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    Real Guys Confess: "I Married Up!"

    By | Love + Sex – Fri, Apr 8, 2011 5:28 PM EDT

    That's what President Obama has said about snagging Michelle, and it turns out that plenty of other husbands feel the same way. Here, 7 real guys reveal what it is about their wives that makes them feel so superlucky.

    She's Got Game
    By Steve Rushin

    My wife is an Olympic gold medalist, WNBA All-Star, Jeopardy! champion, and Rhodes Scholarship finalist who was sung to by President Clinton, sung about by Ludacris, and serenaded on Sesame Street by a chorus of Muppets. But it wasn't until I saw her basketball jersey in the Smithsonian - opposite Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz - that it finally hit me: I, without a doubt, married up.

    My wife's name, Rebecca Lobo, is on sandwiches and street signs in New England. It adorns the arena rafters at the University of Connecticut, where she first became a basketball star. Her high school in Massachusetts is on Rebecca Lobo Way, a nice trump card to play at reunions. So people naturally assume that I took her name when we tied the knot eight years ago. I saved the UPS mailing label from our first wedding present, which was addressed, without irony, to "The Lobos."
    Related: 5 Things Super-Happy Couples Do Every Day

    Because I'm a bald, dim-witted writer, people think I couldn't possibly be her husband, so they occasionally confuse me for someone more glamorous. At O'Hare airport, a man asked if he could take Rebecca's photo. When I reflexively stepped away, he said, "No, no, no. I want your picture too, Andre Agassi." But more often, photographers, with their eye still pressed to a viewfinder, frantically wave me out of the frame.

    People assume that my diminished marital stature is reflected in my height. My wife is 6-foot-4, but I'm an inch taller than she is, a fact that always surprises people, who expect to see her unpack me out of a trunk, like a ventriloquist with her dummy.
    Related: Eat Your Way to Better Sex: Aphrodisiac Recipes

    But she does love me, she did marry me, and she is proud of me, I'm sure. It was Rebecca who urged me to write a novel, and when The Pint Man was published last year - it's about a man dating up - she threw a party. She was more excited than I was. And just the other morning, when I woke, she said, "I need you." Okay, what she really said was: "I kneed you. In the groin. By accident. Go back to sleep." But a good marriage requires selective hearing, and I think we have a good marriage.

    There are plenty of men, I've discovered, who literally want to marry up. A few summers ago, a very short man approached Rebecca at a Houston Astros baseball game. "Rebecca," he said. "You gotta marry me. I want tall kids. You're my only hope." Rebecca's reply, in its small way, moved me unexpectedly. "I can't," she said. "I already have a husband."

    To read more stories from guys who married up, click here

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