Have a New Husband by Friday (2 page)

Why is it that women always win at lost and found anyway?

Recently, my college daughter Hannah’s roommate got engaged. I found out about it when I was talking with Hannah on the phone. I asked her, in typical male/father fashion, “Well, honey, what’s new?”

“Oh, Becca, my roommate, just got engaged.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

That was it. End of subject. Move on to the next one.

The next day Sande and I were in the car, and Hannah phoned her mother. Evidently she told her mother the same news, because Sande said excitedly, “Oh, what good news. That is so wonderful. Becca must be so happy, so excited!”

And so the long conversation launched. You know what questions I heard?

“Where did he give her the ring?”

“When are they going to get married?”

“Was she surprised?”

“Where’s the wedding going to be?”

“Do her parents like him?”

“Are you going to give her an engagement party?”

“What does the ring look like?”

“Do you like it?”

“How do you feel about the engagement?”

Etc., etc., etc., with pauses in between for Hannah’s excited chattering on the other end.

I just had to smile. There’s definitely a difference between how men and women communicate. Hannah and I are close. We call each other often. But she shares with her mother differently.

Then there was the little encounter I watched yesterday. I was sitting at a restaurant in Elmira, New York, and right next to me was a table of two couples in their midthirties. The women were talking like two woodpeckers with ADHD. They shared continually, expressively, eyeball-to-eyeball, eight to ten inches apart, for the entire 45 minutes I was in the restaurant. Their husbands?

They were doing the typical male behavior.

“Nice day, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Good soup.”

A nod.

I couldn’t help myself. I poked the guy next to me and said, “See those women? They’re doing what they do best. They’re
shaaarrring
.”

He grinned.

We both watched as the women got up from the table, and then, arm in arm as they walked out, they talked about when they were going to get together again. “Well, Tuesday would work for breakfast, but Wednesday for lunch. But on Thursday they have a marvelous soup, so maybe Thursday?” They were still talking up a storm while their husbands, whose word count had been demolished in their brief exchange, trailed behind.

I could relate. As a guy, I call myself fortunate to have one really good friend who’s been my buddy since we were three. But do Moonhead and I spend our times together intensely “sharing” from our hearts? Nope. We go fishing, we go to ball games. Exchanging guttural grunts and yelling “Get ’em!” is enough for us. But our wives? They’re in “sharing and caring” mode, not to mention an occasional hug.

Do my buddy Moonhead and I spend our times together intensely “sharing” from our hearts? Nope. We go fishing, we go to ball games. Exchanging guttural grunts and yelling “Get ’em!” is enough for us. But our wives? They’re in “sharing and caring” mode, not to mention an occasional hug.

Then there’s the fact that when I make dinner at home, there are ten-minute respites in between each course. “Corn!” I call out, and everyone comes to the table and eats corn. Ten minutes later, “Potatoes!” A good twenty minutes after that, “Okay, the meat’s ready!”

Contrast that to my lovely bride, who whips off an incredible spread beautifully displayed. And even more shocking, all the food is done at the same time! (Hey, I even have to turn the radio down in the car when I’m looking for something. Multitasking just isn’t my forte.)

There’s no doubt about it. Men and women are different. If you don’t believe that to be true, then you might as well put this book down now. You won’t understand what I’m saying.

There’s a mistaken notion in society today that
equality
means “sameness.” Yes, men and women are equal, but one thing I’m positively sure of: they are
not
the same.

Rules to Live By

1. He’s your husband, not your girlfriend.

2. He doesn’t and never will think like you do.

3. He’s equal but not the same.

Equal but Not the Same

Men and women are clearly not the same. Our brains are different, our body chemicals are different, our emotions are different, and we see life from completely different angles. For example, the journal
Cerebral Cortex
reported that the part of the brain controlling visual-spatial abilities and concepts of mental space—skills necessary for tasks such as mathematics and architecture—is about 6 percent larger in men than in women.
1
Men’s brains are larger, but women’s brains contain more brain cells.
2

According to studies, male and female brains work differently. When men and women perform identical tasks, different areas of their brains light up in response.
3
Females may use both hemispheres, while male brain activity is restricted to one side.
4
Researcher L. Cahill and colleagues discovered that left-brain memory activity is stronger in women, and right-brain activity is stronger in men.
5

Have you wondered how your husband can work so long and so hard? Studies show that women have more severe and longer-lasting pain than men.
8
(But you already knew that, didn’t you?) On average, you experience headaches, facial and oral pain, back pain, and other ailments more frequently and more severely than your husband does. Perhaps that explains why when you get the flu, you take DayQuil and keep going (you’re used to putting up with a little pain), but when your husband gets the flu, he turns into a little boy who needs chicken soup and keeps yelling for orange juice, stat! Men can’t handle pain the way women can.

Although a few researchers still try to pretend that men’s and women’s bodies are essentially the same outside the bikini lines, more doctors and scientists are coming to agree with Dr. Marianne Legato of Columbia University, who says, “We’re talking about substantive, important differences between men and women in every system of the body, from the central nervous system to the gut, to the skin, to the way in which we metabolize drugs.”
9

These differences affect every area of marital life. For instance, about 31 percent of men experience sexual difficulty, compared to 43 percent (close to half) of women.
10
One study found that 1 out of every 3 women said she wasn’t interested in sex, but only 1 out of every 6 men said the same thing. And 1 out of every 10 men reported that sex provides little pleasure for him, but 1 out of every 5 women admitted that sex isn’t any fun!
11
That’s understandable, considering it’s extremely rare for men to be incapable of achieving orgasm, yet lots of women consistently struggle in this regard.

The nature of sexual desire is equally distinct. You’re probably not surprised that researchers have found that a man’s sexual desire is “more easily triggered by external cues” (I can hear many of you external cues” (I can hear many of you sighing already) and is “more constant across the life cycle.”
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That’s a fancy way of saying your husband will, on average, be easily aroused until the day he stops breathing! The same study indicated that a woman’s sexual desire is much more reflective and reactive to her partner, rather than being spontaneous or initiated by her. In other words, her desire grows in interaction with her partner, while her husband’s desire grows merely by seeing his wife naked—or with clothes on.

No wonder that husband of yours is a foreign creature, an oddball, an utter (and sometimes exasperating) mystery. Knowing the way men are wired will go a long way toward helping you have a far more satisfying relationship. One thing’s for sure: society isn’t helping you out in this regard.

Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.

Jean Kerr
13

The Unisex Rip-off

Occasionally in this book, I’ll step onto some “where angels fear to tread” territory. This is one such time. I ask that you hear me out before you jump to any conclusions or throw this book out the window. If your goal truly is to have a new husband by Friday, read on.

I’ll be blunt. The whole feminist movement didn’t do women any favors by pushing the unisex, “we’re all the same, we’re no different” philosophy onto the world. But frankly, we men are to blame. If we really were the kind of leaders the Almighty intended us to be, there never would have been a need for such a crusade. Both men and women would have existed in happy harmony.

Let me ask you: if you could have the perfect marriage, what would it look like? I’ll paint a scenario, and you tell me what you think.

In a perfect marriage, the husband and wife have an intimate connection. They make joint decisions about life, talk about things before decisions are made, communicate love and respect to each other on a daily basis, and are able to talk about anything without fear of judgment, put-downs, or criticism. They have an intimate emotional connection. They could be away from each other for weeks due to work and come back and pick up a conversation right where they left off. They have a healthy and satisfying sex life. Their time together is as comfortable as their feet in a favorite pair of slippers on a cold winter night. They curl up in each other’s arms, knowing they are loved, cared for, respected, appreciated, and listened to. Words don’t even need to be exchanged all the time, because both husband and wife understand each other.

Marriage, at its core, is all about respect for the other person—and respect goes both ways. But today’s culture disses men at every turn. Men don’t get respect from anyone, let alone their wives. Sitcoms portray them as dolts who are so inept that they can’t figure anything out, as buffoons who think through their fly. Actresses announce, “I’m going to have a child,” but there’s no mention of a father, a husband. The pervasive mentality in today’s society is: “Who needs a man? They’re good for nothing!” So that means men are left hanging out there, feeling they’re not respected, not needed, and certainly not important.

Does such a mentality drive couples together or apart? Just look at the rising divorce statistics, and you’ll have a clue. Today one out of two marriages ends in divorce, and the average marriage lasts only seven years. Lest you think your marriage couldn’t be at risk because “we are deeply,
deeply
in love—we’d never get a divorce,” that’s exactly what other couples said—only seven years before they called their separate lawyers and started divorce proceedings.

So what’s so different about you? How are you going to be different in order to keep your marriage together? To keep your husband in your bed rather than someone else’s? To have a fulfilling, exciting, satisfying marriage that will stay that way until death do you part?

I can’t count the number of times women have said to me, “But, Dr. Leman, I don’t want to lose myself in marriage. I mean, I’m still who I am. I’m just married. I don’t want to lose my identity.” This is what I call the “married single’s lifestyle.” You’re married, but you would never know it, except for the piece of paper that says you and your husband can now have sex legally. But you don’t have an intimate connection, emotional vulnerability, or relational transparency because you’re too concerned about “not losing yourself.”

Marriage, at its core, is all about respect for the other person—and respect goes both ways.

Interestingly, these women come into my counseling office because their marriages are in trouble. They lay out their problems, then say, “I want my husband to appreciate me for the woman I am—for my intellect, my creativity, etc., not just for my body or what I can do for him.” As we talk further, I make some suggestions about ways they might want to interact differently with their husbands at home. Invariably, these women will respond, “You’ve got to be kidding. Please my husband? Now why would I want to do that?”

“Well then,” my response is, “why would he want to please you?”

You see how it works, don’t you? In a democratic society, if you have a right to put me down, then I have a right to put you down. If you don’t feel like pleasing me, then I don’t have to please you.

That’s a recipe for marital disaster. If you’re a person of faith, don’t think you’re immune. Ironically, the divorce percentage is even higher for people of faith, according to the Barna organization.
14
So many couples today are living his-and-her marriages. Like his-and-her towels that look nice hanging up in the bathroom, that might work for a while. But give it a few years, and those towels start to look a little shabby. They start unraveling. So too do his-and-her marriages. The partners are so used to doing everything on their own that they start wondering,
Hey, why bother? I can do this without him (or her). I don’t really need this marriage anymore.