With a deeper understanding of men, a woman can learn how to support a man in providing her with the support she needs.

Men want to be the providers, they want to take credit for a woman’s happiness, and they thrive on feeling successful in making a difference. They just need to feel appreciated for it. This is the kind of love and support that a man craves most from a woman.

Men and women complement each other in a very magical way. Men thrive on successfully caring for their partners, while women thrive when they feel cared for. Certainly, women also love to care for their male partners but primarily need to feel cared for themselves. I have never heard a woman say “My partner completely ignores me, but I still love giving to him.” In a similar way, men need to feel cared for but primarily need to feel successful in fulfilling their partners.

Women love to care for their men but primarily need to feel cared for themselves. Men need to feel cared for but primarily need to feel successful in fulfilling their partners.

Why relationship is full of argument

In listening to hundreds of couples on the verge of partings, I hear the same message over and over. Women say they give and give and are tired of giving and not getting back. They want more.

A man’s discontent is similar but different in a very significant way. Men say “I give and give, but no matter what I do, it is never enough to make her happy.” This is because his condition for fulfillment is primarily based on fulfilling her needs. When she is happy, he is happy.

A woman’s fulfillment in a relationship is largely dependent on the man’s supportive behavior, while his happiness is much more linked to her response to his support. When she is fulfilled, he is more willing to do more. When she is not fulfilled, he believes his efforts are not valued and naturally resists doing more.

Men who don’t want to give more simply are not feeling sufficiently appreciated. Before asking him for more, a woman must convince her partner that he is already doing enough. To read him a list of what he is doing wrong only creates more resistance. Appreciating what he does do, however, and making specific requests in small increments, is the key to getting more.

When men feel they are doing enough, they eventually are willing to do a little more.

This simple approach of man as giver and woman as receiver does not mean that men don’t need women or that women should not give. Women will always give, and men will always be happy to receive. That is not the problem. The problem is that women give too much and feel overworked, while men give only what their fathers gave and expect to receive the same measure of support.
Modern women give too much and feel overworked, while men give only what their fathers gave and expect the same measure of support.

Why Wifes Feel They Give More

Women today feel they give more, and in return expect men to give back more. They feel exhausted and overwhelmed because they are certainly getting less than they need, but that doesn’t mean men are giving less.

Men today give by going to work (as their fathers did) and feel unappreciated if they are asked to do more. They expect to leave their work at the office and relax when they get home.

The secret of successful relationships is to clearly understand this basic difference. It is not that the man gives less. He is giving what men have always given. Through understanding the problem without blame, both men and women are motivated to solve their share of the problem.

To solve this basic problem we must first recognize that it is not really about how much more she does. Instead, it is about what she is not getting in order to be fulfilled. As we have explored, the real need that women have that is not being fulfilled is the need to he heard.

As men learn how to provide emotional support through using advanced relationship skills, then and only then will women begin to feel greater warmth and appreciation. Then, as a woman truly feels more centered and appreciative, a man is naturally motivated to gradually do more in the home.

All of the above techniques represent the direct-attack approach to getting one’s own way. There are however, more subtle forms of manipulation that can be extremely effective. One of them is a smooth tongue. Probably the most common form is open flattery. A man invites some friends home for dinner and only tells his wife about it when they arrive at the front door. There in front of all his friends she hears from him — for the first time — what a marvelous cook she is and how amazingly quickly she can prepare a meal. Or a wife may come to her husband and tell him how wonderful he is, how generous he has always been, how she appreciates the fact that she always feels at liberty to ask him for extra money — and then ask him for a new dress. This is undisguised manipulation.

We all enjoy compliments, but when they are given with an ulterior motive, they leave a bitter taste in the mouth. That is why a man who very seldom compliments his wife and then all of a sudden starts praising her, is likely to get only one response: “What do you want from me?” One cannot blame her for being suspicious.

Another approach to getting our own way is to placate our partners when they express reservations about our plans. “Don’t worry about it, Sweetheart. You’ll see that it will all turn out well. Trust me.” This is just another way to overcome any opposition. It is not good partnership.

Claiming helplessness

It is much easier to give an explanation for our behaviour than to change it. Somehow we believe that if we can come up with a good enough excuse, we can justify _almost any behaviour. Traditional psychiatry has done us _a great disservice by suggesting that there are behavioural forces over which we have no control. A man may for example suggest to his wife that she should express her affection for him more openly. If she replies, “What can you expect when I had a mother who never expressed her affection openly?” she is claiming helpnessness in order to get her own way.

There are probably as many excuses as there are people. Some blame their backgrounds, while others use illness to get their own way. “How can you expect me to do this, when you know I’m so ill?” Some people even use God to get their own way. Men have neglected their families — even financially, with the excuse that God had told them to do this or that. Women have been “conned” into marriage because their prospective husbands have claimed that God had shown them to be their life partners. That’s a get-my-own-way technique if ever there was one!

People who use this manipulative approach are basically claiming to be helpless — that they are subject to circumstances and forces over which they have no control. Since it becomes almost impossible to counter such reasoning effectively, people who resort to this technique usually end up winning — or at least getting their own way, but again with serious negative consequences for the relationship.

Suffering

A third manipulative technique is to let our partners know how much suffering they are causing us. One of the most common ways is to let our partners know that they have hurt our feelings. Since they then become responsible for our hurt feelings, the obligation is on them to change their behaviour — and we’ve won” again.

In a marriage where love-making was not very frequent, the wife used to blame the husband by saying, “You make me feel so awful when you ask me to make love and I’m not up to it. I just feel I’m a complete failure as a woman.” What she really wanted of course was for him to stop asking, and when he did “because I didn’t want to make my wife feel a failure”, she had succeeded in getting her own way.

A husband who occasionally has a drink with his colleagues after work can be manipulated to come home on time every evening, because his wife worries so much when he stays out late. It actually brings on severe headaches, and what self-respecting man would wilfully cause his wife to suffer from headaches?

Tears can also be used effectively to get one’s own way — as many women know so well. Very few men can cope with a tearful wife, especially if she also accuses him of “not loving her anymore”. Rather than say to her, “You are obviously very upset right now. Let’s continue the discussion when you’ve had a chance to calm down,” the husband allows himself to feel guilty for causing his wife “so much anguish”. Subsequently he gives in in order to pacify her — and she has won. In fact any woman who starts off a proposition by saying, “If you really loved me, you would …” is simply manipulating her husband to get her own way.

Another tactic often used is to walk away from an argument with a “do whatever you like, I couldn’t care less” remark. People who say this do not really mean it. They really do care what happens. It is just another get-my-own-way technique. What woman will freely go ahead and “do whatever she likes” after her husband has told her to do just that?

Perhaps the most extreme form of suffering used to manipulate someone’s behaviour is to threaten suicide. A young woman told me the story of how her father had committed suicide and that as a young teenager she somehow felt that she was to blame. When some years later her boyfriend threatened to kill himself if she didn’t go to bed with him, she couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for another death. So she finally gave in — and ended up with an illegitimate child.

Some marriages have been founded on the threat of suicide. A middle-aged man told us of his unhappy marriage of over twenty years. When he had wanted to break off the engagement, his fiancee had threatened to commit suicide — so he had married her. Hardly a prescription for a happy relationship. He felt trapped and the subsequent bitterness virtually destroyed both him and his wife.

Here is a checklist to use as a guide in getting ready.

Really decide to stop. This may sound simplistic, it is so obvious. But the experts stress that it is an extremely important step to take. From the moment you decide to take it, there should be no turning back; you no longer go around saying that you have absolutely got to stop, or that you simply have to make yourself stop smoking. You are, in fact, in the process of doing so. You have made a conscious and explicit decision.

Make your plans for the stop smoking diet. Search some menus and recipes and see what foods you need to buy. Do as much of the stop smoking diet shopping for the week ahead as you can during this get-ready period.

Decide if you need a nicotine alternative to help you make the break. It can make a measurable difference by easing the whole problem of withdrawal. It may be especially useful if you happen to smoke a lot and have already tried several times to give up smoking, but without ever being quite able to pull it off. If you use a nicotine alternative, be sure to use the stop smoking diet, too.

Get out a pad and pencil and start listing the reasons why you are anxious to stop smoking. Put down every single reason you can think of. Keep the pad, with the list attached, in a handy place where you can get at it at all times. If you think of still more reasons in the course of the next day or so, simply add them to the list. You will be surprised at how many reasons you can muster when you put your mind to it. Here are a few of the main ones that other people often give:

• There are such big health benefits — the greatly reduced risk of lung and other kinds of cancer, a heart attack, emphysema, other chronic diseases. With these benefits, you also have the prospect of many extra years of life, good healthy years. It makes a big difference when you can look forward to a longer, healthier lifespan.
• Being able to stop smoking gives you a greater sense of mastery over your own life. Instead of letting cigarettes get the better of you, you will be getting the better of cigarettes.
• You will also be setting a good example for all the people around you, especially the children, whether they are your own or those of relatives, friends, or neighbours. This is a tremendously important reason for giving up smoking, because it is so difficult to ask teenagers not to smoke when they see the adults around them puffing away.
• There are plenty of aesthetic benefits, as well. Cigarette smoke leaves a stale, unpleasant taste and smell in your mouth, your hair, your clothes, your office, your car, and every room and cupboard in your house.
• Just think of the money you will be saving — hundreds of pounds a year. Think, too, of what you would really like to spend that hard-earned money on. Make a list of all the things you want to buy.

Keep a careful stop smoking diary for at least one working day and one weekend day — say, Friday and Saturday. Be sure to keep track of each of these things:

At what time you have each cigarette.

How important each cigarette is. Score in this order:

1. Most important
2. Quite important
3. Not too important

Jot down two or three words to explain what you are doing at the time you have each cigarette — for example, the cigarette you have right after breakfast.

This smoking diary is essential. It helps you understand your individual smoking pattern. And it makes it much easier for you to reduce your smoking in a methodical manner when you start to taper off; you look at the diary each day and decide which of the remaining cigarettes is the one you can next give up most easily. In this way, you will be able to keep lowering the number of cigarettes you smoke daily, one at a time, with the diary to guide you.

If a person you live with — spouse, relative or friend — smokes, try to get that person to stop, too. This is extremely important. When you are together with someone who smokes, you are constantly exposed to the stimulus, and this makes it much more difficult to stop than it would be otherwise.