Have a New Husband by Friday by Kevin Leman

of the children,” I told Andrea, “look him straight in the eye and say, ‘You don’t need your attorney for that. They’re yours. In fact, here’s their schedule so you know what they have to do when.’ Then hand him the calendar for the next month.”
    “But, Dr. Leman,” she said, “what if he takes me up on it?”
    “He might,” I said, “but then you need to use that time wisely. Go back to school. Cram in classes and finish your degree. If you’re going to be a single mom, you need all the job skills you can get in order to provide for yourself and your children.” I smiled. “But I can guarantee you that even if he does take the kids, it likely won’t last a month.”
    I was right. It didn’t even last a week. She nipped his controlling in the bud by standing up to him.
    If you had to do it all over again, it’s doubtful you’d pick the same man. But since you did pick that man, your attitude about the consequences will make all the difference in the future for you and your children. But there’s also a line you have to draw and never step over.

The rest of this section may not be for all of you, but for others of you it’ll be a lifesaver. Some of you picked up this book as a last-ditch effort. You’ve tried everything to change your husband. You feel so hurt, dissed, abused, and totally disregarded by your husband that you don’t even know where to start thinking about the possibility of having a new husband by Friday. Yours has been unfaithful, has been physically or verbally abusive (or both), has denigrated you at every turn, and has even harmed your children, and you can’t take it anymore. You want a new husband by Friday, that’s for sure, but you’re not certain if you want the same husband. You’d rather start all over. You no longer feel any love for this man you married because he has harmed you so much.
    If so, what I’m going to say next is especially for you.

ARE YOU TRYING TO
TURN YOUR ZEBRA INTO
A HORSE ?
    M ost guys want to please their wives—at least the healthy guys do. The guys who are good, moral men know what’s right and act on it (even if they are dumb about relationships sometimes). But you might not have married a healthy guy.
    Maybe your husband spends his time smoking weed, smashed on vodka, or loving the white lady of cocaine. Maybe he’s a philanderer (openly or secretly) or a wife beater. Maybe he lives in the zone of pornography, and you’re sickened just by the sight of him and what he forces you to do. Then let me ask you: Was he ever the husband you could respect, love, and prize? Or are you trying to take a zebra and turn him into a white stallion?
    Here’s what I mean. Some people who hear hoofbeats would say, “Oh, here comes a zebra.” But if you live in the state of Illinois, chances are good that it’s a horse coming, not a zebra. Yet people tend to believe what they want to believe. Is that you? Did you fall into the trap of trying to paint your husband-to-be as something other than he was? Then I have news for
you. You can't rub the stripes off that zebra and make it a horse. It is what it is.
    A lot of single or single-again women go looking for the man of their dreams—their knight in shining armor, the gentle, loving, relational man who will want to stick around for a lifetime—in singles’ bars. You might as well look for a zebra strolling down Lakeshore Avenue or riding up the escalators at Water Tower Place in Chicago.
    You can’t rub the stripes off that zebra and make it a horse. It is what it is.
    Just watching the crude behavior of these types of men and listening to the language they use when talking about their ex-wives or ex-girlfriends will give you a clear picture of who these men are. Most don’t like themselves very much, so how could they like—or love—anyone else? They go from job to job and relationship to relationship, finding fault with everyone but themselves.
    Many have tempers. Most are looking for