Now, my apologies. It isn’t that I no longer like to write about love and marriage from the black male perspective, or that its not worthwhile. It’s just that things have been growing in other directions, and the thought was if I tended to them, I’d wind up right back here.

Where I always wanted to be.

Isn’t it funny how you mind can take you in a million directions, only to eventually place you right back in the place you always should’ve remained? When you go out and lose all of your money, you wind up right back home with the wealth of family and stability. When you become rich and influential, you yearn for the familiarity and friends and anonymity.

And just when you think your love has run its course, that affection and trust can only keep your interest but so long, the complexity of human relations and the pursuit of carnal and emotional contentment brings you right back to that same loving feeling.

Mistrust or disinterest are often the at the root of a departure, but sometimes, you just grow up. But experience and wisdom are two separate things, and wisdom always yields it influence to the power of love.

So I’m back. Hopefully, in whatever situation you may have departed from, you’ll join me.

Babies and boredom are primary suspects in breaking up relationships, and some research has indicated that less smiling in past photos indicates a general sense of unhappiness that may lead to an erosion of marriages.

Strengthening marriages is important for all people, but its particularly important in the black community where the number of single parents homes is at alarmingly high levels in comparison to other American ethnic groups. Make sure you check out the information and let your married friends know that we have another day to celebrate marriage outside of anniversaries and Valentine’s Day.

Check your own heart rate.

Chances are, if you are walking around on pins and needles, wondering about the course of your relationship, or just a lot hungrier lately, chances are your woman is feeling out of place. Especially if you’ve got a good woman like I do, it becomes almost painfully apparent.

God bless her soul, my wife likes to stay busy. Rounding out the final year of her doctoral internship isn’t challenging enough, so she takes cake-making classes, works with remedial students and finds time to be active in our church.

But sometimes, the stars align and those activities become simultaneously demanding. The internship can become overloaded with meetings, the cake class can require a crash course on making flowers and baskets out of frosting, and the church…well, you know how the church can get.

Initially, I became afraid that my wife in all of her diverse interests was beginning to hit the wall on the excitement of our marriage. Dates that were hallmarks of our weekends became dinner and Internet games. Having recently taken a new job with a longer commute, I find myself coming home to her a road-weary shell of myself.

But ultimately, as a man, you have to show your girl all the patience and understanding that she deserves. She works hard for herself and for you, in more ways than you could ever know. Every time you are able to find something you couldn’t locate for days, she silently put it on your end table for you to notice it. When she calls in the middle of the day to share something exciting, its because she couldn’t bare to hold something in without her favorite person knowing all about it.

So sometimes you have to learn to be the soft place to fall. The one who can take the short answers, the sleeping during movies, and the abbreviated hugs when you get home from work. Sure, it should be all about you and her, but there’s nothing wrong with being a stress buster every now and then.

Women worth their weight in salt are bound to get stressed. If yours doesn’t, you should find a good divorce lawyer because she’s likely grown tired of putting in work for her life. But when the stress comes, don’t take it personally.

Take it off her shoulders if you can.

The show has excellent writing, is well acted, and dutifully maintained its character arc without jumping the shark. But, there was a real and present lack of minority representation in the show, and aside from Blair Underwood playing a fleeting love interest for Cynthia Nixon’s character Miranda Hobbs, I really can’t remember any people of color.

My favorite marriage blog has a really great post on it, and it’s from a woman’s perspective. For the movie, they did bring in Jennifer Hudson, but clearly Effie White isn’t going to pardon SATC for seasons of colorless drama. In the meantime, I’m trying to get my mind right for what’s sure to be two hours of inside women’s jokes, stories from episodes I may have missed, and squeals of delight out of my beloved.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair Presents

Amy Sutherland – Secrets of Life, Love and Marriage AND
Peggy Spenser, MD and Sheila Kay – Living it up over 40

When Amy Sutherland wrote about using animal-training techniques on her husband to improve their marriage for the New York Times “Modern Love” column, her article became the New York Times Most-Emailed article of 2006, led to book and movie deals (Naomi Watts is currently slated to star). And she still receives letters from readers asking for relationship advice!

Fresh off an appearance on the Today Show and with a feature in the current issue of Newsweek magazine, journalist Amy Sutherland shares the secrets of WHAT SHAMU TAUGHT ME ABOUT LIFE, LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers. Learn how working with animals and progressive animal trainers changed the author. And find out what her scariest moment was like during her research.

Also in this hour, you’ve heard of 50 ways to leave your lover. Now we have 50 Ways to Leave Your 40s: Living It Up in Life’s Second Half. Co-authored by a savvy doctor, Peggy Spencer, M.D, and award-winning writer and graphic designer, Sheila Key, 50 Ways to Leave Your 40s explains how to rock and roll your way over the hill.

Shamu? Really?

It’s interesting that I got this email, because my wife and I were just discussing yesterday evening the images and roles men and women play on television. While I agree with her that women’s images and stereotypes on are shabby at best, there is room to argue that men are just as stereotypically depicted.

Husbands on sitcoms are either gruff with a soft side, lovably dumb, or philanderers with no conscience. I’m not philanderer, but it seems that I can crack a joke, forget about chores and be moody with the best of them. Just depends on what day it is.

The sad part is that the stereotypes have some sense of validity to them. If they didn’t,
they wouldn’t be exaggerated on television and in movies. TV executives either grew up with somebody, live with somebody or know somebody who lives with these kinds of men. They get the message to the writers, who also have experienced the same interactions with men, and they bring it into our homes regularly for us to view and continue the cycle.

Even sadder, the majority of us husbands and fathers don’t work to erase them. We are content with being lampooned with blown up emotions, even if we are much more diverse than our depictions.

No wonder women feel like they have to train us. It seems that being tricked and molded into a better provider and companion is exactly what we need.

I say we take a stand. I say we cast off the shackles of labels like ‘blundering,’ ‘gullible,’ and ‘lazy.’ Let’s take up the cause of regaining our place in homes and communities around the world. Let’s partner with our wives to make our lives more exciting and fulfilling. Let’s do all the things they say we can’t do, and realize that it’s our pleasure to do them.

Right after March Madness.

Courtesy of the Deuce of Davenport, you and your spouse can show your team spirit, even on the most sacred day of your life!

How? With NFL wedding garters! Some of them even handmade!

I wish I would’ve approached my wife with this idea. “Honey, you know how you like the Ravens? Well, a lot of the guys that will be at the wedding do to, so that’s spice up the whole garter toss thing a little bit!”

This is beyond silly, but some of them do come with thongs. I can’t imagine trying to get intimate with my wife and then seeing the Ravens logo anywhere near her crotch. Just too many conflicting emotions for one night.

Considering that I’m not the decorator in this relationship, I hope you all enjoy the new look of the site. I know it’s not flashy, but it’s a nice change of pace and should suit what I’m trying to accomplish.

I’m sure my wife will be thrilled when she sees this three months from now.

If you are lucky, you can find a woman who doesn’t mind watching sports, especially when it comes to football. Of all the reasons why I think I’m the luckiest man in the world, in the top 25 easily is the fact that my wife is in to and intuitive about football.

The only problem is, she’ll always be more chick than couch coach.

She usually likes to cuddle up and watch football next to me, and while she gets as excitable as anyone about fumbles, bad calls, and cursing coaches on the sidelines, she also gets very sleepy during the game. Particularly if we have attended church earlier in the day. Something about praising the Lord that works on her like a tryptophan and Sominex cocktail.

But because it’s so exciting to have her ask me questions about playcalling and formations, and for her to process that information and know when a defense is in a Cover 2 or in a blitz package, I actually feel kind of lonely when she has drifted often dream land. If John Madden fell asleep on Al Michaels, it wouldn’t be quite a telecast. That’s how it is for me.

But I’m grateful, because I’ve been in relationships with women who didn’t care to know about football, let alone watch it. I’d rather have a sleepy head fan by my side than someone who laments the fact that I’m a fan any day, and as quiet as it is kept, it fits well into the quality time weekly scheduling nicely.

I always enjoy seeing couples enjoying football games together live and in person, because it lets me know that the sport is truly a part of their relationship, and a commonality that can hold them together through many years. If our hometown team ever moved, I know my wife and I would be just fine, but the fact that we can be fans together is just another reason I’m scoring every day of my life.

Today is the six-month anniversary of my wedding day, and it doesn’t even seem like it’s been six weeks. Amongst all of laughter, good times, and house buying, it seemed more like an extended game of Monopoly than the beginning of the rest of my life. I have to say, the great times have far outnumbered the mildly annoying ones, and thank God for that. To be in a place that feels like happily married is tremendous, and I’m sure it shows.

In the first six months, I feel like I’ve gotten to know her a little better than I did before, adore the little things I never noticed before, and learn that I’m more like my father than I thought I was. Growing up, my father never liked lights be on in rooms that weren’t occupied or soon to be occupied. I’ve recently discovered that my wife likes to have lights on throughout the house, because she likes for the home to feel inviting.

Six months in, I’ve learned that I love understanding where my father was coming from on the light bill tip, and that my wife loves our new home just as much as I do. We should be getting a light timer sometime soon.