Working with so many men each and every week, I get to collect a lot of data.
Last week I heard from several different men that they were frustrated with the confusion they felt with the fact that their partner. wife, or new lover was upset with them for not showing up in different areas in they way she needed him to.
With every single conversation I saw a pattern.
It goes like this.
She says, “I’d love it if you texted me during the day sometimes.”
He hears…. that is “nice to have” . Kind of optional and will do when he remembers.
( ….i know i know.. i can feel the women already saying wtf!!! ..just wait …)
A week or so later, she is hurt, annoyed, acting distant and for one guy, she was actually done.
The men…all in their own version of this situation, were standing there thinking, what just happened, what is wrong and why is she so upset over that?
So here is why…from both sides when she says “ lovely, nice, like or want”
You see in most versions of requests, women wont say need. They say want instead.
And this caverness gap..in all of its different versions is what I see keeps getting in the road and quietly erodes at the connection in relationships.
When ever I ask a woman what she wants in a relationship, she will so often proceed to list all these non negotiable needs, yet she is labelling them as wants. because most women are not taught to confidently make direct asks. They are taught to modulate themselves keeping the emotional temperature of a conversation warm, so as not to rock the boat or risk failure of not receiving. They have been made to believe they need to make a mans response to look like he is offering, not her needing. So she softens it all.
“Want” is softer. and often is not a measure of how much she needs the thing. It is a watered down version of how safe she feels being direct about needing it at all.
BUT….. men hear wants as a deficit, as optional, as maybe later.
Most men are wired to take language literally and to orient toward solving concrete problems. If the word is “want,” a man’s brain files it exactly where the word points to in his brain. As a preference, not a requirement. He is not being dismissive , he is working out what is worth doing……
So whilst a man is decoding the sentence, the woman saying the words is needing him to decode the feeling underneath it.
So… how do we cross the bridge to one another?
And yes it takes two to do the tango baby.
For her, the clearer and more direct the ask is, that is the gold. And clarity does not mean harshness or being cold. Also get good at asking for what you need before you are in deficit so that they can be asked from a place of trust instead of exasperation and/or desperation. Requests made from a place of being indirect, kind of, or a maybe…. are often what push men away because they feel like it is then used against them when they don’t get it and can feel like coercion.
For him, when you notice her repeating a “want,” or you catch a flicker of hurt ( cultivating your presence means you will notice this ) after you treated something as optional, then ask a clarifying or direct question back to her. “Babe, is this something you actually need from me?” That single question does more for a relationship than a hundred guesses.
One gentlemen in a group call said that when he hears the word want, he feels like he is not doing enough and this feels like failure, but when he hears the word need, it inspires him to get into action and solve the problem…
Tell me what you think…hit reply to this email.
Always with Pleasure.
M
❤️
if you are stuck in this loop, see yourself in these words I write, and feel like you are too far in the spiral to “just” change the word from want to need, then lets get on a discovery call and talk on how I can get you out of it and into the relating that supports and empowers both of you.
❤️❤️