Vixen Manual - Karrine Steffans [75]
He’ll appreciate you for understanding him as a man. He’ll appreciate you for understanding him as a human being. Appreciation is a major cornerstone of successful relationships. A woman who is appreciated always, ultimately, gets hers. This is a different kind of fighting. One that’s much more effective for getting what you want.
His need for breathing room (or whatever seemingly irrational thing he has asked for) might have nothing to do with you. There could be other issues at play that you’re completely unaware of—stress, work and family, or something in his past unexpectedly rearing its head. Men are notorious for going inward when it comes to problem solving. The last thing your man needs is you leaping into hostile cling mode when he’s trying to sort his thoughts and regain his footing.
So you give him his space happily, unconditionally. But what if he doesn’t return? Then what?
But I listened to you, Vixen, you might say, and look what happened!!!
Sometimes the hardest thing in the world to do is to let someone go, but the truth is, if he loves you—if he really loves you—he will come back. Maybe not in the capacity you’re wishing for, but that’s okay. You may be better off as friends, at least for now. Just don’t fight him about it. There are ways of fighting for a relationship without fighting the man who’s in it with you. When we do that, our fears make us run our mouths so much, we end up talking ourselves out of everything we want.
Don’t trip. Breathe in. Breathe out. We all know men have a habit of asking for things that they really believe they want. In that moment, you should give him whatever he asks for—within reason, of course. (You should never do anything that violates your moral and ethical code in order to keep a man; you’ll only resent him, and yourself, in the end.) Somewhere along the way, we as women became increasingly combative and argumentative. This new woman works well among her counterparts in commerce but fares less successfully when it comes to building intimacy in personal relationships. It’s time for us to go back to what worked for our grandmothers and their grandmothers and the grandmothers before them. Give a man what he asks for if it’s something he needs for himself, be it space, time, a night out with the boys, or maybe a few nights at his mother’s house. Stop fighting your man and learn to stand down. Submit to his will and you’ll end up bending it back toward your own.
The word submission carries an uneasy stigma, thanks in part to the feminist movement. Submission is not a sign of weakness but of respect for the one you love and, mostly, for yourself.
By submitting to your man, it shows that you’re in control of your emotions and are willing to exercise selflessness. That’s not to say that you should be expected to agree with everything he says and does, but sometimes the battle is better won with silence and compliance.
If he doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough sex, don’t counter with how busy your day is with school, work, kids, and errands. Don’t bring up cramps. Cramps have never done anything to advance a relationship.
Bite him with his own dog. Buck up, gird your loins, eat your Wheaties, then sex him—and don’t just go through the motions, either. Put your whole heart into it like it’s the Sexual Olympics. Like sex is oxygen and he’s a set of lungs. Pump him up! Give it to him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And snacks. You’ve got to give him snacks. Give him so much sex, he waves the white flag. Eventually moderation will come into play and everyone will end up getting what he or she wants. (And you just might set free your inner freak along the way!)
In my experience, when you give a man what he asks for and do so without questioning, you allow him room to come to his own conclusion that in many instances is the opposite of his first thought, but he needs the latitude to figure that out. Men often operate according to the Law of Diffusion,