9 Tips To (Successfully) Live With A Woman

My boys—husband included—are always trying to keep me happy, but for some reason men think it is so difficult to live with us women. They complain that we are hard to read, emotional and confusing.

We aren’t!

We have some basic needs, but they really aren’t that hard to meet. The code to women is certainly not hidden in a secret vault in the desert somewhere, no need to Indiana Jones this. In fact, any man can learn how to live with a woman quite easily.

Here are the top tips on how to (successfully) live with a woman:

1. Put your clothes in the hamper. Do not leave them on the floor for me to collect, even if that floor is in the bathroom. Man-clothes smell. The less I have to touch them, the happier I will be.

2. Do not complain if there are bras hanging on the bathroom door handle. At least they aren’t on the floor. (I would like to point out that usually you don’t mind touching them.)

3. Do not TOUCH my magazines.

4. Do not MOCK my magazines.

5. (This one is primarily for my sons.) If you make a mess on the bathroom floor, clean it up. And please don’t tell me. I really don’t need to know everything.

6. For two days every month, I will sit on the couch, eat ice cream, watch The Princess Bride on repeat and cry. During these two days, you are not allowed to ask a single question (unless it is, “May I get more ice cream for you?”), and you are definitely not allowed to touch the remote. In fact, for your own safety, don’t even look at the remote.

7. Every now and then you will have to take me out for tapas and wine. Yes, I know you will be hungry afterwards and feel like you paid a lot of money for very little food. Yes, I know we always order the olives and no one eats them. But considering how many beer and burger joints I have been to in my life, consider it even.

8. If you notice a show coming into town that you really do not want to attend (say Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Taylor Swift, etc.), here is how to successfully proceed: Buy me two tickets as a surprise and say, “I thought you and a friend would have so much fun!” Because understand that if I buy the tickets, I will make you go with me on a date night. We both know that if I ask, you have to say yes.

9. Who cares about the toilet lid?! Always, always, always replace the toilet paper if you use it up. You use the roll 25 percent of the time. I use it 100 percent of the time. Don’t leave me stranded. I can put the toilet lid down in two seconds, but having to call out for someone to bring me toilet paper is embarrassing, even in a house of all boys.