With a title like this, most readers will be expecting either a very serious “How-to” book from possibly some noted counselors from the 1960’s or a guide at realizing how humorous the relationship call marriage really is.

Marrying a Man, Raising a Husband turns out to be is anecdotals from the authors about situations that have come up during the course of their combined long lasting relationships. The stories are humorous, thought-provoking and very much ones that all women who are in a long term union can identify with, no matter how short or long those unions have been around. All the stories tell how they have learned to communicate with their spouses.

They show how men interpret what we say and how we need to learn how to state what it is we want to get across in “speak” that leaves them no choice but to understand us.

My personal favorite of the book was the way a shopping list gets interpretated by our spouses. Here are some of the prime examples of how husbands and wives differ:

Lashawn’s list: milk vegetable oil bread

Husband’s list: beer motor oil cookies

I think you get the picture. My own hubby of 27 years has his own “speak”, which is why I loved the grocery list entry the best. My entry that I would have loved to have added to the same chapter would go like this:

Carine’s list: Fruit Vegetables Chicken fish tofu Soy milk

Steve’s list: red meat red meat red meat red meat

Then he’d spend a fortune at the said “meat” counter and tell me we certainly didn’t need to go to the market again for a very long time, because “look at all I bought and the freezer’s full”.

The authors didn’t write the book to criticize husbands-more to bring to light what we need to do to understand them and “raise” them to a level where we love them for who they are and in turn raise ourselves to who we want “us” as a couple to be.

Carine Nadel is a contributing writer for Fabulously40.com. Stop by to read Carine’s What’s Cooking Column on our home page.