10 Insights Into Life, Love and Helping With the Laundry (from The Gospel According to Fritz)

I am the last person on earth who should be giving relationship advice. I am 42, single and live alone. My best friend is a cat named Frida. Think of me as a hybrid between Homer Simpson and Barney Gumble, except that I work a lot harder than Homer and drink somewhat less than Barney. All that said, I still cannot seem to help myself. So I offer the following insights from The Gospel According to Fritz. Sorry if it is a bit male-heterocentric, but I am drawing on my own experience:

If you suspect your partner of being unfaithful, not only are you probably correct, but you're most likely underestimating the real breadth and depth of their betrayal.

In most cases, the partner who initiates a break up is soley concerned with making the breaking up process as easy as possible on themselves. The will do almost anything--deceive, deny, disappear--to avoid having to deal directly with the spurned partner's feelings of sadness and loss.

Men who claim they are no good at monogamy are usually even worse at non-monogamy.

All men look at porn. This includes the ones you know, for a fact, don't.

When a man who refuses to marry a woman tells her, "It's just a piece of paper" or "We don't need the state to sanction our relationship," what he's really thinking is, "I want to keep my options open" or "I want an easy way out of this."

Women should never enter into friends-with-benefits arrangements with men in hopes those relationships will grow into "something more." They won't. Men who seek out friends-with-benefits arrangements do so because they prefer them to committed relationships. They don't want "something more."

People who are warm, kind, thoughtful, generous, intelligent and considerate enjoy numerous social advantages. Unfortunately, being irresistible to members of the opposite sex is not one of them.

As you go through life, you'll be amazed to find how many people's lives peaked at age 17 and went straight downhill from there.

Men, if you want to show your wife or significant other that you really love her, forget about buying her bouquets of roses or Belgian chocolates or Cartier watches. Forget about taking her to the hippest restaurants or the hottest clubs or hiking through the foothills of the Himalayas. All those things are well and good; you can do them if you like. But if you really want to show her your affection, help her scrub the kitchen floor. Help her scrape the grout in the shower. Help her iron and fold the laundry. Fix that leaky pipe as soon as she asks. Pick up the kids from school every day, on time and without fail. Most of all, do all these things consistently, without complaint, and without expectation of special praise. You'll never have to prove your loyalty to her in any other way.