How to Be a Husband (eBook)

The much-loved Guardian columnist asks what it takes to make a husband, and looks to his own married life to provide the answer.* *This book should in no way be read as a guide to a successful marriage. Twenty years ago Tim Dowling and his wife embarked on a project so foolhardy, the prospect made them shudder. They agreed to get married - with the resigned determination of two people plotting to bury a body in the woods. Two decades on they are still together, still married and still, well, he hesitates to say happy, if only because it's one of those absolute terms, like 'nit-free', that life has taught him to deploy with caution. But at the time of writing, Tim could confidently admit to being 100 per cent nit-free. This is the story of how Tim ended up here, along with an examination of what it means to be a husband in the 21st century. Is he a good husband? In a word: no. But Tim is prepared to outline his husbandly failures with jaw-dropping and, perhaps ill-advised, honesty, so the curious reader can pick up some handy hints on how to make a marriage as nit-free as Tim's.

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The much-loved Guardian columnist asks what it takes to make a husband, and looks to his own married life to provide the answer.**Anything resembling advice should be taken at reader's own risk.You'll never get divorced if you never get married. Not even your granny minds if you live in sin anymore. And if you're single you can choose curtains without somebody else butting in. So why bother with marriage? It can't just be an easy way round having to buy your own deodorant.Guardian columnist Tim Dowling is a husband of some twenty years. His marriage is resounding proof that even the most impossible partnership can work out for the best. Some of the time.So while this book is called 'How To be a Husband', it's not really a how-to guide at all. Nor is it a compendium of petty remarks and brinkmanship - although it contains plenty of both. You may pick up a few DIY hints. You might learn that while marriage is founded on love, it endures through bloody hard work. Most likely it will make you whimper with the laughter of painful recognition.'How To be a Husband' is a cautionary tale about throwing caution to the wind. It's the strange romance of two people consenting to share a roll-on. It's a new manifesto for marriage and an answer to why, even when we suck at it, we stick at it.