Several weeks ago I was sitting with a group of male friends who are all married and we were discussing their frustration with not being able to understand women very well.\u00a0 One of the men had been in a disagreement with his wife and he was explaining to me why his wife\u2019s side of the argument was irrational.\u00a0 As I listened to him explain the situation I was able to quickly figure out his problem.<\/p>\n
His problem was this:\u00a0 There was the fight he thought he was having, and the fight he was actually having.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0And as I explained this phenomenon to him I realized that there are a lot of other men out there who would benefit greatly from understanding what that means.\u00a0 So I decided to share it with all of you.<\/p>\n
Anyone who has read Dr. Laura\u2019s book, The Proper Care and Feeding of a Husband, knows that she explains that men have three basic needs from their wife in order to be kept happy:\u00a0 feed them, don\u2019t criticize them, and have sex with them. Simple enough, right?<\/p>\n
Well, I would argue that women are not nearly as complex as men think we are.\u00a0 Similar to Dr. Laura boiling it down to three basic needs, I believe that most women also have three basic needs from their husbands in order to be kept happy:\u00a0 love them, appreciate them, and make them feel safe.\u00a0 And before you men say \u201cyeah, right\u201d, keep reading and I will prove it to you.<\/p>\n
Whenever a wife is unhappy, men need to look at the situation and figure out which one of those three basic needs is he not meeting for his wife.\u00a0 Because anytime a wife is upset it is almost always going to boil down to one of her three needs not being met.\u00a0 Is she not feeling loved, is she not feeling appreciated, or is she not feeling safe.<\/p>\n
The problem with men is that when a fight occurs the man instantly looks at the simple facts of the situation and tries to figure out why the woman is mad, rather than the man trying to figure out which of her three needs he isn\u2019t meeting.\u00a0 Let me share some examples to illustrate what I mean:<\/p>\n
The husband comes home from work and changes clothes, leaving his pants in a pile on the floor of the bedroom.\u00a0 The wife sees the pants and gets upset.\u00a0 The man thinks \u201cWhy is she so upset about a simple pair of pants on the floor?\u201d\u00a0 That is the husbands first mistake \u2013 he should have asked himself \u201cWhich of the 3 needs did I not meet?\u201d\u00a0 If he asked himself that question he would realize that leaving his pants on the floor showed a complete lack of appreciation for his wife who had been working hard to keep the house clean only to have him throw his pants on the floor.\u00a0 His wife isn\u2019t angry about the pants, she is angry about feeling unappreciated (need #2 on the list of 3).<\/p>\n
The husband is driving the wife to an event and he is driving over the speed limit and tailgating other drivers.\u00a0 The wife gets angry.\u00a0 The husband thinks \u201cI am trying to get her to the event on time so why the heck is she angry with me for driving fast?\u201d\u00a0 When he should be realizing that she is upset about need #3 \u2013 she doesn\u2019t feel safe.<\/p>\n
A husband forgets his anniversary.\u00a0 The wife is angry.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not the fact he forgot the anniversary that she is upset about \u2013 she is upset that he let her down on need #1 \u2013 she doesn\u2019t feel loved.<\/p>\n
I could go on and on with examples that help illustrate the point, but what would be more effective is for the men reading this to think of the last fight they had with their wife. Now stop and ask yourself, which of the 3 needs did I let her down on that caused the fight?\u00a0 Hopefully looking at it from that angle will help you recognize where you really went wrong.<\/p>\n
Yes men, there is the fight you are trying to have and then there is the fight your wife is really having and the sooner you can recognize the difference between the two \u2013 the happier your marriage will be.<\/p>\n
Have a great day everyone!\u00a0 And to the men:\u00a0 Love her, appreciate her, and make her feel safe!!!<\/p>\n
~Amy<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several weeks ago I was sitting with a group of male friends who are all married and we were discussing their frustration with not being able to understand women very well.\u00a0 One of the men had been in a disagreement with his wife and he was explaining to me why his wife\u2019s side of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[718,501,500,2422,2419,60,419,63,224,2110,650,361,2415,2417,51,2420,1232,1679,7,76,65,2374,55,180,2416,35,1013,11,284,2414,53,1196,544,1546,27,112,2421,149,2418,2118,125],"class_list":["post-3917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anniversary","tag-appreciate","tag-appreciation","tag-argument","tag-basic-needs","tag-beautiful","tag-birthday","tag-blessings","tag-confidence","tag-criticize","tag-dating","tag-differences","tag-disagreement","tag-dr-laura","tag-family","tag-feed","tag-fight","tag-frustration","tag-future","tag-goals","tag-gratitude","tag-happier","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-irrational","tag-love","tag-loved","tag-marriage","tag-men","tag-men-and-women","tag-motivation","tag-relationship","tag-relationships","tag-safe","tag-self-confidence","tag-self-improvement","tag-sex","tag-success","tag-the-proper-care-and-feeding-of-a-husband","tag-unhappy","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3917"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3919,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions\/3919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}