Читать книгу What Women Want Men To Know - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 7

First and foremost, this book is for you as a woman to read. It wasn’t written just to help men understand you – it is an invitation for you to know and understand yourself more than you ever have before. After all, if you don’t quite understand why you feel the things you feel, do the things you do, and need the things you need, you will have a difficult time explaining these parts of your being to the men in your life. And if we are honest, we must confess that sometimes we wonder about ourselves as women: Are we “normal”? Is what we expect and hope for “too much”? Are our men right when they accuse us of being “too sensitive, too needy”? In truth, we don’t always know and fathom ourselves as deeply as we claim to, and this lack of knowledge results in the destructive habits of self-criticism, self-doubt, and low self-esteem.

What Women Want Men to Know will reveal to you and to the men who read it that there are intelligent, loving reasons behind all the things you do and feel. There is a reason we call a man five times until we get through; a reason we feel terrible when he shuts down when we try to find out what’s bothering him; a reason we love to plan time with our mate, and become anxious when he avoids committing to scheduling in advance. The reason is not that we are neurotic, or weak, or insecure. The reason, simply put, is that we are women, and what drives us and defines us is uniquely different from what drives and defines men. As you will see in the following chapters, our needs and behaviors as women only appear to be mysterious or confusing when we don’t understand our true nature.

This is one of my purposes in writing this book, so that as women we can understand ourselves more and judge ourselves less, so that we can honor and celebrate our unique capacity to feel deeply, to love with uninterrupted focus, and to cherish connection over separation. When you have this kind of confidence and deep comprehension of yourself as a woman, you will have a much better chance of being able to communicate your needs and emotions to the man in your life. Of course, this still isn’t a guarantee that you will always get the response you want, but at least you will have an advantage in that you will be able to give men something they appreciate and feel comfortable with when addressing a problem: a logical explanation.

Here’s what I mean: Imagine that you’re trying to communicate to your husband why you would like him to commit to planning more specific activities in advance with you and your children on the weekends, rather than always waiting until the last minute. You feel his resistance to this idea, his rebellion against feeling pinned down, and he responds by saying, “I don’t get what the big deal is about. Why do you always want to have things planned out all the time? Why can’t you be more spontaneous?”

Think for a moment – what would your answer be? Do you actually know why planning things in advance is so important to you, not just logistically but emotionally? Would you know how to express this to him? Much of the time, we aren’t sure why we want and need the things we do, and we reply to a man’s reluctance with vague statements like: “I can’t explain it,” or “Isn’t it enough that I tell you it’s important to me?” or, when we are really frustrated, “Just forget it – you obviously don’t care about how I feel.”

Believe it or not, your man is listening, but he is probably listening from his head, and not from his emotions. Your lack of what he considers a logical explanation leaves him to conclude, consciously or unconsciously, that there is no logical explanation for these needs of yours, that they are just another example of the way women get needy or whiney, and are never satisfied. Without information that can satisfy his brain, your partner may have a difficult time opening his heart to doing what it takes to make you happy. Instead, he will often dismiss your needs or requests as whimsical, irrational, and not deserving of serious attention.

Throughout this book, I’ve not only detailed what women want regarding love, intimacy, communication, and sex but WHY we want it, WHY it is important to us, WHY, because of who we are as women, certain kinds of behaviors from our male partners fulfill our most profound and essential needs. These explanations are just as important for you to understand as they are for men, and the information you’ll gain will make it much easier for you to successfully communicate with the person you love. So before you give this book to the man you love, please read and understand it for yourself!