Some girls spend most of their childhood fantasizing about their wedding day — and the men who’ll meet them at the altar. But once those men turn into husbands, all sorts of things can happen. These quotes about husbands should illustrate the different feelings we can have about the most important men in our lives.
When I was younger, my deepest wish was that my husband would be kind and loving and hopelessly devoted to me, as Sandy would say. Naturally, the romantic literature I liked to read had an effect on me. Eventually, though, I had to look up from my books and learn that the world isn’t always as romantic as I’d thought.
Sadly, not all husbands are paragons of romance and heroism — some are downright cruel. But most fall right between those two extremes. So I’ve collected some words that describe the full range of emotions women can feel for their husbands: love, disillusionment, and realistic resentment. And to wrap things up, I’ll share some quotes about husbands for ladies who haven’t yet found theirs — and may not want to!
27 Quotes About Husbands: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Sentimental Quotes About Husbands and Loving Partnerships
#1. “My poor fat Alfie! He was not a romantic husband, but he was so kind and understanding. He never minded whether I was amusing or dull. He thought it impossible that I could be dull. I didn’t have to bother about any of that.” ― Ngaio Marsh
#2. “Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.” — Amelia Earhart
#3. “The secret to a great marriage is having a great husband.” ― Diane Von Furstenberg
#4. “I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest — blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine.” ― Charlotte Brontë
#5. “No wife wants to hear that her husband is less than perfect.” ― Sophie Kinsella
#6. “A husband must love the wife like his own soul.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita
#7. “What is a husband, but the man who offers you support when all the world turns you away?” — Courtney Milan
#8. “God asks husbands to love their wives enough to die for them. He asks wives to love their husbands enough to live for them.” ― Betty S. Bender
#9. “Husbands and wives need to return regularly to the kinds of romantic activities that drew them together in the first place.” ― James C. Dobson
Wise and Funny Quotes About Husbands When the Marriage Goes Sour
#10. “Think of your husband as a house. You are allowed to give him a fresh coat of paint and change out the furniture now and then. But if you’re constantly trying to pour a new foundation or replace the roof, you’re in serious trouble.” ― Peter Scott
#11. “When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.” ― Philippa Gregory
#12. “She wanted to be herself again, to recover all that she had been obliged to give up in half a century of servitude that had doubtless made her happy but which, once her husband was dead, did not leave her even the vestiges of her identity.” ― Gabriel García Márquez
#13. “When a husband stops paying attention to the garden, he’s thinking of pulling up roots.” ― Amy Tan
#14. “I cook to inspire my husband to pay attention to me.” ― Sonia Rumzi
#15. “To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.” ― Simone de Beauvoir
#16. “I like ’em big. And stupid. Don’t tell my husband.” ― Meg Cabot
#17. “If you have the woman you love, what more do you need? Well, besides an alibi for the time of her husband’s murder.” ― Dark Jar Tin Zoo
#18. “Sir, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.”
“Madame, if you were my wife, I’d drink it!” — Nancy Astor and Winston Churchill
Thoughtful Quotes About Husbands and the True Nature of Marriage
#19. “Two things are infinite; a woman’s patience and her husband’s mistakes.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
#20. “A husband is not a sex partner to his wife, and a wife is not a sex worker to her husband; husband and wife are the life partners and coworkers of their family.” ― Sir P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar
#21. “When the wife helps her husband in earning, it’s not ‘GUYish.’
So when the husband helps his wife in the kitchen, it’s definitely not ‘GIRLish.’” ― Bhavik Sarkhedi
#22. “Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.” — Zig Ziglar
Reluctant and Wishful Quotes About Husbands for All the Single Ladies
#23. “If a bird or any other beast comes out of that uncanny republic where husbands are grown, I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.” ― Catherynne M. Valente
#24. “‘I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company — why — it will be the worse for him — that’s all.’
‘If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry — or rather, you must avoid it altogether.’” — Anne Brontë
#25. “Leading and improving! Teaching and tutoring! Bearing and forbearing! Pah! My husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is like a tutor to talk of the ‘satisfaction of teaching.’ I suppose you think it the finest employment in the world. I don’t. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.” ― Charlotte Brontë
#26. “I want to marry Anthony because husbands are so often ‘husbands,’ and I must marry a lover.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald
#27. “I’ll have no husband, if you be not he.” ― William Shakespeare
To Conclude
If you listen to all the Negative Nancies in your life, you may start believing that you’ll never find a loving husband. But let me tell you — that’s the furthest thing from the truth. Good men are all around — you just need to find one that wants to build a life with you.
And sure, along the way, you might bump into some duds. But ultimately, these quotes about husbands show that you shouldn’t lose hope. The partner of your dreams is out there — you just have to know how to spot him! If you’ve already found him, use this opportunity to send him a quote that is the perfect embodiment of your feelings for him!
