So, if you’re reading this today, it’s probably because you frequent my wife’s blog. I can literally only imagine your surprise to see content here from someone else. Okay, really it’s not that big of a surprise but I like to think this may be special.

Linda has politely asked me multiple times about occasionally writing content for the blog. I’ve told her I will at least three times.  But, I really enjoy working with the element of surprise. So, naturally I’ve had to wait long enough for it to seem as if I’ve forgotten.  This way she will (hopefully) be more happy and excited than if I had done this on demand when she first asked.

The conclusion of the previous paragraph brings me to the topic I will be covering today. You may remember from a while back, a post on the blog titled, How to be a Good Wife. Today, I will present you with that blog posts counter-part. If you didn’t notice up top, this will be all about, how to be a good husband.

At this point, I struggle with deciding how to present the components of a “good” husband. I could go one point at a time, breaking down each part with personal experience, stories, and observations. Or I could streamline all information in a bullet list style breakdown. Typically when I’m having a hard time with making a decision I do my best to combine the options.

• Do the dishes
• Extra curricular cleaning; once a week (this is extra curricular, meaning you choose to do it without it being mandatory)
• Work on your car(s)*
• Offer to build anything your wife wants
• Best possible version*
• Double space your lists
• Be proud of her
• Open honest lines of communication*
• Pretty much anytime you need to be ready to pose for a normal picture, or a selfie*
• Go on dates! (This one is significantly more helpful if the dates you go on are with your wife)
• Try to go to bed with her, and wake up with her*
• Leave the list you’re writing lying around so she finds it

And so it has been done. A list has been presented and now we will break some of it down anecdotally. We will address the asterisks one at a time and in their respective order. So, when I started working on cars,  it was purely for personal savings. Mechanics and car shops are often one of the biggest expenses through the years for most people. I wanted to have quality work done to my vehicles, and I wanted to have money left in my pocket.  Unfortunately in the beginning I thought I could get quality work done from dealerships. It was only after many poor experiences with dealerships that I realized the term “stealership” is the most accurate representation of your typical car dealer.  During present day my pride and joy is an uncommonly found hybrid. This means I try even harder to do any necessary work because many mechanics have never seen or worked on my type of car before.

Anyway, back to when I started working on cars. I didn’t know anything. A tire from a wheel, a catalytic converter from an O2 sensor, or a wizmo gadget from a corroded brake line, I didn’t know any of this nonsensical car jargon.  Mechanics would tell me what was wrong and what they had done and it seemed so nonsensical they may as well have been reading passages from an automotive “Jabberwocky.” I was fed up with it. This essentially lead to me deciding that I would start tearing things apart and replacing them until all things were fixed. A bit of an insouciant attitude and some extra applications of elbow grease were all I really needed to get started. Also, my dad taught me a lot. For time purposes I’m going to leave out any story about specific car repair incidents. Please know though, there are many many stories of me learning some new repair, breaking something, replacing extra parts, (extra $$) and still having the repairs cost half as much as what I could have paid a dealer to do it.

Now you’re wondering, and this makes him a good husband how…?  Well, to be honest with you I’m not sure. But, Linda always says she loves that I am taking care of our vehicles and we know what they say, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

A snapchat of us while visting the Baltimore Zoo two summers ago.

Best possible version (bpv) eh? Seems pretty self explanatory? Well it almost is. This is a way I’ve decided I like to live my relationships and it’s based off of a quote from one of my favorite movies. Although it may seem at first that bpv is a self directed thing I find it actually works best to focus it towards your partner. Being a good husband is all about consistently helping your wife become the best possible version of herself. This may mean encouraging her to quit her day job to do something else. It may mean buying her that professional development book she’s always wanted to read. It could also mean picking a new thing for dinner every week because your wife wants to “cook a new meal once a week.” Here’s the thing about this one, all of our wives are different. The best way to know what to do here is to ask.  Boom.

Yes, boom. I like boom. Boom because that is (if I must say so myself) a pretty decent segue into our next asterisked item from the list, open honest lines of communication. For Linda and me this means we will tell each other anything, and we don’t hold back. I firmly believe if you try to suppress or hide things they are more likely to manifest. So I don’t avoid telling my wife if I meet a new girl, and I thinks she’s funny, smart, and cute. I tell her about every ache and pain. And I always try to tell her in a polite way when I feel like she’s communicating poorly to me or being irrational. I don’t tell her these things to be mean, but if she doesn’t know I feel cornered, or like I’m being accused of something, she won’t know to stop. And if she doesn’t stop, it is likely I will form resentments that last for our marriage. These types of small things can add up and make or a break a marriage from lasting or not. I personally prefer the former. Boom.

You may be wondering why I used Boom there. Well, I used it to segue. I know, I know, there really was no segue. Let’s forget about it and move on. Selfies, photo shoots, and more. As the husband of a photographer I am ready for all of these things. Maybe I still grumble about it every once in a while. I know this can be a small sacrifice for me that leads to us remembering these moments for many more years. This is one of the small things that I just take a deep breath for, and smile.

You may notice my writing fluctuates a bit as I go through this post. “Will this happen every time I write,” I wonder to myself. I hope not, but it should smooth itself out as I write more. This next one is probably the one I am the worst at. I’ve always struggled with sleep. Many nights I find myself crawling into bed around 1A, my body barely feeling ready to shut down but trying to make it happen anyway. One thing I’ve noticed though, regardless of timing is that I like waking up with Linda and starting my day with my best friend. She wakes up for work at about 5:20A though, and I generally don’t start my drive home from work until 10:30P. You can probably see, even if I could fall asleep it would be difficult for us to really make this one work except on my nights off, or the off days where I am the opener.  Alas, I’ve come to realize these are just excuses and this is the part of the list where I have the most room for improvement. And so that is what I will work on after I finish writing this.

Many people open their blog careers with an “about me” or information about what they’re trying to accomplish.  In the grand scheme of things I’m pretty sure mine isn’t too much different. Trying to be a good husband is literally about me and is also what I am trying to accomplish (along with many many other things). I hope you’ve seized some helpful notes about how to be a good husband. I originally wrote this back in September, and then more recently came back to it to remove content and tighten it up a bit. This has been sitting unpublished for quite some time now. I’m not sure if you’re regular readers of Linda’s blog, but I recently became aware of a post not that long ago titled, “My Greatest Support.” Although many times I am unsure if I’m doing well, reading that post made me feel pretty good! So if you’re worried about my good husband list, go read that other post and rest assured; it is at least working for me!

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