Marriage is a great institution.  But it takes work and everybody is looking for advice on how to make your marriage last.  Most of it is Dr.Phil-style psycho-babble and not really applicable.

With that in mind, I put together a realistic list of things to avoid (or do) for the ladies in HubLand.  Maybe you’re a newlywed and want to make sure you do whatever you can to make sure your marriage works. Perhaps you are a veteran married woman trying to save your marriage, or maybe you’re not happily married at all and you want to chase your man out of the marriage as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Whatever your circumstance, below are ten ways you can ruin your marriage and turn your husband suicidal.

By no means is this list an exhaustive one.  I’m sure I’m missing some and others are yet to reveal themselves.

DISCLAIMER:  These do not pertain to my wife, whom I love dearly and adore.  The list has been compiled over a lifetime of relationships.

1. Every morning, tell your husband about the dream you had last night.                   

From the chimpanzee in a tutu and tank top chasing you through the frozen food section at the local supermarket, to your dead grandmother on a pogo stick reciting lottery numbers, please tell us everything in excruciating detail.

As our eyes glaze over and our will to live slowly slips away, we will be working on a plan to fake our own death and happily live out the rest of our days in a refrigerator box under a bridge somewhere in the midwest.  

Want to get on the divorce express?  When you’ve finished telling the story, ask us for our opinion on what the dream means.  Looking for instant separation?  After we’ve expressed our opinion on the meaning of your dream, tell us we’re wrong.     

Look ladies, we don’t buy into this crap about dreams meaning something.  Dreams are nothing but brain vomit.  It’s the equivalent of clearing out the cache and temporary internet files from your computer.

Nobody’s dead grandmother is giving away lottery secrets in the afterworld.  Get over it.          

2. Watch Jon & Kate Plus 8

As the Phillies pull out another come-from-behind victory, or the funniest-ever episode of Rescue Me airs, we are happy to instead watch a show about raising kids.

Excuse me, but don’t we have our own version of that show right here at home called reality?  I can watch that show any time, 24/7.

Want to get on the divorce express?  Watch the Jon & Kate marathons on the weekend.

3. Act like Kate

Build yourself up by tearing down your husband and everyone else around you to make yourself seem great...even perfect.

Speaking of looking for ways to fake one’s own death, trust me, that’s exactly what Jon is doing while they are on the couch and Kate is talking to the camera.  The wheels in his head are turning, trust me.  The only thing I’m not quite sure of is if he planning to fake his death or to actually go through with it.  If I had to be married to that self-centered bitch, it wouldn’t matter to me.

4. Read over our shoulder

Whether it’s the newspaper, a book, or the Internet, please, by all means, sit there and read what we’re reading over our shoulder while we’re reading it.  Oh, we just LOVE this.

5. Ask us our opinion on your clothes

Honestly, what are you thinking here?  We would happily go to a formal dinner in shorts and a polo (ironed, of course; after all it is a formal dinner). Do you honestly think we care what you’re wearing? 

Here’s when we care about what you wear: bedtime.  If you’re in flannel pajamas,  we know we’re going right to sleep.  And so ends our interest in your wardrobe.

Oh, and don’t ever ask us the cliche’ question, “Does this make me look fat?”  There’s only one proper response to this that any guy can offer: “Does this shirt make me look stupid?”

6. Complain

There’s nothing we enjoy more than busting our asses every day at a job that’s slowly killing us so we can pay the bills, only to come home to complaints about the house and the car and the weather and why can’t we live there instead of here.

Three words are going through our heads during the bitch-fest:  lock and load.

7. Ask us for our honest opinion, then punish us for it.

Some of us haven’t learned the hard lesson that when a woman asks a man for his opinion, she doesn’t really want his opinion.  She just wants the man to validate her opinion.  

Oh, woe be to that man who gives his opinion.  After a while, we learn to go on without opinions.  That’s how fathers get so practiced with the phrase, “Go ask your mother.”

8. Use the words “Oprah said...” or “Dr. Phil said...”

Nothing shuts down a male’s auditory sense like those words.  Before you get to what they actually said, we’ve already shut down.

If you persist in using these phrases, don’t be surprised to begin hearing the phrases “Chris Berman says...”  “Stalin once said...” or “The Unabomber said...”

9. When we ask you, “What’s wrong?”  respond with “Nothing.”

Now, we know damn well by the cold shoulder and nastiness that something’s wrong.

The smarter ones among us have learned to respond to this by saying something like, “Oh, good.  I was concerned.  What do you say we go upstairs and get naked?”  Nothing will bring out --- with full force --- what’s wrong like saying something to that effect.

10. Say “guess” instead of just telling us.

Oh this is your ticket to divorce court for sure.  Rather than just tell us what happened today or whatever, make us guess.  Make us guess two or three times and then tell us.

If ever there’s a time we’re praying for an asteroid to collide with earth, it’s when you make us guess what you want to tell us rather than you acting like an adult and just telling us.

Oh, we men just LOVE this kindergarten game.

So there you have it, ladies.  Do one or all of these things and watch your marriage disintegrate and your man grow more and more distant.  

If he suddenly buys a new refrigerator and insists on keeping the box, you know you’re plan is working. 

I wish you the best.