Recap
Men have an intense need to feel needed.
We have an aversion to the word “need” when it comes to men because society teaches us to be independent of men.
Not needing a man does not endear him to us.
Having needs is not the same as being needy.
When two people unite, their combined efforts create a greater result than if they are alone.
Beneath every want is a need.
We feel autonomous because of our modern technology, which is a false sense of security.
There are three relationship styles; the only long-term workable choice is the interdependent style.
The admitting of and meeting of needs is the binding force in our relationships.
Explorations and Journaling
Have you ever been reluctant to admit you needed a man? Journal all the reasons why.
Have you ever felt shame around the idea of needing a man? Where did that shame come from?
What needs could you have a man fill? In what ways have you had a man fill your needs? How did it feel?
Have you ever told a man you need him? What was his reaction?
Would you describe your current and past relationships as independent, codependent or interdependent? How has each one worked out?
Describe an example you’ve seen of a great interdependent marriage.
What are some of your wants? What needs underlie them?
Ditch your smartphone for one day. How can you still get your needs met?
Chapter 6
What Men Need from Us
“There is one thing I think that almost all men want and that is to be needed by a woman. And when they can figure out what she needs, most men will move heaven and earth to provide.”
– Dr. Helen Fisher
Men Have a Few Essential Needs
While we women often have pangs of guilt over feeling we need a man, men on the other hand are not at all ashamed to admit they need us to thrive and feel fully alive. As men readily admit, they are simple and have few fundamental needs. They don’t require much, but what they do need is essential to their well-being. Meeting these essential needs can make the difference between a thriving relationship and a broken one. In this way, women wield great influence with men in their relationships. We can love and support our men by providing what they most need. If we do, they will in turn give us what we need and want to say we won’t have our moments when we feel unhappy his basic needs is a large part of what makes us feminine in his eyes. When he feels needed, useful, and admired by us, he won’t want to leave. If we fail to satisfy our man’s needs, his sense of masculinity suffers. When a man feels this loss of masculinity, his attraction diminishes, and he may leave the relationship or look elsewhere.
Men Need to Feel Masculine
Feeling masculine is the fundamental need that lies at the core of what it means to be a man. Masculine energy cannot feel complete unless it’s sparked and fueled by feminine energy. A man who doesn’t feel masculine cannot bond with a woman, and he is unlikely to stay in the relationship.
Thus, to the extent we want a man in our lives, we need to provide opportunities for men to feel masculine with us. One way to accomplish this is to accentuate the contrast between their masculinity and our femininity. When appropriate and opportune, we can bring awareness and admiration for our differences, such as our size, strength, skin texture, and appearance. We can dress in a soft, feminine way that accentuates the differences between our feminine bodies and their masculine bodies.
We can also let men know we appreciate their masculinity by commenting on their ambition, honor, bravery, courage, or strength of character. We can tell them we see greatness in them, and we know their potential to influence the world.
And, it’s smart to allow men the opportunity to play hero for us. If we have a heavy box or a tightly screwed top on a jar, we can ask him to help. For some women, asking a man for help can take some getting used to, but when you see its effects on men, it will start to feel natural.
Men Need to Feel Needed
Men tell me they have an intense desire to feel needed. Hearing this came as a surprise to me. They further expressed that as soon as a woman withholds her need of him, the soulmate part of the relationship is over. If he doesn’t feel needed, he no longer sees the point of the relationship. If a woman is perfectly capable on her own and flaunts an “I-don’t-need-you” attitude, men are not attracted to her. If a man doesn’t feel useful to a woman, he’ll seek another who isn’t reluctant to ask for help or express her vulnerability. On the other hand, when men feel needed, they care deeply for us and want to protect us.
Imagine a men’s empowerment movement that invented a hypnotic process to make men lose interest in women. Imagine that the men start bragging to each other about how they feel wonderful being independent and free of needing women. How would we feel about that? This scenario is similar to what men have been experiencing for decades, as women have sought to use their own resources to get their needs met, while saying they don’t need men anymore.
We have to ask ourselves, why would a man want to be in a relationship with a woman who doesn’t need him? In the trellis and the vine allegory, the trellis felt needed when he had a lovely, delicate vine to support. He thrived when he felt useful in contributing to her safety and growth because it gave him a purpose.
Men love to fulfill our needs as long as we come from an attitude of appreciation. When we are receptive to his gifts and respond with appreciation, he feels good and wants to give to us again and again. But, if he offers help to a woman and she responds, “No, thank you, I can handle it myself,” she is refusing his gift. Done often enough, this type of rejections deflates and discourages a man to the point of ruining a relationship.
A man wants a woman who can share her vulnerabilities and needs with him so that he can offer her something to make her life better. Yes—admitting our needs to the men in our lives can take courage; it requires letting go of our pride of independence and admitting our limitations. But the courage to admit we have needs builds a man’s trust in us. And in turn a man who feels needed opens up more emotionally. In short, we have to ask ourselves whether we’d rather be proud—or happy.
Here is an email I got from a man who wrote about feeling needed:
“We are warriors at heart; those impulses are still in our DNA. As men, our woman, my woman, is important to me. I want to protect her, I want to cherish her, and I want to do things for her that she can’t do for herself, and hopefully there are some of those things left. Women are capable of so much, and on top of that give birth, and men know this. Being trusted to bring something valuable and unique into the relationship that makes the lives of all concerned better is a deep need in men. We need our woman to know this and have some things that she trusts us to carry the burden for.”
– Paul, Engineer, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Men Need to Feel Trusted
Every man wishes to feel trusted by the woman he loves. Trust is a critical part of admiration. If we don’t trust a man, we can’t admire him, and thus we cannot give him the one feeling he needs most: feeling admired. The more we trust our man, the more he’ll feel admired and the deeper he will bond to us.
Of course, we need to trust men to be faithful to us, otherwise we wouldn’t be with them, but that isn’t the only way we can show our trust. We also need to trust our men in day-to-day activities, such as trusting their driving or navigation skills. Men don’t like being told how to do something because for them that’s belittling; it reminds them of their mothers. They want their partners to be their lovers, not their mothers. So, let him do the task, give him credit for doing it, and don’t micromanage or mastermind the whole expedition yourself.
It’s particularly degrading when the man is doing something we can’t do or don’t want to do—unclogging the sink drain or changing the garbage disposal—yet we still tell him how to do it! Men don’t want us to s
tand over them to make sure they’re doing it the way we would. They want admiration, not supervision. So, if he’s doing the dishes, why not let him load the dishwasher the way he thinks best, even when it’s not the way you would.
Another aspect of trusting is believing what a man tells us. If a man tells us we’re pretty, we should believe him. If he tells us we’re smart, we can believe him. He’s telling us his experience of us. He’s telling us his truth. We can diminish a man’s feeling of being trusted and admired by persistently questioning and doubting his sincerity. When a woman doesn’t accept as truth what a man says about her, it is the direct equivalent of telling him he isn’t trusted by her.
Robert said, “Trusting your man by letting him lead is like giving him a Valentine’s Day card because every time you trust him, you implicitly say ‘I admire you, I believe in you, and I am glad you are the man in my life.”
Another way to show our trust is by being vulnerable by talking from our hearts, admitting imperfections, and sharing confidences. Yes, being vulnerable opens us up to potential emotional injury, ridicule, criticism, or judgment. But a man who loves you won’t do that. When we take risks like this, it shows we trust a man. Men who love us consider it a great honor when we trust them enough to reveal our hearts. If being vulnerable does result in any kind of bad treatment, it’s not the quality of being feminine that’s the issue; it’s a sign we’re with the wrong man. Instead of staying in a bad relationship where we need to guard our natural femininity, we need to find a good man who we can be feminine with.
Paul said, “Trust is a strong foundation for intimacy. When I feel that she is giving me her trust, it ignites attraction and strengthens my feelings for her.”
Men Need to Feel Appreciated
When men extend themselves through kind gestures and don’t receive appreciation or gratitude for it, they feel disheartened, as if they are engaged in an empty gesture without meaning. When we value what they do for us and express it in some positive way, they want to do more for us. If they take our car in for repair or do our taxes or fix a broken computer, we can show our appreciation by smiling, being affectionate, offering words of gratitude, or preparing a special meal. When we express appreciation for what men do for us, such as chivalry and generosity, their experience is much like our experience when men express appreciation for our beauty.
Irving, an Engineer in San Diego said, “We want to feel appreciated for our chivalry. If we don’t get appreciated for it, we stop doing it.”
And men want to feel appreciated for the masculine things they do. While a man is capable of changing a baby’s diaper or unloading the dishwasher, he is much more likely to find our requests meaningful when they specifically leverage his masculine traits: his bravery in going downstairs in the dark to check out a suspicious noise, his physical strength to change a flat tire or lift a heavy box, or his intellect and reasoning to solve a complex problem.
Even if we don’t have a man in our lives right now, we can appreciate men as a whole. Men don’t get enough acknowledgment or appreciation today. Men have invented, designed, and built almost everything we use on a daily basis for the betterment of society—and we benefit from that. So, when we notice men working on the roads or picking up our trash, we can wave and say “Thank you”. Or at the very least, we can hold appreciation in our hearts for what they do. For a reference, there are helpful lists in the appendix on what men do for us that make our lives better.
“Never pass up an opportunity to express appreciation. It costs nothing and has a lasting payoff.”
– Philip, Personal Consultant, Encinitas, CA
Men Need Time Alone
For men, time alone is fundamental. When they head off into the garage, the backyard, the golf course, or the den, they aren’t making a statement about us or trying to ignore us. When men need space, we can accommodate them by simply leaving them alone without interrupting them. They will love us for respecting their needs. When they come out of their time alone, they will be more open and available to bond with us.
Unless we want to annoy and disrespect a man, it’s better to avoid the habit of calling him from a different room expecting him to come to us. If a man is not in a room with us, it is better if we imagine he is in his cave or fortress of solitude recharging and becoming more secure, relaxed, and reflective for us. We leave him in peace so that we can have his full attention later when he emerges from his solitude.
Similarly, repeatedly interrupting a man’s private time can feel like we are hauling him up from a deep-sea dive. It gives his psyche the bends. If we interrupt him just to ask if he likes the curtains, he can start to get annoyed. Instead, we can create ways to let him know, with some kind of a “when you have a moment” signal, to initiate non-urgent conversations.
Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised if we describe a problem to a man and he seems to zone out for a minute before coming back. It doesn’t mean he is empty-minded or uncaring. On the contrary, he has probably imagined the scenario in vivid detail and rehearsed how he would respond so that he can be better prepared to protect us. We tend to mentally criticize a man in moments like this, thinking he is not being present with us, when he may actually be highly present and thinking of ways to protect us.
Men Need to Win with Us
Although men like to compete, they don’t like to compete with their women, they want to win with us. Men win when we are happy, accepting, and admiring of them. They win when we acknowledge and appreciate their accomplishments. They win when we trust them enough to ask for their advice—and then follow it.
We can also help men win with us by giving them clear, specific information regarding what we want and need. When it comes to tasks, men don’t like ambiguity because they can’t read our minds. If we make our requests simple and to the point, it helps men win with us.
Men want to win with us when giving us gifts but they often don’t know what we prefer. So they don’t mind hints. Consider giving him a list of possible birthday/anniversary gifts. Give him specific information about where to find it, including the store, section of the store, etc. If it’s perfume, tell him what color the package is, or even download a picture of it so that he can be sure he is getting the right one. If a woman wants flowers, she can mention to him that she loves red roses or pink tulips.
It might sound unromantic, but men appreciate clear guidance, as long as it’s done in a way that’s not demanding. They will know they’ve won with us when we’re happy we got what we wished. Once men are clear on what we like, it gives them the freedom to be more spontaneous in the future without our having to be so specific every time.
Remember that a man wants to know what we do want, not what we don’t. If we only tell him what we don’t want, he doesn’t know what to give; he’s frustrated because he doesn’t know what will make us happy. So, give men a clear, definite goal and they will follow through because they sincerely do want to win with us.
“Do your best to help your man ‘win’ with you, as often as possible, and offering gratitude and praise when he does. I think most women would be surprised how much love and loyalty a simple thing like that can build!”
– Paul J., Quebec, Canada
Men Need to Know Their Roles
Another way men can win with us is to have clearly defined relationship roles up front. They want to know who cooks, who changes the oil, who does the dishes, who buys the groceries, who makes the bed, who does the laundry, and who’s expected to make what amount of money. If these roles are ever-changing, ever shifting like Sahara sand dunes, a man never knows where he stands. Unclear roles don’t suit his masculine psyche at all. That’s too complex. When it comes to their roles, men prefer concrete and consistent, not ambiguous and changing.
On a similar note, men don’t mind “honey-do” lists. Indeed, they love challenges and accomplishments. They appreciate having a specific list to work from, as long as it’s presented without being demanding and fits their specific str
engths. But, avoid loading him up with a lengthy list of un-masculine tasks that make him feel like a boy being assigned chores by his mother.
So, take your time when creating a list of what you want your man to do, so you can make it detailed. For instance, instead of just writing down, “Stop at the store for milk,” specify, “Get a half gallon of Sunny Fresh brand 2% milk in the orange and yellow carton.” Detailed lists and other forms of direct communication set men up to win, and winning makes them feel more masculine. Men love objectivity: Instead of, “Honey, could you come here?” ask “Honey, would you lift this box for me?”
He doesn’t want his home to be turned into another workplace. He regards it as his rest place, a safe haven. Men want to know when they can relax without fear of being interrupted. They want to know they are free to go into their caves when a task is done, which could include having time to themselves in the garage to tinker or build things. It’s time when they can think and solve problems. Once a man is finished with his list of tasks, his psyche is at ease. Nothing more is hanging over his head.
So batch up the work you want men to do. Doling it out piecemeal is torture to a man. He will feel he gets penalized for being efficient. The faster he gets the tasks done, the more work he is given to do. “Oh! So you’re done with washing the car and taking out the trash? Well! Here are another three additional tasks you can do!” When a man has done everything on the list, leave him alone. Don’t discover something else that needs doing. Save that for another day, another list.
In addition, men consider the work they do outdoors as part of household work, e.g., mowing the lawn, painting the house, installing a fence, tending a garden, or walking the dog. We women sometimes see such activities as being “just his job” and don’t give credit or appreciation because it’s not work done in the house. For us it’s “out of house, out of mind.” But that’s not how he sees it.
Simply Feminine � Surprising Insights from Men Page 7