FOR MEN ONLY (6 page)

And here’s the thing, guys: I didn’t
used
to do those things that much. But once I discovered that the little things were that important—well, heck:
Those
I can do!

Every woman will be touched by different little things. But let me give you an example that proves this is not rocket science. In one focus group, we were talking about what makes women feel loved, when to my surprise Shaunti began describing a recent incident. She and I had been walking through a parking lot, and I put my hand on the small of her back to steer her through some rows of cars.

Hearing that, every other woman in the room put her hand to her heart or clasped her hands together, and sighed. “Awwwww…” “Oh, that’s so sweet.” “What a good guy.” The other man in the room and I looked at each other in utter shock. Especially since at the time I’d been worried that Shaunti might get mad at me for “telling her what to do”—since that would have been my reaction in a similar situation!

“The little things
are
the difference between feeling secure and loved, or not.”

2)
It means that she feels you two are best friends.
Being close doesn’t mean that you are her best
girl
friend—expected to talk for hours—but it
does
mean that you two know each other better than anyone else.

As one woman put it: “My sense of security with my husband doesn’t just come from expressing my emotions, but from knowing his.” Another said, “I don’t think he understands how desperately I want to be known. He’s a wonderful husband, godly, attentive, but I really want him to be more interested in who I really am.”

2. She feels secure when you make time together a priority.

As you might imagine, another thing that makes her feel secure is knowing that after God, she’s your priority. Knowing that she and the kids come before your job and that
you care for her first
even if you feel your job is what you do to care for your family. One representative wife put it like this: “We can have plenty of money stored away and be very secure financially, but if I’m not secure about whether I’m a priority for my husband, all that money doesn’t mean much. But on the other hand, if I know that he is there for me, I can face any struggles financially.”

“If I know that he is there for me, I can face any struggles financially.”

For us nuance-challenged men, here’s a simplified summary of what “being a priority” usually means to her: It is the amount of time and attention you give her outside of traditional work hours (meaning, outside forty or fifty hours a week) compared to anything else. Since there are only a limited number of possible “together” hours in a day, she views every above-the-norm hour spent on your work or outside interests as coming directly from the few hours she expected to spend with you.

A wife does
not
expect her husband to spend every off-the-job hour with her. But to feel emotionally secure, she can’t feel that he’s consistently choosing other time priorities over her. As one woman said:

My husband is a very good provider, dearly loves his family, and says I complete him in every way. But he rarely seems willing to spend one-on-one time with me or to share my life, yet he always has time for the guys. I know he also needs his friends, but this lack of
me
in his day-to-day life is causing a big drift in our marriage.

3. She feels secure when you demonstrate your commitment.

Your wife needs to feel in the core of her being that nothing will scare you away and that you will do whatever you need to do to ensure that nothing comes between the two of you.

One woman put it perfectly: “I need to know that he will be there for me, no matter what. We have a good relationship, but I still need to
know
that he’s not going anywhere—physically or emotionally.”

One simple way to demonstrate this commitment is to use the examples of reassurance after conflict that we talked about in chapter 2.

4. She feels secure when you are active in parenting and the life of the home.

Women feel secure when they see their husband choosing to be an active participant in the life of the home, even if it means reworking other priorities. Unfortunately, if a man isn’t careful, his laudable drive to provide may prevent him from taking that active role in the life the couple set out to enjoy together. Some wives felt like they started out as a general partner with their husbands, but somewhere along the way wound up as a sole proprietor.

One wife said:

While we’re not wealthy, we have some good funds saved up. But my husband seems to feel like we’re always on the verge of a problem, so he has to always get that extra client, that extra paycheck, even if it means being locked in his home office all night after dinner, with no time to play with the kids. Will he ever feel that we have “enough”? I appreciate having that cushion—but not when it hurts
us
.

Another, by contrast, explained why she felt so secure:

My husband is working hard, but I’m so grateful that he also recognizes that kids need a dad’s presence as much as they need a mom’s. So many of my friends are frustrated that they have to ask their husband to “babysit,” as if the kids aren’t his kids, too. My husband is so wonderful about recognizing that yes, he’s tired, but so am I. And the fact that he’ll play with the kids or manage the dishes really gives me the sense that we’re all in this together.

Further, quite a few busy moms told us that simply being appreciated by their husbands also helped them feel very secure. Any hard-working guy can understand the security that comes from feeling appreciated.

Any hard-working guy can understand the security that comes from feeling appreciated.

5. She feels secure when you do make an effort to provide.

Lastly, after all this discussion of finances not being her top priority, you should know that the effort you make to provide for your family does add to a sense of emotional security—
even if
the results aren’t bringing in the
amount
of money you assumed she wanted. Where guys focus on the results, our wife focuses on the effort—and the effort does make her feel loved as long as it doesn’t crowd out the other elements of emotional security.

The women we talked to agreed that in the choice between financial insecurity and emotional insecurity, it’s not that they would
enjoy
financial struggles. But they would prefer to
endure
them if they could get more of you. As one woman said, “Financial struggles, by definition, are difficult. But if I had to, I’d rather have them, than lose him.”

“Financial struggles, by definition, are difficult. But if I had to, I’d rather have them, than lose him.”

Obviously, in all of this, we need to find a balance. You are designed to want to provide for your family, and women do appreciate that. None of us would want to use these “emotional security” findings as an excuse to quit our jobs, sit on the couch for hours, and eat Cheetos. Not that there is anything wrong with Cheetos—but all things in moderation.

They Want Us to Be Happy

One of our most encouraging findings was that even though women truly wanted their husband to have a job where he worked less in order to have more of his time, they also wanted their husband to have a job where he worked less so that
he
could enjoy life more. A great deal of a woman’s stress and insecurity comes from knowing that her husband is working long hours at a job that causes
him
stress just to provide a certain level of income. If there was another option, most women would choose a lower-stress, lower-income job that he’d enjoy, even if it meant going through financial insecurity.

On our survey, we asked women to choose between two different job scenarios. As before, 70 percent of the women said they’d rather their husband take a lower-paying job that would require financial sacrifices if it allowed more family time. And even more fascinating, the number rises to 89 percent if they felt
you
wanted to make that choice (adding in those women who were “neutral”)!

And encouragingly, even though women want emotional security and closeness, we could find none who would want their husband to take a “family-friendly” job that would make him unfulfilled or unhappy in his work life. They knew there was no emotional security in that “solution.” As one wife put it, “Then I would just have a depressed man on my hands, and that would defeat the purpose!”

Put yourself in this scenario: Your husband/significant other has a very well-paying job that requires a lot of hours and emotional attention away from home. You enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and all the enrichment opportunities for the kids that come with it, but you and the children often do feel distant from your husband/significant other, and when you two are together there is often discord. Now suppose that your husband/significant other was offered a different job that he’d enjoy, that would allow much more time with family—but it would also mean a substantial pay cut and some lifestyle adjustments for your family. Which best describes your likely feelings in this scenario? [Choose One Answer]

Rethinking Our Provider/Protector Assumptions

This whole topic boils down to asking ourselves—and asking our wives—one question:
Am I providing the type of security she genuinely wants and needs?

One friend put his finger on the crux of the difficulty for many of us. “Men focus on income and possessions because it is so much easier to measure success in numbers. ‘Loving attention’ is much more difficult for us to quantify.”

I started this chapter with the comment that we men often feel caught between a rock and a hard place. But we’ve now heard from hundreds of women that while there may be a rock on one side—her absolute need for emotional security—there is no “hard place” of absolute financial desire on the other. It’s more like a “soft place,” since for most women all the money and things aren’t nearly the priority that
you
are. Shaunti didn’t want more of me
and
the doorman building. She wanted more of me, period. And when I finally got that through my head—five years later—we moved away from New York and to a more family-friendly life in Atlanta.

And if you suspect that perhaps your wife has been trying to say the same thing…have a talk. You might be surprised at what you hear.

For most women all the money and things aren’t nearly the priority that
you
are.

What Matters: Happy Dad

We all instinctively know that as our children grow up and leave the home, as we and our wives age together, the best memories will not center around the cool things that we bought or the size of the house. Invariably, the measure of success will be something much simpler and closer to home—the life that we shared on a daily basis.

A woman who grew up in a large family in Flint, Michigan—one of those gritty, industrial cities of the Midwest—described how more “providing” by her father had not turned out to be a better life for any of them:

When we were little, we lived in a small house right in the city. The neighborhood wasn’t great, but I loved my life. And my dad was a happy dad. When he was home from work, we’d all play. He was so much fun to be around.

When I was eleven, my dad wanted to provide a better future for us. And rather than just picking another house and moving out of the city, he decided to have a special home built. Since we didn’t have tons of money, he knew he’d have to do a lot of the work himself. He said we were worth it.

Unfortunately, he didn’t realize what all the extra stress and pressure would do—not just to him, but to us. The stress of juggling everything began to wear my dad down. We lost happy dad, and instead found grumpy dad. He stopped playing with us so much, and he was just on edge a lot, not relaxed and fun.

I now know that he was sacrificing himself to provide a better future for us kids, but we wanted
him
much more than we wanted the new house or better schools. We just wanted happy dad back.