Shopping For The Perfect Husband (a funny story)

In her book The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura Schlesinger recounts a story one of her listeners found on the Internet entitled “Shopping for the Perfect Husband.” The tale is set in the “Perfect Husband-land” store, a five-story building where women can go to find their perfect match.

On each of the five floors, there are men with various qualities.  The main rule was that once you reached any given floor, you had to select a man from that floor. If you didn’t, you could go to the next floor, not knowing for sure what you would find. The trick was that you couldn’t return to a lower floor unless you planned to leave the store husband-less.

Marianne and Joan, lifelong best friends, set off to find Mr. Soulmate in the enormous shopping center.  On the first floor there was a small sign that read:

“These guys love children and have good jobs.”

Joan thought that was great, but she was also curious to see what was on the second floor. Marianne followed her up the escalator where they found a somewhat larger sign that said:

“These guys are super handsome, love children and have great jobs.”

Marianne exclaimed with delight: “Wow! Exactly what I need. Let’s take a look around.”

But, Joan said, “No, let’s go up another level and see what’s there.” Marianne followed Joan with slight reluctance. But they were best friends after all. She must be right.

On the third floor, the two women were astonished to find yet another larger sign. This time it read:

“These guys are not only super handsome, love children and have great jobs, but they are also happy to help with housework!”

Marianne’s jaw dropped. Her excitement level grew, but she could see that Joan was even more curious to see what was around the corner. She agreed that they would go up yet another floor.

The sign, slightly larger than the rest they had seen, virtually screamed out at them.

“Our fourth floor husbands are super handsome, love children, have great jobs, enjoy helping with housework and are great in bed!”

They were on a roll now. Nothing could stop them. Convinced that the fifth floor would offer even better husband options, Marianne and Joan confidently took the escalator to the final floor. There they found a tiny, torn sign that read:

“This floor offers proof that women are impossible to please.”

You may not see yourself in this light, and perhaps you are satisfied with most things in your mate. But my guess is you may have had a moment or ten in your life in which you wanted way more than your mate could offer. You left the room, feeling empty handed and somehow ripped off.

Life wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Often-times women create unreasonable expectations when it comes to their relationships. Rather than honor and celebrate whom and what they have, they become heat-seeking missiles of criticism and blame. In their imaginary perfect world, they fully anticipated having the perfect husband. Perfect Husband is the story they created. Perfect Husband is not real. Perfect Husband is the idol they created in the likeness of their own imaginations. When people follow this pattern of thinking, the end result is inevitable. Anger, disappointment and resentment arise when the story, in their opinion, is unfulfilled.

This is what we human beings do.  We make up stories about how things should be. But what if we were to change the plot completely? As directors in our own life movie, we have the option.

The question is… do we have the courage to take that leap of faith?

Wishing you love, laughter and Magical kisses,

Arielle

P.S.  If you’re willing to re-ignite and kick-start the ONE you have, discover the simple ways to Big Love in my new book Turn Your Mate Into Your Soulmate