The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man (20 page)

• Married men have fewer infections and a lower risk of heart disease and some cancers.

• Married men are less likely to smoke, drink heavily and be physically inactive.

• Married men are less likely to suffer from health conditions like back pain, headaches and serious psychological distress.

• Single people spend longer in the hospital and have a greater risk of dying after surgery.

• Nine out of 10 married men who are alive at age 48 are alive at age 65. Only 6 out of 10 single men who were alive at age 48 are alive at 65.

• On average, married men live 10 years longer than single men. A whole decade!

A bigger smile.
Married men are happier than their single counterparts. One study showed that 40 percent of married people said they were generally happy with their life, while only 25 percent of single people said they were. The bigger smile might be due in part to married men getting more sex than their single peers. But marriage also provides incomparable companionship and forces people to commit to something bigger than themselves, which contributes to happiness.

True companionship.
There is an old Swedish proverb that says, “Shared joy is double joy. Shared sorrow is half sorrow.” Truer words have seldom been spoken. Marriage basically means always having your best friend around. Everything from going to the gym to grocery shopping is ten times more enjoyable when your wife is by your side.

Your wife is there in the middle of the night when your worries are keeping you up; she’s there when you get off work and need to unload the frustrations of your day; she’s there to give you a pep talk over the breakfast table on the day you have a big presentation. No matter how loyal a friend is, they’re not family. They move, they ditch you when they have a hot date, they distance themselves when you have a big fight. You and your wife made a vow to be together forever; it’s wonderful to absolutely know that someone has your back come hell or high water.

Finally, remember that marriage can be as happy as you want it to be.

With the divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, many men view marriage as too risky a chance to take. But marriage is not a lottery, nor is it a game of Russian roulette. You don’t get married and then cross your fingers that you don’t become one of the statistics. Divorce is not a disease that some people catch and some people have immunity to. There is no more erroneous idea than that of “falling out of love.” Nobody falls out of love. One or both partners stop working at their relationship, and they give up. Be absolutely sure you pick the right woman to marry, someone who will be just as passionately committed to making the marriage work as you are, and your chances of having a happy marriage are nearly 100 percent.

Asking for a Woman’s Hand in Marriage

Once you know your gal is the one for you and you’re ready to take the plunge with her, there is an important duty you must take care of before you propose: asking your future father-in-law for his daughter’s hand in marriage. It is a tradition that has unfortunately been slowly fading away from Western society. Many argue that the whole idea smacks of sexism and chauvinism and harks back to times when women were treated like chattel.

Quite not. You’re not making a property exchange, you’re asking for her father’s blessing. When you get hitched, you’re not only marrying your honey, you’re also marrying into her family. Asking for her family’s blessing gets your relationship with them off on the right foot. It’s a profoundly respectful gesture that lets the family know you’re sincere in your intentions and a true gentleman.

But it’s definitely not an easy task; the experience can make any man a nervous wreck. Following these guidelines will help ease the stress and make this rite of passage bearable if not enjoyable.

1. Talk to your girlfriend first.
Before you do anything, make sure you and your girlfriend are on the same page about a few things. First, is she ready to commit? Does she even want to get married? You don’t want to get her father’s blessing only to have her
give you the mitten
. Second, ask your girlfriend how she feels about you seeking her dad’s blessing. While traditionally this is a man-to-man talk between prospective husband and future father-in-law, a modern woman may desire that you speak with both of her parents. Or your girlfriend’s dad may have passed away or been an absent or abusive father, and she may ask that you speak only to her mother. If so, be sure to honor her wishes.

2. Try to meet her father before you ask.
If it’s possible, try to meet your girlfriend’s parents a few times before you decide to ask for the blessing. Having established a relationship will make sitting down with Dad and discussing your wish to marry his daughter a bit easier. Again, not all situations will allow this, but if you can, do it.

3. Sit down with him man-to-man.
There are several ways you can go about this, and I think it all depends on what kind of man your girlfriend’s father is. Consider taking him out to dinner or going to a bar or coffee shop. Breaking bread with him might make the situation a bit more comfortable. If that’s not a possibility, during a visit simply ask if you can speak to him in private. If her dad lives far away, try to time the conversation for a trip home which has already been planned, perhaps during the holidays. If this is not possible, it’s okay to conduct the talk over the phone.

4. Start out expressing your feelings for his daughter.
Begin the conversation by expressing to your girlfriend’s father the love and admiration you have for his daughter. Tell him how much she means to you. Mention some specific qualities that you love about her. He raised her, so you are really complimenting him at the same time.

5. Explain your wish to marry his daughter.
Now it’s time to cut to the chase. Assure him that you understand the seriousness of the commitment and that being able to spend the rest of your life with his daughter would make you the happiest man in the world.

6. Promise him you’ll take care of his daughter for the rest of her life. Put yourself in this man’s shoes.
He’s been the man in her life since she was a baby. He’s taken care of her since she was in diapers and only wants the best for her. He wants to know that he’s handing off his little girl to someone who will take just as good care of her as he has. Make the commitment that you’ll always provide for, honor, respect and cherish his daughter.

7. Respectfully ask for his blessing.
It’s time to request his blessing and support in proposing to his daughter.

Affair-Proof Your Marriage

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

All your dating, wooing and chivalry won’t mean a thing if you cheat on your wife and let the life and love you created together slip away. Twenty-five percent of all American men (and some studies put the number far higher) will have extramarital affairs during their lifetime. Will you be one of the four? Or will you stay true?

Many people look at infidelity as if it was a natural disaster. No one could see it coming. It just inexplicably happened. The truth is that not only can men see it coming, they can prevent it from happening as well.

It is possible to affair-proof your marriage. Will it be a lot of work? Yes. But that’s what you signed up for when you decided to marry your sweetheart.

Keep dating your wife.
Establish a weekly “date night” with your wife and treat this time as sacred. Your dates don’t have to be fancy, but you do need to work to keep them fresh. A recent study showed that injecting novelty into your dates can bring back the butterflies you experienced when you were first courting. So visit a new restaurant, try a new hobby or take a class together.

Focus on being romantic.
Any woman will tell you it doesn’t take much to be romantic. A romantic letter or e-mail only takes a few minutes to write. Flowers are easy to buy. These small gestures show your wife that you’re thinking about her during the day and help reinforce your commitment.

Initiate affection.
Studies show that couples who are affectionate with each other stay together. Make an effort to initiate spontaneous affection with your wife. Give her a hug or surprise kiss and tell her how much you love her. Hold hands when you’re out together. Invite cuddling with her without making it a precursor to sex. These small gestures will help strengthen the physical connection that every relationship needs.

Have sex regularly.
Many men stray because they’ve gotten bored with their sex life with their wife. It’s pretty easy to get into a bedroom slump when you’re married. Things get busy and by the end of the day couples are just too tired for it. Make sex with your wife a priority. It doesn’t have to involve kama sutra and edible underwear. Just do it. Frequent sexual encounters with your wife will strengthen your emotional and physical attraction to her.

Spend time just talking.
Find some time each day to have meaningful conversations with your wife. If you have kiddos, do it after you put them in bed. Talk about what you did during the day, what you’ve been thinking about lately and your hopes for the future. These conversations will deepen the bond between to you and your wife.

Share a common interest.
A big reason men stray from their wives is that they begin to find less and less in common with them. Once jobs and kids intervene with your once simple coupledom, there may begin to be fewer areas of your lives which overlap.

Avoid this by maintaining a common interest or hobby with your wife. Take dance lessons, train for a marathon or read the same books. Just find something that both of you can enjoy and participate in together.

Have a sense of honor and duty.
Remember that when you got married you made a sacred promise or vow that you would be faithful to your wife. There was a time when a gentleman was judged on whether or not he was a man of his word. Sadly people today don’t take those sorts of things seriously. Many people feel justified in breaking their promises when something stops being easy and pleasurable. Buck the trend. Be a man of honor and integrity.

Chapter Five. The Father

“Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.”

—Bill Cosby

Being a dad is perhaps the manliest job you’ll ever have. It’s a role that requires you to call upon hundreds of manly skills and attributes. You have to display leadership, manly compassion and strength. You have to know how to fish, build forts and even how to braid little girls’ hair. (Braiding is like knot tying. It’s manly.)

The world is in need of good fathers. Studies have shown that children who have involved fathers do better in school, are more self-confident and have better social connections with their peers. Boys that have good relationships with their fathers show fewer behavioral problems than boys that don’t. Sadly, for the past 40 years, men have been neglecting their fatherly duties. Many men abandon their families and leave a woman to raise their children on their own. Even men who don’t abandon their families physically, do so emotionally. They’d rather spend time at the office or at their buddy’s house playing poker than spend time with their kids and get involved with their lives. This is one of the reasons we wanted to write this book: In too many cases, fathers have stopped passing down the art of manliness to the next generation.

Dad-manship does not come with an instruction manual. And of course you can’t put everything that a man needs to know about being a dad in a book. Learning to be a dad is mainly a function of trial and error. However, we’ve included some advice on getting started and a few of the most pertinent things all dads and future dads should know. Make it your goal to have your children say about you what Theodore Roosevelt said about his father: “My father was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness.” As a father, you are the crucial link in passing down the art of manliness to your children.

Take Care of a Pregnant Wife

Despite the great strides made in the area of gender equality, there’s one thing that women can do that you’ll never be able to: grow a baby. You’re never going to know how it feels to be pregnant or give birth to your precious progeny. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an active part in the gestation process. You and your wife are a team, and there’s many things you can do to be a supremely supportive dad-to-be.

Respond appropriately to the news she’s pregnant.
If you weren’t planning on a bundle of joy entering your life, make sure you don’t respond in a way that shows you’re not excited about the news. Inappropriate responses would include: breaking down and crying tears of agony, making a face of disgust or asking why she wasn’t using her birth control. You want your wife to feel confident and secure that you’ll be there for her during these trying nine months and that you’re willing to step up and be a great dad.

Read some books on pregnancy.
Knowledge is power. The more you know about what she’s going through, the better equipped you are to empathize and know how to help. There are hundreds of pregnancy books to choose from.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
is a classic and guides you through what your wife is experiencing during each step of her pregnancy.

Figure 5.1 Read some books on pregnancy. The more you know about what she’s going through, the better equipped you are to empathize and know how to help.

Accompany her to doctor’s appointments.
This serves three purposes. First and most importantly, it shows your wife that you’re with her all the way in the pregnancy. Second, you’ll know exactly what’s going on with her pregnancy and will be better prepared to help her. Finally, seeing your baby’s picture, even when it looks like an indistinguishable lump, and hearing its heartbeat will help create a fetus/father bond. Even if you’re terribly busy at work or school, always make time for a doctor’s appointment.

Help her through morning sickness.
Morning sickness is quite possibly the worst part of pregnancy (well, besides that whole labor thing). It strikes about 75 percent of all pregnant women. Symptoms of morning sickness include headaches, excessive sleepiness and of course feelings of nausea and sometimes vomiting. Most women will start feeling the symptoms of morning sickness about a month after conception, and it will typically last until the twelfth to fourteenth week of pregnancy. Some women will experience morning sickness their entire pregnancy. Despite its name, morning sickness doesn’t happen only in the morning. Most women experience the symptoms of morning sickness all day long. When helping her through this rocky period, the key is to keep experimenting with different remedies. Introduce new treatments each day to see which work for her and which don’t. Be willing to make many trips, sometimes late at night, in search of something else to ease her troubles. Here are a few remedies that might do the trick:

• Vitamin B6 supplements. Studies have shown that vitamin B6 supplements can alleviate the symptoms of morning sickness.

• Seasickness bracelets. Seasickness bracelets are elastic bands with plastic bumps that apply pressure to points on the wrist. Supposedly this pressure can reduce the feelings of nausea.

• Ginger ale. The fizziness of ginger ale or any other clear soda can help with nausea. And ginger has been shown to reduce the symptoms of morning sickness. So ginger ale is a winning combo. Most popular brands of ginger ale don’t have any real ginger in them; look for smaller, independent brands that still use the real McCoy.

• Crackers. The problem with morning sickness is that your wife will not feel like eating much, but an empty stomach will only make the feelings of nausea worse. Crackers are easy on the stomach and can stave off the nausea that starts in the morning. Have her eat some before she even gets out of bed.

• Ginger or peppermint tea. As with ginger, peppermint has been shown to help reduce the feelings of nausea associated with morning sickness.

• Be flexible. Some foods will be totally unappetizing to your wife one day, and the next it will be the only thing that appeals to her. Be flexible and give her whatever her stomach will keep down. Be willing to run out and buy whatever she craves.

• Keep yourself clean. Pregnant women become hypersensitive to smells. Even scents she once enjoyed can now start her stomach churning. So brush your teeth and shower daily, or she may not be able to stand having you around.

Reduce her stress.
Pregnancy is physically and emotionally demanding, so don’t burden your wife with any unneeded pressure. Take on more of the household chores like cleaning, cooking and grocery shopping so your wife can rest. However, when you take on these responsibilities make sure to do them right. Ruining your wife’s favorite shirt in the wash will negate any stress reduction your good deed might have garnered.

Be patient.
Pregnancy totally wreaks havoc on your wife’s hormones. Some days she’ll feel fantastic, some days she’ll bite your head off as soon as you open your mouth and some days she’ll break down and cry for no reason at all. Be patient and recognize that it’s the hormones. Also, be understanding when it comes to your love life. Your wife’s sex drive will be all over the place during her pregnancy: often plummeting in the first trimester, bouncing back in the second and falling again in the third. Patience, friend, patience.

Tell her she’s beautiful and that you love her.
Your wife will be undergoing some serious body transformations during pregnancy. Reassure her that you think she’s beautiful and that you love her immensely. Affirm your unwavering dedication to her each and every day.

Deliver a Babyin a Pinch

The arrival of your little one may not wait for the man in the white coat or weather conditions may prevent you from driving the Mrs. to the hospital. As a man, you should be prepared for such situations by knowing how to deliver a baby. Here’s how to do it.

1. Don’t panic.
Your wife is under a lot of stress right now. Standing there
havy cavy
or running around the house yelling like a little boy will not help her. Ease her stress by remaining completely calm.

2. Assess the situation.
During labor your wife will experience contractions—the periodic tightening and relaxing of her uterine muscle. You’ll know your wife is experiencing one by the looks of discomfort on her face. If your wife’s contractions are less than two minutes apart, the baby is on its way, and you probably don’t have time to get to the doctor. If you can see the top of the baby’s head in the vagina, you definitely don’t have time.

3. Call for help.
Just because you read something in a book or watched Coco give birth to puppies when you were eight, does not make you an expert on delivering babies. Call an ambulance. Even if the baby comes before it gets there, someone can talk you through the process.

Figure 5.2 Call an ambulance. Even if the baby comes before it gets there, someone can talk you through the process.

4. Get Mom comfortable.
Because you’ve seen hundreds of television and movie births, your first reaction will probably be to have Mom lie on her back. This position isn’t actually the most comfortable or effective for delivery. If space is available, have her get on her hands and knees. This alleviates some of the pressure on her back. Some women also find it comfortable to stand or squat when giving birth, positions which allow gravity to aid in the birthing process. Just let nature dictate what she does. If Mom is in one of these vertical positions, keep an eye on the baby so he or she doesn’t squirm out into a free fall. If space isn’t available (say, in the back of a taxicab), the traditional on-the-back position will suffice.