Jimbob's Journal
Dating Your Wife
by Jim Harris

The following article is not recommended for women with husbands, women who are planning to have husbands, or anyone who cannot keep a secret for more than four hours.

Okay men, are you listening? Good, here's the scoop - never, ever, under any circumstances should you agree to go on a "date" with your spouse.
Somewhere along the line, women (probably single women with self-help books to sell) decided that "going on a date" with one's partner was a good way to keep some spark in a marriage, and the practice has spread like wildfire through the once peaceful, bucolic world of married life.

Please, don't fall for this trick. Remember, marriage is supposed to be your reward for surviving the whole dating ritual, and one of the great benefits of being married is that you don't have to date anymore. Dating is time-consuming, frightening, and often painful. On a date, you must look good, be charming, suppress almost all bodily functions, and generally dote on your date. Does that sound like the kind of pressure that you can handle? If not, then you will fail, and it is indeed a pass/fail situation. There are no shades of gray or honorable mentions.

As a result of interviewing over 100 victims of dates gone bad in preparation for my upcoming book, "Dates That Will Live In Infamy", I can offer the following lifesaving tips:
If you go to a cafe after a movie, find something nice to say about the movie even if you slept through it entirely. "It was very sweet. I'm glad it all worked out in the end" is usually a safe statement. Be prepared to talk about clothes, home furnishings or yesterday's Oprah, and for God's sake, PAY ATTENTION!
If the restaurant has a TV, don't look at it, not even for a second, no matter how big the screen or good the game. Also - and this would seem to be a no-brainer, but men still fall victim to it - don't look at other women, no matter how unbelievably skimpy their outfits or high-pitched their giggles, unless you want your head ripped off and placed on the dessert tray for all to see.

If you sense that you are failing the date, take deep breaths, try not to sweat, and think "charming". Men in this situation have occasionally gone completely catatonic or even begun to self-mutilate (pull out hair, bang head on table, etc.) If your wife should run away in tears, don't panic, she's probably just in the rest room talking to a friend on her cell phone. Keep phoning her until she answers. Try texting the words "I'm sorry" over and over.

Make sure she didn't take off in the car. If she did, pay your tab, call a cab and pick up some expensive flowers on the way home. There will still be days and weeks of meticulous rehashing to endure, and of course the failure will go on your permanent record, but at least you will have learned a valuable lesson - just say NO to post-marital dating.

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