Ever since Eve asked Adam, "Do I look fat in this fig leaf?" it has been apparent that husbands don't know how to relate to their wives. Men believe they understand women and vice versa, but really men know as much about women as a cocker spaniel knows about assembling a Weber grill.

Welcome to The Mr. & Mrs. Happy Handbook, Steve Doocy's laugh-out-loud perspective on love, marriage, and family. The book can be used for its hilarious husband and wife wisdom or, if things aren't going well, as a projectile to get somebody's attention. This is not an advice book. It is a DON'T EVEN THINK OF TRYING THIS book. The author, his family, and his collection of friends (some very famous in the worlds of entertainment, business, and politics) have already discreetly made almost every conceivable marriage mistake, and it is their hope that this irrev- erent manual can save you the trouble of being an idiot on your own.

Doocy, co-host of Fox & Friends, who has been married for twenty consecutive years, provides real slice-of-life stories on everything from early marriage ("I love you, you're perfect, now wear this thong") and pregnancy ("You're eating for two? Who— you and Shaquille O'Neal?") to sending your child to college ("Is that a funnel?") and retirement (high-fiber appetizers on Viagra dates). Most of the stories conclude with "corrections" and additional wise words from Doocy's real-life wife, Kathy, who, after two decades of picking up Steve's socks in the garage, has developed a zany sense of humor herself.

There is also a handy troubleshooting section for when things go haywire, like during the eye- opening experiment undertaken especially for this book, wherein the author wanted to prove to his wife that they were perfect for each other, so he had them join an on-line dating service. Out of a database of several hundred thousand guys, he was not in her top 532 local men. Despite the fact that their one- month experiment ended a year ago, she's still getting photographs of single men whose head shots appear to have been taken at a recent skinhead convention. Luckily for him, she still prefers "bonehead to skinhead."

This book is a celebration of the pageantry that is wedlock, which starts with an "I do" and sometimes ends with a boiled rabbit. Let's face it, marriage isn't always as smooth as a forty-year-old's forehead after six months of Botox. In fact, marriage is ridiculously hard, but laughing about it is now incredibly easy with The Mr. & Mrs. Happy Handbook.

Throughout history men have had problems dealing with women.

"Do I look fat in this fig leaf?" Eve asked Adam.

Adam, a born kidder, promptly puffed up his cheeks and belted out a deep-throated "Moooooooo!" Eve was puzzled. God hadn't invented cows yet—he was still working out the bugs on the passenger pigeon. She instinctively found his cringeworthy performance offensive. Adam was officially in the doghouse, which was tricky, because there were no dogs. God was only in the B's, working on birds.

The world hasn't changed that much in the thousands of years since fig leaves and Adams and Eves, although now there are also plenty of Adams and Steves, just not in this book. Today's guys believe they understand girls and vice versa, but really men know as much about women as golden retrievers know about Roth IRAs.

There are plenty of differences between the sexes. We are clearly wired differently. It's first noticeable when we're boys and girls. For instance, when my wife presented my daughters with their first bras, they were horrified. One daughter refused to wear it, and kept hiding it under her bed. Finally, when asked why she wouldn't wear it, the ten-year-old looked her straight in the eye and in the voice of Peter Pan said, "Think happy thoughts, Mommy."

Meanwhile, when my immodest son made the high school baseball team, he came down to the dinner table to model his cup.

As we mature, the differences multiply. Just look at how our brains work. Men generally have direct, basic questions:

• "Will this make me gassy?"
• "Are you sure this won't show up as porn on the hotel bill?"

Women's questions are more complicated and fraught with emotional subterfuge. Like this one that is apparently programmed in all women at the factory to test the depth of a man's love and honesty.

• "Do I look fat in these pants?"

This has nothing to do with pants, and guys don't know where to start. They'll pause half a moment to think, but during his momentary hesitation, the woman's paranoid gland secretes a trace hormone into her bloodstream that immediately translates, "He thinks I'm fat!"

That leads to sheets of tears, prolonged awkward apologies, and the dreaded but inevitable "Twice yearly."

It's time for men and women to realize that despite his occasional affinity for lavender soap, he is still all man. She should know she is living with a mammal that is just one cultural chromosome away from being a coyote. He doesn't get the charm of children's beauty pageants, tiny dogs in designer footwear, or a purse that costs more than the average daily bank balance.

Rather than truly understand each other, they inevitably smile with gritted teeth and pretend they didn't hear the latest dumb thing their spouse just blurted out. Both sexes need to stop making the same mistakes and move on."Insanity," the old expression goes, "is doing the same thing and expecting different results."

For His Eyes Only

Ladies, Please Skip This Passage

When your spouse asks, "Do I look fat in these pants/dress/fig leaf?" there is but one simple answer that will lead to a long and happy marriage: "No habla ingles" (translation: "I don't speak English").

By the time she translates and realizes that she's now mad at you for not answering her question, you're off the hook. She's forgotten about her tight pants.

Why Do People Get Married?

52%: "We're in love"
23%: To get pushy parents off their backs
15%: So they won't go to hell for having sex
8%: Various (financial, security, lonely, hooked on multilayered cake)
2%: Want to find out their blood type

Steve Doocy is an Emmy Award­winning broadcaster and the co-host of Fox & Friends on the Fox News Channel. He has earned reporting and writing awards from the Associated Press, Sigma Delta Chi, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and has worked at NBC, CBS, and Fox. He and his wife, Kathy, live just outside New York City with their three children and high-maintenance dog. (And they really are happily married.)

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