The New Eve - Lewis Robert [61]
His Key Needs
In 1 Peter 3:7, the apostle gives husbands this command, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way … since she is a woman.” What wise advice that is! I tell men all the time that no man “speaks woman” naturally. It's an acquired language. It takes research, investigation, practice, and a big dose of humility to learn it.
But look again at 1 Peter 3:7, and you'll notice something there for you too. See it? It's found in the words in the same way. Though Peter is passionately exhorting men to acquire an understanding of women, “in the same way” reminds you that Peter has just said the same thing to women; that is, women need to work to understand men too, because men and women will always be alien beings to one another. It's the first principle of male-female relationships.
In this light you can never study the opposite sex enough. And a good place to begin your education is by mastering a man's key needs. This is absolutely fundamental to your success with a man. Do you know what those key needs are? Let me give you what I believe are a man's top four.
1. Men need admiration and respect. When I do premarital counseling with a couple, I ask them to read Ephesians 5, in which Paul spells out the marital responsibilities of husbands and wives. After they finish reading, I ask the young man to tell me what one word stood out to him in this text as his chief assignment in the marriage bond. Rarely does any man miss the obvious answer. “To love my wife,” he says. Often after he answers, the bride-to-be smiles approvingly and grabs his hand. I then tell the young man, “Never stop telling your wife you love her. Those are the words she longs to hear—always.”
Then I turn to the young woman and ask, “And, of course, your chief assignment is to love your husband, right?” Most often her reflex answer is, “Yes, of course.” Then I ask her, “Where did Paul say that?” I usually sit quietly and let her poke back over Paul's words for a minute to find this command. But she won't find it because it's not there.
Why? Because the deepest need of a man in marriage is not to be loved by his wife but to be admired and respected. That's why Paul concluded Ephesians 5 with these words, “The wife must see to it that she respects her husband” (v. 33).
This is “Man 101” here, ladies. What love is to you, respect is to him. In your world “I love you” means everything. But on his planet the best thing he can hear is “I'm proud of you.” Those words are the best “I love you” a man can get. And every time you praise your man in this way, you're speaking affirmation, strength, and satisfaction into the core of his masculinity, especially when you do it publicly. To say to him, “I'm so proud of you” in front of others … well, for a man, it just doesn't get much better than that. Nothing beats being admired.
2. A man needs your support in his work and dreams. Daniel Levinson's mammoth research work, Seasons of a Man's Life, revealed that the typical man marries a woman who he thinks will nourish his life vision and help him fulfill his life's work. Levinson also found that if a wife fails to do this or loses interest in what her husband does, the marriage relationship eventually becomes troubled. Why? Because men need their wives to stand with them in their work. They need their wives to identify with, appreciate, and value the work that defines their lives.
This support is particularly important in times of change, when a man thinks his best shot at success is to change jobs