I hear it over and over again from all of my friends.  Their husbands can’t (or won’t) help with any of the planning.

After moving 9 times out of the last 15 years, you’d think with a new city to explore, new things to do together would be easy to come by.  I, however have grown weary of always having to be the social director and would love him to pull the “what should we do this weekend” sled.  I’ve given up on the spontaneous trip that he’s completely planned.  After almost 20 years of marriage, I’d settle for dinner reservations.

So what do I do?  It’s not just about finding an activity to do together, it’s about feeling he’s just as invested in this activity as I am.  If I only need a willing participant to follow me around….I have a dog for that.

My goal is two fold.

1.  Find a way to trick ease him into part of the planning process.  See my husband is a pleaser and he thinks planning something just doing what I want is the way to do it.  Even though we all know he’s wrong.

2.  Create an activity he can share part of the planning process (I know this may be an illusion, but I’m willing to take baby steps) and I can feel he’s truly invested in.

Now what to do….

We both LOVE good food and trying out new restaurants and dishes.  Being the primary researcher, I ran across eater.com and found it was National “Burger Week”.  You can select several major markets and explore all the news on food in your area.  I selected Atlanta, (we’ve only been here 2 months) and found an article on the 11 Top Iconic Burgers in Atlanta.  These aren’t just burgers, both the burger and sides sounded like just the gastronomical adventure we both loved.  I emailed him the list of burgers.

I kind of forgot about it after a couple of days, but one evening while we were sitting outside, he said he had looked at the article and began telling me about a couple of the restaurants.

That’s when I knew (secretly of course) I had our activity.

The Great Secret Husband Training Burger Challenge!  He thinks it’s about Burgers, I know it’s really about planning.

Guiding him along every so gently, I suggested that once a month, we should reserve a Saturday Afternoon to go try out one of these new burgers.  He thought it was a great idea….[Insert sound of crickets here].

Like a scared deer in the woods, I was afraid I’d spook him if I TOLD him he was on the planning committee and he’d run.

What Saturday would you like to designate as our official “Burger Challenge” Day?  He thought long and hard…but he came up with an answer.  The second Saturday of each month.  GREAT!

We were both sitting there with our iPads on our lap, so I suggested he put that in our shared calendar.  He’s on it.  Don’t forget to set up a reminder….(baby steps, remember)

Which place should we go first?  Another long and hard pause….(I hate the sound of crickets).  Several questions and a lot of gentle guidance later, we had our first Burger.

I knew I couldn’t expect a schedule for all 11 months….but I’m willing to take this slow.  So far, he seems into it.  Although, he has asked me three times since then…”What are we doing this weekend?”

My blogging partner and friend, Lee and I have commiserated over this for years.  After talking about the strategy, we came up with our own Secret Training of a Husband Burger Challenge Denver/Boulder (for Lee) vs. Atlanta (for me).  Or as I like to think of it….Husband vs. Husband…with a side of fries, please.

Hop on over to Eater.com and find the top Burgers in your area.  Then start your own Secret Husband Training Burger Challenge.  We’ll keep you updated on our progress and we’d LOVE to know about yours.

In case you want to follow along….

11 iconic burgers Atlanta

11 iconic burgers Denver