What do men want? The big question of all time has been, “What do women want?” That was Freud’s Big Question, right? We even have a movie (Mel Gibson & Helen Hunt) called What Women Want. That has always seemed to be the big deal.
But I think the bigger mystery is what men want.
When I ask a group of women what men want, they will nearly always say sex. In fact, the top three answers from women have always been sex, food, and football (or another sport). Sex, food, and football: that’s all men want. That’s all they care about.
But that is so far from the truth.
If you ask a man, he’ll tell you he wants peace, and he does. He also wants sex and food and football. The issue here is that’s not the only thing he wants. In fact, that’s not his deepest need.
#1 His deepest need is for his wife’s attention.
That means when he speaks …
- Stop talking and listen to what he has to say.
- When he pauses, wait to see if he says something more.
- Don’t talk over him. Don’t do the girl back-and-forth stuff.
A woman’s most common Big Mistake
You don’t realize it, but when you start sharing about yourself in the middle of him sharing, he thinks you don’t care about him. What a crazy thing is that? Because that’s the way we women talk. We go back and forth. We have conversations where you share something, I share something. We give our opinions. We wrestle with our emotions, and we’re good to go.
But husbands are not like that. Husbands want and desperately need our attention. They don’t get it anywhere else! They don’t get the attention they need from anyone else in life. You’re the one! Of course, the dog gives him attention. That might be why so many men love having a dog, and will pet the dog before they say hello to their wife. It’s a sad scenario. But that attention is so incredibly crucial for a man. And men are starved for attention!
I think that’s also why a lot of men end up having an affair. They get that attention someplace else. Before they know it, they’ve fallen in love with somebody. I say they have “fallen in love,” but it’s really an infatuation. Not like the kind of love that you could have with your husband.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could meet his emotional needs in a way that he couldn’t wait to get home?
2. The second thing a man needs is his wife’s affection.
There was a period of about a year and a half where almost every man I worked with who was in his late 30s or early 40s would tell me, “She never touches me anymore.”
They all use those very same words! Somebody was trying to tell me something, right? “She never touches me anymore.” And they weren’t talking about sex. The were talking about the fact that their wives treated them like they had cooties. In other words, their wives didn’t express their affection for them.
On the other hand, women in that same age bracket tend to be overextended and exhausted, emotionally drained from their day. Especially if they have children, and even more so if they work and have children. When women think about the man, remember they think the number one thing he wants is sex. So she if gives him affection, she fears he’s going to read into that that she’s available for sex, and she may not be.
But that’s not the kind of affection I’m talking about. I’m talking about kindness in the form of kind words and a gentle touch. A gentle kiss. You can kiss your husband on the cheek, you know. That is just so sweet! Touch him on the arm when you’re talking to him or brush against him as you pass by. Those little, tiny dollops of affection are so incredibly powerful.
Experiment Today
Instead of calling him to come to dinner …
- Go to where he is.
- Put your hand on his shoulder.
- Tell him dinner’s ready.
- Then walk away.
He may not get up and come right away, but it will register!
Women experiment with this all the time, and the results are phenomenal. They always come back and say, “I can’t believe my husband’s response!”
He responds naturally because it registers with his brain that someone was kind to him. It registers with his brain that he was touched, and it has an immediate impact.
I really want to encourage you to experiment with this one. See how it goes and drop me a note in the comments below because I want to hear from you! If you don’t want to comment below, you can always send me a direct message through Facebook or Instagram, or you can go to my website and send me an email. Any way you want to reach out, I’d like to hear what happens when you begin to touch your husband in affectionate ways. Not sexual ways, but just affectionate ways. What happens when you treat him with kindness?
3. Finally, a man needs his wife’s acceptance.
Acceptance is simply communicating, “I’m not going to try to change you.” It doesn’t mean that you don’t think he needs to change. Because trust me all of us – myself included – desperately need some changes. We’re all a little rough around the edges. Acceptance means I am not going to try to …
- Fix you
- Manage you
- Control you or
- Otherwise change you
When you take away those things and listen to what he has to say, you can begin to enjoy him for who he is. And he will actually start trying to please you.
He already knows what you like and what you don’t like. Every guy does. But when you take the pressure off and you stop trying to fix, manage, control him, he’s much more likely to do the very thing you’ve been hoping that he would do all along.
Trust me. He knows what you want. You’ve told him enough times, right? So back away, accept him for who he is, and see what happens. What have you got to lose?
Thanks for taking time to read this post. I hope it helps.