A Husband's Little Black Book : Common Sense, Wit and Wisdom for a Better Marriage - Hardcover

Robert J. Ackerman, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Training Institute at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is a co-founder of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, author of ten books and numerous research articles. He is a national lecturer, has appeared on shows such as The Today Show, Oprah, CNN Headline news and his research as been featured in Newsweek. He and his wife, Kimberly, have three children and live in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Introduction

After I said, 'I do,' I said, 'What do I do?' Marriage licenses don't come with instructions. It wouldn't matter anyway. Most men I know don't read directions. That's why we can't program the VCR. After all, we secretly know that 'Real men don't need directions.' We would rather drive around for hours looking for our destination than ask for directions.

This book represents the collective wisdom I have heard over the years from both husbands and wives about what makes a good husband. It is not intended to teach you how to redo your life. It is about the everyday things that make living with her better. I hope you enjoy reading it and that it makes you think about her. It is the little things we do that make the biggest difference. Enjoy each other!

Share the TV
remote control.

Shampoo her hair
for her birthday.

Don't eat potato
chips in bed.

Put the toilet seat down.

Don't ask her
how long she's been
on the phone.

Men always want to be
a woman's first love;
women have a more subtle instinct: what they like
is to be a man's
last romance.
―Unknown

Don't take more
out of your relationship
than you put in.

Go for a walk and
hold her hand.

Send her flowers on
an ordinary day.

Take turns driving
the new car.

Pains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew
people together through
the years. That's what makes
a marriage last―more than passion or even sex.
―Simone Signoret

Fix household
appliances without
muttering about how
they broke.

If she wrecks the car,
ask her if she is all right
before you ask about
the car.

You don't need to
understand her completely
to love her completely.

Delete
'I told you so' from
your vocabulary.

Write down her
telephone messages
correctly.

Go grocery shopping
with her.

Do the
grocery shopping
yourself.

Help her wrap the
Christmas presents.

Buy the holiday and
birthday cards you send
to your parents.

Marriage is our last,
best chance to grow up.
―Joseph Barth

Ask her about her day.

Don't give her advice
unless she asks for it.

Listen when
she talks about
her friends.

Visit her relatives, too.

Look through her
high school yearbook.

See a movie of
her choosing, even if
you don't want
to see it.

Then in the marriage
union, the independence of
the husband and the wife
will be equal, their
dependence mutal, and their obligations reciprocal.
―Lucretia Mott

Take her to bed
and just hold her.

When you're wrong
admit it.

©2008. All rights reserved. Reprinted from A Husband's Little Black Book by Robert J. Ackerman. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street , Deerfield Beach , FL 33442.