You Studied Everything Except Your Marriage

I've met women with two master's degrees, a project management certification, and a color-coded binder for their kitchen renovation who could not answer one simple question: what do you actually want from your marriage?

Not what you're tired of. Not what he keeps doing wrong. What you WANT. The fun. The romance. The bedroom. The Saturday morning. Blank stare. Then, usually, a list of his flaws, because that's the only research they've ever done.

You can't order off a menu you never read

Crappy wives skip this homework and then act shocked that their husbands can't read their minds. He's not psychic. He's a man with a remote control and an honest willingness to please you, if only you'd give him a damn hint.

If you don't know what turns you on, don't blame the man for failing a test you never wrote.

Study yourself like you studied for the bar exam

What made you feel most alive in the last year? What made you feel sexy — and I mean YOU felt it, not that someone told you that you looked nice? What did you love doing before you became the person who knows where everybody's shoes are? What would you try if nobody would judge you, including you?

Write it down. Yes, really. You wrote down the stroller specs.

Then hand him the syllabus

Telling your husband what you like isn't needy or demanding. It's the most generous thing you can do for a man who'd like to make you happy and has been fumbling in the dark for a decade. Say it plainly. Say it playfully. Say it in a text if out loud makes you blush. Most good men receive that kind of information the way a dog receives a steak.

Ten minutes, not a semester

You don't need a retreat or a four-hundred-page workbook. You need ten honest minutes and the nerve to act on what you find. A happier marriage starts with a woman who knows what she likes and has the guts to say it out loud.

If there's real conflict or anything unsafe going on, see a qualified professional — this is perspective and humor, not therapy. But for the everyday drift? Do the homework. It's the only class where the prize is falling for your own life again.