to do more. Could be that you don’t appreciate her enough for her maintenance of a nice domestic environment, and damned if she’s gonna throw out your trash if you don’t appreciate it. I dunno – but it’s a yellow flag for sure.
If that’s not enough to inspire you to go work on your inner game, check out their Photo Friday, where wives post pictures of their “pathetic husbands”. When keeping a long-term relationship working smoothly, time is your enemy, both time in the relationship, and absolute time as societal changes weaken marriage:
according to the National Marriage Project’s latest report, their discontent is growing: fewer than 60 percent of wives report that they are “very happy” in their marriages, in contrast to more than 66 percent in 1973. (Male marital happiness has declined, too: from 70 percent to 63 percent.)
So learn some skills, or risk becoming pathetic.



