Keep Your Man Crazy in Love the Redbook Way

The people at Redbook magazine, not willing to stand idly by while American men break up with their wives and girlfriends at an alarming rate, have published a list of thirteen tips to keep your man from dumping you like a fifty-pound bucket of do-it-yourself driveway sealer.  While I applaud their good intentions, I feel compelled to issue a dissenting opinion on several strategies they suggest to keep your man “Crazy in Love” with you.

Play Poker With Him:  On its face, not a bad idea, assuming your man plays poker.  If, on the other hand, he spends his evenings dusting his collection of My Little Pony figurines, your suggestion may be met with bemusement, which does not mean he will think you're funny, except in a strange way. 

My Little Pony:  “Hey—who emptied out My Little Cash Register?”

If you must play poker with your man, make sure you understand the rules and strategies of the game.  Here is the value of the various poker hands in ascending order:  one pair, two pair, red pair, blue pair, three of a kind, straight, gay, flush, put the seat down after you flush, “Full House” starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, straight flush.

Full House

Players can win either by having the hand with the highest value, or by “bluffing” other players into thinking they do.  Here is the bidding in a husband-wife poker game aired on ESPN16′s “Family Poker Feuds”.

WIFE:  Who goes first?

HUSBAND:  You do.

WIFE:  Do the colors of my chips have to match?

HUSBAND:  No—just bet, would you?

WIFE:  Sor-ry!  Okay, I bet—all of my blue ones, all of my red ones, and all of my white ones.

HUSBAND:  Sheesh.  I'm out—too rich for my blood.  What did you have?

WIFE:  I had the King of Spades and the Queen of Hearts—I thought they made a cute couple.

“I'll admit, it is effective as birth control.”

Give Him a Backrub:  This man-keeping strategy is doomed to fail for reasons that Redbook writers would understand if they had paid attention in biology class.  The human male does not have erogenous zones on his shoulder blades.

Wake Him Up in the Morning.  The newstand price of Redbook is $3.50 per copy.  You would think for three and a half bucks you'd get better advice than this.  There are two reasons a woman will wake a man up—he's snoring, or he needs to get to work to make enough money so they can re-do the kitchen.  Neither is recommended if you want to start the day in a lovey-dovey mood.

“So you're saying my husband's incompetent?”

Have a Conversation with His Boss.  Call the Drug Enforcement Agency—somebody's putting LSD in the water coolers at Redbook.  How exactly is this supposed to help your relationship?  The strategy as outlined by Julie Dolan, “wife of a company exec” according to Redbook, is to let the boss shine, let your husband shine, then—and only then—let yourself shine a little.  “Be ready to talk about something—perhaps a nonpolitical event in the news, maybe a book you've read,” she says.  Something like this:

BOSS:  We have a three billion dollar market cap!

HUSBAND:  I just won the Nobel Peace Prize!

WIFE:  Did you hear the Dark Ages ended?  I read “My Friend Flicka” once.

Dolan goes on to say that “You need to know what's going on” so you won't launch into a discussion about your big shopping spree the day the bottom falls out of the company's stock.  On the other hand, she says not to show you know too much.  There's no pleasing that woman!  Here's some model dialogue provided by Redbook.

BOSS:  Well, it certainly has been an interesting week.

WIFE:  I guess.  What did it mean in the paper when they said you'd been “indicted”?

Leave Him a Sexy Voice Mail at Work:  Unfortunately, due to outdated federal laws that impose “community standards” on national magazines such as Redbook, the article did not go into much detail as to what you should include in your “sexy” voice mail.  Here is a sexy voice mail approved by Redbook editors for distribution to first-time subscribers to the magazine's adults-only on-line edition:

PHONEMAIL:  You have one new message . . .

WIFE:  Hi hon—it's me.  Could you pick up Courtney at field hockey after work?  Also, we need cat food—the low-cal kind.  Fritzi's gut is starting to drag on the ground.  Let's see, what else.  There was something I wanted to tell you.  Oh, right—you are like gasoline on the fire of my desire—you send me higher and higher into paroxysms of earth-shaking erotic explosions.  Remember—the “light” catfood is the kind in the turquoise bag, not the orange bag.  Have a good day.