What does it mean to be a good husband?
A generation ago, society had such a simple answer to what it meant to be a good husband. You could fit it on a bumper sticker:
Bring home the bacon.
The benefit of such simplicity is simplicity itself. The vision of what it means to “bring home the bacon” is clear for everyone but different from what that might look like from one man to the next. Thus, the power of simplicity.
There was a brief and sudden disruption to this simplicity during World War II when there was a dramatic infusion of women into the workforce as mainly men left to fight the war. When the war concluded, men and women returned to their roles even though most women surveyed wanted to keep their jobs. It was simply too much change, too fast.
Between that day and this, the world of work in 2023 has evolved into 38% of households, with women bringing home the most bacon. These trends should continue as women are increasingly dominating college graduation stages.
Thankfully, marriage is also recognized to occur between a number of gender variations and sexual preferences.
The change that has occurred in between has been slow, messy, and uneven. Many husbands are now left with an unclear explanation of what it means to be a good husband.
Progress in our workforce and workplace has outpaced the social norms of modern-day relationships and family structures. According to a survey shared in Of Boys and Men, 81% of those with a H.S. education or less believe that for a man to be a good husband or partner, being able to support a family financially is very important. 62% with a bachelor’s degree concur.
For all of the progress women have rightfully fought for and earned, many are holding on to a past that promised a man as a financial provider. Perhaps this is why men, on average, are psychologically distressed when their wives make the same as them or more.
Many men need a clear understanding of the expectations in modern marriage and a clear direction for something to work toward.
I try hard to be a good husband, but I’m certainly not an expert. As the Founder of Modern Husbands, I listen to experts and review their literature. My greatest blessing hasn’t been to share what I know; it’s been to learn and share what experts know.
There are three marriage tasks that we focus on at Modern Husbands that we know will make men happier:
Money: Money is a leading cause of stress in a marriage and divorce. There is an art and science to managing money as a couple, and couples are happier when they understand the art and science of managing their household finances.
Chores: Men benefit more than their spouses when they take on less traditional gender roles in the household: they are happier.
Parenting: Involved fathers have stabler marriages, not because they have much investment to lose after a possible breakup, but because the wife is happier if the husband is strongly involved with the children.
There’s so much more to a marriage needed for couples to be happy. As I see it, the wisdom of Victor Frankl cuts through the tasks of marriage that bring husbands happiness.
Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz. All of his family members died in concentration camps. He devoted his life to studying, understanding, and promoting “meaning” and authored the book Man’s Search for Meaning.
It is two separate quotes from Man’s Search for Meaning that together provide clarity to me for what it means to be a good husband:
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
“By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features of the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.”
These two quotes translate into the simple idea of being a good husband in 2023: “Bring out their best.”
This simple idea is clear to everyone, and the tasks to carry out the idea will originate from the nuances needed in each relationship. I’m hopeful that a modern husband’s community will eventually share these nuances to bring out the best in our spouses.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
