Some of us are born with an innate common sense about certain areas. Some of us learn by trial and fire. Some never make the important connections between cause and effect that occurs in their lives. As I watch couples struggle on shows such as the acclaimed, Dr. Phil, I notice something. There are a lot of men who don’t understand how a woman wants to be loved. Or better yet, men need to know how a woman in love would like to be treated.
Women are wired differently. We respond to the tiniest nuances of behavior in others. We respond. Men aren’t generally so sensitive. Some are, and those men are different than the norm. Men are generally logical. “I told her last week I loved her, that should do her for a while,” they think.
Men decide they love and they declare it. After that, all they need is a regular sex life and a few home-cooked meals for happiness to prevail. Women need something different to feel loved. They need to be honored and cherished. These are big words with big meanings. They are a way of showing love instead of just saying it.
How do you love, honor and cherish a woman? Good question? Are you ready for the answers? That is one thing you should consider carefully. I believe that if you opened the covers of a book with such a title as this, you are at least considering making an effort. It really is attainable to have a wonderful loving relationship that lasts a lifetime. What you need is an owner’s manual and no one gave you one.
So many things in life are not as easy as they look. For most of us driving felt awkward at first. Keeping a checkbook has its foibles. Parenting feels instinctual, but to do it right you have to be very purposeful. The same applies here. Falling in love may have happened easily for you. Understanding how to love a woman for a lifetime may take some effort.
If you don’t want this new love to perish and die you need some instruction. This is true at least, if you’ve had problems in the past or are unsure of your ability to make things last. Sometimes we don’t really want a long-term commitment and tend to sabotage the relationship by being inconsiderate, noncommittal or downright mean. If you think this could be you, you may need to do some serious self-evaluation. Not to hurt your feelings, but you may need some counseling on the issue.
Maybe not, if for whatever reason, you can own up to the fact that you do not want or need a significant other. Then, you can conduct yourself accordingly and need to be honest with the women you date. Just don’t drag some poor girl along through your life if you don’t intend to really love her and treat her well. She may love you enough to put up with it for a while, but eventually the outcome will be painful for both of you.
If you are wholeheartedly into having a future with your loved one, read on. Here goes…..Rule number one is Listen. Really listen to what she says and care about what she is saying. Sometimes women don’t come straight out with what they want. Some of us do, but not all the time. I know this doesn’t sound fair, but women are complicated creatures. Many times we are thinking that if our man really loves us and really cares, he should know what we want. We tend to forget how distracted and also how literal men are. Hence, we think they know some things that they haven’t picked up on yet.
Sometimes, the issue is that we have been saying it and no one is listening. It is going in one ear and straight out the other and we can tell! If you are blessed with a loving, open relationship where she feels comfortable with telling you her innermost thoughts, dreams and fears, then please, please hear what she says. Many times she is not asking anything from you except that you hear her.
The companion to listening is to ask questions. If you think she sounds less than enthusiastic when you suggest a trip to the lumberyard, ask her why? Maybe she had other ideas. She might have envisioned her Saturday as being something else. Maybe it is a beautiful day and she wanted to go for a drive and out to dinner at sunset. If she has something different planned and hasn’t told you yet, find out and maybe you can compromise. Don’t over-react and get mad because you can’t get your projects done. Work in both plans and you’ll be twice as happy. The thing is, you have to listen and ask questions constantly in order to understand one another. You are not in her head and she is not in yours.
We all want to be understood and accepted for who we are by the ones we love. If you don’t understand women, start asking more questions. You’ll understand eventually if that is what you are going for. Now, you know why women ask so many questions! Our problem is, we ask even when we do understand. We dig deeper than we need to sometimes and want to know why? We try to guess other people’s motives and take that personally. Our partners sometimes think we want to know too much because we are tying to change them. That is another book!
Okay, ready for number two? Once you’ve listened, asked questions, and hopefully understood her view, what now? Now is time to acknowledge her wants and needs. You can’t supply all her wants and needs all the time. Some women want a lot. Say you are newlyweds, on a very tight budget and she says she wants to travel the world! She probably doesn’t expect to do it right away. She just wants to hear that someday the two of you plan to travel together. She wants you to share her dreams. If you just tell her you understand and accept the fact that traveling is important to her, she will be happy.
Sure, there are some spoiled, unrealistic people in this world. Figure that out about her before you make a commitment. If your girl is generally a happy, realistic person, she is just dreaming about the future. Dream along with her. Don’t take offense and feel threatened because you know you cannot afford it right now. She is not criticizing you, she’s just spilling out her heart to the one person who she hopes will listen. In close relationships we sometimes take things too personally and think we are being criticized. Try not to be defensive. When we are defensive we are not open and accepting of each other like we need to be.
If your partner does say that she needs something from you, specifically, accept it. If that something requires you to do something for her, act quickly. That is the third rule, once you understand you must act on it. She will be waiting. Say, for example, she’s just told you that she does want to take a ride along the lake and go to dinner. She means today. Putting it off until next month won’t work. She may not want to do it by then. Maybe then she’ll be onto something else. No one knows when their last day on Earth will be. Live in the moment and enjoy each other.
What women want most from their men is to feel special, cared for, appreciated and accepted. Making her needs and wants a priority demonstrates to her just how special you think she is. If she’s happy, chances are you will be too.
Onto the next tip: be sure to know what she really values and respect that. Did you ever think that she nags you about your dirty socks because of a need that she has? Maybe, she values your home and feels it is her job to keep it cozy and inviting. Maybe she needs to provide that for you to feel like she is being a good partner to you.
And who messes up her plan to make your home warm and inviting? You do, by leaving your tools on the coffee table and your dirty socks in the bathroom! Who wants to come home to that? Maybe you wouldn’t care if you lived alone, but maybe you don’t. If she mentioned it once and you listen, accept and act on that information she would not need to nag, would she?
See how easy it could be to have love, peace and harmony with the one you are most intimate with if you only learned how to deal with them? Sometimes men (and women) are a little stubborn or even a little passive aggressive. The more she wants something, the less likely she is to get it. Unless you mate is a masochist, this is not going to work for her. If you are not going to respond to her wishes, or are going to retaliate if she speaks up, what will she do? She may clam up, bottle up her emotions for a while, but sooner or later she will blow! You may not want to be around that day and you probably won’t be welcome anyway if you are!
Some people can’t deal with the wants and needs of others. If you want to be Peter Pan and never grow up, you need to go home to Momma. If you want to be a real man, than take some responsibility in your relationships. Nobody’s perfect and that means you need to be able to listen. There is always room for improvement on both sides.
Hopefully, she will make her requests know patiently and lovingly. If she has abandoned those ways and resorted to “hitting you over the head” with her ideas you must ask yourself, “why?” Did she used to be different? Did she used to be more patient and accepting of you? Is it possible she got tired of asking nicely because it didn’t get her anywhere?
They say we train people how to treat us. Did you teach her that the only way she could get a response from you was to engage you in mortal combat? Do you really want your life to be so confrontational?
All human beings need to be acknowledged, recognized and accepted by others. We need that even more from the ones we love. If we don’t get that from our loved ones, sometimes we become desperate for it. That is when we do things we wouldn’t normally. That is when we over-react or become overly sensitive or defensive.
Sounds messy, huh? It can get that way and the point is it doesn’t need to. All we have to do is recognize what our partner is saying must come from a need that they have and acknowledge that. It may not be a need we have. But, it should still be important to us because we love and respect each other.
Respect is a rule that applies to all areas of any relationship. One serious pitfall to avoid with any woman is mocking them. Being sarcastic or demeaning in any way will undermine everything. Even if it is a true joke and you don’t even mean it……don’t go there. Your woman needs to trust you and your feelings for her. Don’t make her doubt you. If you truly love her avoid any hurtful jokes at her expense or veiled criticisms disguised as humor.
This type of tearing down of her will only make her think less of you. If you are going to be petty and pick on her about some “flaw” of hers then you had better be pretty damned perfect. All this will do is start her thinking how you aren’t so great yourself! You may try to laugh it off, but she isn’t laughing with you. Remember, there is always someone else out there who will tell her you were wrong and whisper in her ear something to heal the wound you cause.
If you hurt her, you don’t deserve her. If you tell her lies and use and abuse her, she will be gone sooner or later. Women have that inner voice called woman’s intuition. It will tell her “something’s wrong” no matter how hard you are trying to fool her. If you are abusive verbally, emotionally or physically that is going to destroy what you have together very quickly. Sadly, some people need to hear this. What they would never think to say to a work associate, or stranger in the market they spew out venomously at their loved ones. They need to rethink their definition of love.
