What Men Want

// October 3rd, 2007 // Family Life

LoveHeather and I are doing a pair of posts on what women and men want within the context of marriage. Heather started off yesterday by mentioning the “love languages” and how they have been helpful for us. I completely agree, with one caution. How we love and receive love from others can be distorted by our experiences and our hurts.

When we first took the love language test I found that my language was “receiving/giving gifts”. But really, that was an expression of a core belief I had that God wouldn’t provide for me. That I had to provide for myself, or someone else had to do it for me. The result was that I had a hidden and unrealistic expectation of Heather to fill a need that only God could fill. (you can guess how that worked out for me!) As God began to heal me of that, my love language changed. Or rather, my real personality was uncovered in this area. Now I would consider my primary love language to be “words of affection”.

So all that to say, we have to be careful not to ever think we have our spouse totally figured out…

Here’s my list of things I (and perhaps most men) want:

  • Don’t make us guess. We really don’t know why you’re mad. No clue at all. Just tell us straight out, we’ll feel REALLY REALLY bad, repent of our wicked ways and then do whatever you ask for at least an hour. Or until we get distracted.
  • Don’t ask us to go to the store and purchase feminine products for you. I don’t believe that God or John Wayne would approve of any man going into a store and being forced to ask a sales person which one to get. A humiliated husband is FAR LESS LIKELY to be willing to take out the trash in a timely manner.
  • You may think all men’s primary love language is sex. That isn’t true at all. Really. For us, it’s about the snuggling. Really. I mean it.
  • Respect me. Not like you respect your Daddy or Josh Groban (speaking of, we ALL hate Josh Groban). But respect me like, “I’m the man of your dreams and if Brad Pitt was available, saved, and had never made the movie “Alexander” you’d still pick me without hesitation. You think I can fix anything and find my excess hair to be sexy.”
  • We want to be known as much as you do. Even though we act like emotionally vapid kuckleheads most of the time, we still have the same desire to be known by you as we really are. Push us for that. Dig for it. It’s what we really want.
  • Put the lid on the toothpaste. This is really just an aside directed at Heather. This has little to do with what Men want and more to do with COMMON SENSE. Heather, could you put the lid on the toothpaste? It gets all dried out and plugged and I spend 10 minutes every morning digging it out. Thanks.


As the prophet Jerry Springer once said, “Be good to each other, and yourselves.”

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