Every person who types it is married to a man who doesn't dance, and their endings point at something he could do this week.
Under a video of a couple dancing in their living room, somebody typed this and scrolled on:
I wish my hubby would do this
Different video, different year, a person with no connection to the first one:
Wish my hubby would do this!
I run dance videos as ads, so I see the comments. People keep typing that sentence. Same opening, different endings, going back years. It gets typed under a stranger's video rather than said across a kitchen, which is why the man it's about never sees any of it.
I should be straight about where these come from, because the source is a mark against them. Every comment in this article is public, sitting under a video I paid to put in somebody's feed. There was absolutely something being sold in that moment.
Nobody solicited any of it, though. Nobody was asked for a testimonial, nobody was paid for one, and none of them were writing to me. Most never bought a thing from me, and plenty are talking to each other rather than to the ad, the way you'd talk across a table while a commercial runs in the background.
Every one of them says "my husband" or "my hubby," so I can tell you the person typing is married to a man who doesn't dance. Past that, I'm not going to guess at who they are, and I'm not going to hand you a percentage. What I can say is that this comes in again and again under my videos, in near-identical language, from people who have never met. Not a survey. A pile.
The endings vary:
I wish my hubby would do something like this with me
I Wish my hubby would gift this!
Wish my husband would do this with me.
I wish my hubby would do this ..
IF ONLY!!! I WOULD TOTALLY LOOOOOve if my hubby surprised me with this!!!
Look at what finishes those sentences. Do this. Do something like this with me. Gift this. Surprise me with this.
Not one of them says dance well. Not one of them describes a man who is good at it. Every ending is something he would have to be the one to do. That makes this a wish about initiative, and initiative is not a talent. It's a decision somebody makes on an ordinary evening.
That gap is the reason Date Nights Dancing is built the way it is: easy swing taught at home, fifteen minutes at a time, the two of you in front of the same video learning the same moves from the first one on. The hard part was never the dancing. The hard part is a man deciding, on his own, that tonight is the night, and the program exists to make that decision cost as little as possible.
The reasonable objection is that all of this is aimed at men who can already dance, and you can't, so none of it applies to you.
One of the comments answers that objection directly:
Sure wish my husband would be willing to give this an honest try. I can't really dance either, but would love to learn.
That's said in the same breath as the wish, and the wish stands anyway. What's missing there is willingness, not ability.
I wish my husband would at least try this. I would love to have a dancing partner. ...
At least try. That's the bar being set, and it sits lower than the one you've been holding yourself to. This one goes lower still:
... There is not much of anything I'd love more than to be able to do dance lessons of any kind.
Of any kind. No style, no studio, no standard. If you've been telling yourself your wife would be embarrassed for you, nothing in these comments points that direction. What they ask for is a man in the room with them, moving, badly or otherwise.
A lot of these comments aren't asking for dancing at all. They're asking for the dancing to arrive without them having to ask for it.
Would someone please tell my husband he should surprise me with this.
I keep hoping my husband Shaun will surprise me with this. He has such a sexy way of moving (martial artist) and I would love it if we could dance together.
Surprise me. Gift this. Tell my husband. Every one of those asks to be chosen, not consulted. In your own house that difference decides how the evening feels: when she suggests it and you say yes, she gets a yes. When you suggest it, she finds out you were thinking about her before she said anything.
None of that makes a man who hasn't done it yet a bad husband. It mostly makes him a man who assumed dancing was her department, the way tools might be his. The comments are just evidence that the department was assigned wrong.
Some of these people say plainly that they've already brought it up at home, more than once, and got nowhere:
I always tell my husband I wished he could ( we would) dance more.. he's 72, I'm 63 and I'd love to be able do this..we enjoy a nice social life.. but dancing would be great!
This looks so AMAZING!! I wish my husband would do something like this I’m always wanting to go dancing. He took me to a class ONCE! Of course that didn’t last! ...
Once. Then it didn't last, and it turned into a comment under a stranger's video instead.
If any version of that sounds familiar, a wedding where she pulled at your sleeve, a song in the kitchen where she started moving and you finished the dishes, then you've already had the smaller version delivered in person. What shows up under my videos is the same request. It just goes somewhere her husband will never read it.
Not with a conversation. A conversation about dancing is one more thing she has to carry to the finish line. Do it in the order the comments keep asking for, which is you first.
1. Pick the song yourself. Don't ask which one she wants. Choose something she likes, put it on in the living room, and let that be the announcement.
2. Hold your hand out and wait. You don't have to explain what you're doing or apologize for it in advance. If a line helps, "come here for a second" is enough, and it doesn't promise anything you have to deliver.
3. Move for one song, then stop when it stops. Side to side, turn her once, that's plenty. Don't ask her how it was afterward. Asking turns the whole thing into a performance review and hands her a job.
4. Do it again before the week is out. One song is a nice night. Two songs in a week is the beginning of a habit, and the habit is what she's wishing for.
If you want something specific to do with your hands rather than swaying and hoping, that's what the Date Nights Dancing program is for. If you'd rather start with something slower, how to slow dance with your wife is the shortest way in. And if the wish in your house has hardened into her assuming you never would, what "my husband would never do this" is really made of is written for exactly that.
One more thing, and it's the part I'd want to know if I were you.
Read the tone of them again. The person who mentioned Shaun spends half that comment bragging about how he moves. The one below has been at this for years and is still making plans:
I wish my husband would. I love dancing. Use to line and swing dance all the time. But never with my husband. He sways back and forth. Maybe... just maybe, I'll get this and maybe talk his old butt into trying. Lol
That's affection. Nobody there is running anybody down. Somebody shut out of dancing for years is still working the problem, still funny about it, still expecting a maybe.
Wishing takes effort. People stop doing it about someone they've written off. So if some version of that sentence exists in your house, it's an offer still standing.
You went looking for what she thinks about this before doing anything, which is a decent way to go about it. The rest of the ideas library is here when you want a different door, along with what women say about a man who can dance if you'd rather read more comments than more of me. The door in this article costs a song.
The Thursday reminder over 100,000 couples love: ideas and conversation starters that deepen love, laughter, and intimacy.
