Men and Women: What Do We REALLY Want

First off I would like to say, I love Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend!  Thank you for all the wisdom you share with so many millions of people through your amazing books and lectures!  We appreciate it! :) 

I went to "Monday Night Solutions" tonight at Mariners, and let me tell you, that was some of the most enlightening and funniest illustrations and advice about relationships I had ever heard. 

So let me share some of the wisdom I gleaned from these two brilliant minds with all of you!

The topic was, "Men and Women: What do we really want?"  Yes, what do we really want?  I think sometimes we ourselves do not even know. 

Here's what they said....

What Men Want: for women to move towards them, but in kindness. 

What Women Want: A LOT, lol, to be wanted without fear, for the man to not be conflicted in his pursuit but to know what he wants, to be desired without hesitancy, to be taken care of most of all, and for the guy to put forethought and planning into their time together instead of just saying, "So, um, what do you want to do tonight?"  lol, yep :)

And men note this, when we women are upset about something the words we most want to hear you say is, "Are YOU ok?"  Because then we know that you are really seeing us and wanting to listen, which is all that matters and the best thing you could do. 

John Grey's book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" is very enlightening as well.  He says men tend to be Mr. Fix It's.  It's easier for a man to want to fix what a woman is talking about then to just listen to her. 

I think this comes from their not wanting to feel helpless.  They want to feel like they can DO something, and when they really care about the woman, they can't stand to see her in pain.  So they want to come up with a solution.  I can see the logic in this, lol but most women can't unfortunately.

Another book to look into, "Love and Respect" by Emmerson.  He talks about how women have pink glasses and men have blue with which they see everything very, very differently.  He repeatedly reminds us though, neither is bad, just different. 

Cloud and Townsend said intimacy in a marriage is a way to be known on the deepest level.  It is to be connected and to be exposed.  It is to know the heart, and to be in tune with your spouse's wishes, desires and fears.

He said the couples that survive and thrive for many, many years have moment by moment threads that keep them connected.  It's all in the small things; the text messages, the notes, the short hugs that say I love you daily that are key.  It is not so much the couples that have exhilarating experiences but then ignore each other the rest of the week.  It is consistency that keeps couples glued together.  It is about doing things that reassure the other person that you still care, that they are always on your mind. :)

After many years into a relationship people can tend to shut down if this constant back and forth flow of love is not there.  That is when people divorce and say, "We just fell out of love."  On the contrary, they did not "fall out of love," they just got lazy and didn't want to put the effort into the relationship anymore.  Marriage is HARD work.  Relationships are hard work.  That is why Paul says, "Those who marry will face many troubles in this life."  Not you might, you will. lol. 

The trouble comes because in marrige now you not only have to live with yourself and your own sin, but you have to endure this other person's sin as well.  And the effect of the two sin natures combined can seem to multiply the effects of sin.  But with God all things are possible and all things can be pure and easier if we let him take the wheel. 

So let Jesus take the wheel in your marriage and you will see miracles happen! :)

You can't sit back and expect a plant to grow on its own.  Neither can you expect love in a marriage to grow on its own.  You have to water and nurture each other to see growth. 

The best relationships involve two people that both know how to move toward each other, but also know when to pull away. 

All of us as humans need both alone time and time with other people.  To much of either is not a good thing.

Dr. Townsend quoted a famous country song that might express the way many men feel in relationships, "I can't miss you if you won't go away."  lol, so true! 

Men need their space.  In "Men are from Mars" Grey illustrates it as men need to go to their caves from time to time.  But like a rubber band, when given space they will spring back that much more alive and ready to connect.

Women have a hard time understanding this because when WE are upset we HAVE to talk about it, lol.  So the classic case happens all the time of the woman trying to draw the man out to talk about what he FEELS, but women, men just don't function that way.  They have to stew on it for a couple days and then they might be ready to talk about it.  Give them time. :)  Also, they will be ten times more willing to open up after an intimate encounter, just as a side note.  :)

When Billy Grahm's wife was asked, "How have you two stayed happily married all these years?"  She said, "That's easy; he plays golf and I play bridge."  The challenge in relationships is when the two people "melt" into each other and loose their sense of self as seperate entities.  My late husband and I were somewhat guilty of this.  Yes "the two become one", but there still needs to be a sense of two selves in the oneness. 

When a couple is willing to give each other space it says to their mate, "This relationship is not about me.  I want you to be happy.  I can give you time to do what you like to do, whatever makes you happy."

Also when the two are able to remain as healthy individuals within the relationship, more respect is gained when seeing each other, and respect is a key foundation in any relationship.  If you are two separate people you can set boundaries, or limits on the other person. 

I highly recommend the book "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend to all of you.  It basically depicts various situations where we let people walk all over us and it give us the tools to not allow that; to not allow unhealthy behavior or letting someone control us.  It was the book that has benefited me the most in my life in regards to interactions with other people!  Read it! lol

Dr. Cloud posed the question, "What creates attraction between two people?"  He said simply being attractive.  We need to ask ourselves the question, "Would I be attracted to me?"  Do we act in an attractive manner full of grace and peace?  Or do we tear down those that are closest to us?  How attractive are we overall?  This usually depends on the condition of one's heart. 

I would add to that that confidence is the most attractive quality, because, as I said in my blog about humility, if we are confident we are able to put the focus on other people rather then on ourselves.  The extremes in our sense of self are pride and insecurity.  Confidence then is the mean, the perfect middle, the balanced self.

Our natural bent in this world as human beings is to always think, "What's in it for me?  How will this person benefit me?  What can they do for me?"  Where as in healthy relationships we should rather ask the questions, "What can I do for him or her?  How can I SERVE them?  What would make them most happy?"  Then you will have learned the secret to a successful relationship, giving.  For is is in giving that we receive.  When we give to the other, we benefit greatly in the end, and it can be a synergistic cycle that spawns more and more love.   

Also, they said we all must come to terms with our own defenses when it comes to love.  We all have them.  There is a famous book on this topic, "Come Here, Go Away," that talks about the dance that is so common in love.  We crave intimacy so we want to draw the other person in, but then the nakedness we feel when another person knows everything about us scares the crap out of us, lol, so we run and try to hide.  Some do this in work, some in TV, some in shopping, some in reading or writing.  We all have our various hiding methods, our caves, our ways to play it safe, our walls.

Another key to a successful relationship is that when you have hard times or fights or hurt feeling, DON'T RUN.  Stick it out.  Stand and fight, to an extent, unless it gets violent then run obviously lol.  But if you keep running from each other nothing will ever get worked out and intimacy will never be grow.  Sometimes, many times, a good disagreement can actually bring you closer, because you finally say all the things you have been wanting to say, and you finally heart what the other person has been wanting to say.  Sometimes you have to step on each other's toes so deepen your love.  It's not comfortable and it's not easy, but it's good. 

A novel concept they said is a co-dependent can never really be intimate.  My late husband had many co-dependent tendencies.  Co-dependency means you do not have a solid sense of yourself and what you want out of life and how far you will let people push you or require of you.  Co-dependency was a term originally coined for wives of alcoholic husbands, but it can be applied to any situation where one person is dominant and possibly abusive and the other person says nothing, does not stand up for him or herself, and takes the abuse.  They can never know true intimacy because they are not in touch with their own needs.  They do not know what they themselves want, and so they never get it.  They are constantly just thinking of how to help the other person, but forget about themselves, to their detriment. 

This is usually a result of parents not legitimizing their needs as a child and dismissing them, or from being ignored completely.

We can do much damage to our children when we don't validate their feelings and needs, so please, listen to your kids.  Have compassion on them and really care about what they are upset about.  Because someday they will grow up to be adults and what you did will affect them for the rest of their lives.  So be careful with their hearts and feelings. 

Another trait that is important to have when in a relationship is to be healthy, to have goals, to be going somewhere in life. 

They suggested that in whatever relationship you are in, make a list of things that turn you on about your mate or spouse and things that turn you off.  Ask them to do the same and then share openly with each other.  Until you come to this kind of brutal honesty, the relationship will not grow.

In the same way God prunes us like a tree sometimes and it hurts, so we must prune each other sometimes.  "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." 

So get to pruning!  lol  And let others prune you as well :) 

Amen!  Grace and peace to you! :)