Have a New Husband by Friday (19 page)

It happens in marriage all the time. Men and women speak different languages and have different love languages. If you don’t understand what your husband’s is, you could be working at cross-purposes, like the farmer and the chairman, and frustrating each other needlessly.

Do you ever get frustrated with not knowing how best to love your man? Many of you probably are familiar with the wonderful work a colleague of mine, Gary Chapman, has done on the five love languages. His book
The Five Love Languages
3
highlights the fact that each of us receives and gives love differently.

Now, is your husband going to wake up in the morning and just announce to you what his love language is? No, but it’s easy to figure out. It’s what he complains about, such as “You never . . .” or “You always . . .” or “I don’t get to . . .” Men (okay, me too) are known to whine like little puppies when their feet are stepped on.

Chapman says there are five distinct love languages. Let me summarize them for you.

Words of Affirmation

Does your guy excel at paying sincere compliments and offering encouraging words? Does he always have something nice to say about your appearance, talents, achievement, or attitude? If this is your guy’s love language, wonderful. You’ll get more compliments than the average wife, and they’ll be truly meant.

Quality Time

Does your guy show his love by simply being there, spending time with you? Note that there’s a difference between simply taking up space next to you on the couch and really engaging when he’s sitting next to you. If your husband’s love language is quality time, he loves it when you do things together. That’s when he feels most fulfilled. Quality-time people are continual daters. I should know, because quality time is my love language. I just love spending time with Sande.

Ask Dr. Leman

Q:
I can’t stand it anymore. All he ever does is watch TV. I married a couch potato. Any hope for getting him to do anything else?

Angela, Arizona

A:
First question: was he like that when you married him? Some guys have a low libido and low energy. Some are downright lazy and don’t want to pull their weight. If you married one of those, then . . . well, you married him. What else can I say? You should have seen it coming. But if you’ve noticed your husband becoming more of a couch potato over the years, something else could be happening.

Second question: is your guy discouraged in his work? A lot of guys hate the jobs they go to every day, but they go because they have to. Little by little they grow more and more discouraged, thinking,
This is not what I signed up for.
So they begin to tune out life, and TV becomes their life. They are fixated on
Popular Mechanics
like it’s the only thing in their world.

Third question: does he know his presence matters in your world, or does he feel unimportant or left out? Many men live in Lonelyville. He needs you much more than you’d ever think.

Fourth question: did your guy used to be attentive, open doors for you, write you notes, send you flowers, or do any other affectionate things? If he did, something has happened in your relationship. Life and your marriage isn’t working out for him the way he thought it would.

You need to touch your husband, look him in the eyes, and say, “Honey, I’m sensing that you’re tuning out life because you’re discouraged. Do you feel that way?” That’s the best way to start addressing your situation. But you have to do it in a gentle, nonthreatening manner or you’ll cause your husband to shut down further.

Gifts

This is my wife’s love language. It’s easy to spot with Sande. She just loves giving people gifts, and she’s very good at it. It gives her great joy to do so. She also loves to receive meaningful gifts, which means I have to give them.

Giving isn’t a matter of money. It’s a matter of interest—to let you know he’s thinking of you during the day. A rose left on your pillow as he lets you sleep in says it all. It’s a token of his feelings of love for you. Other gifts can be ones of adventure, such as going on a romantic picnic or skydiving (something you’ve dreamed of doing for years).

Acts of Service

Many people see love in terms of doing things for others. The rub with this love language comes because often couples don’t agree on what each of their responsibilities are—who should do what. Doing what you’re supposed to do doesn’t gain you any acts-of-service points. You get those points when you do what isn’t expected of you, just because you love your spouse. An example of acts of service would be your husband clearing the snow off your car for you each morning so you don’t have to, or carrying the heavy laundry basket up the stairs.

Physical Touch

This is my other love language—just ask my wife. I’m a toucher, and I love to be a touchee. By physical touch, I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about kisses, hand holding, bear hugs, and back rubs. All the things that make us physical-touch people happy. If your husband’s love language is physical touch, he will not feel fulfilled or loved unless he has it—a lot of it.

So what does your husband whine about? That’s the key to his love language.

Does he say you never say anything nice about him? Complain that you never write him sweet notes anymore? Then he’s a words-of-affirmation man. Sweet words affirm his masculinity. They give him an “Attaboy, you did good. You really pleased me.” He needs to hear that you’re so lucky to have a man like him as husband, lover, and friend.

Does he complain about the fact that he never has you alone? That you’re so involved in your kids’ lives that he can’t remember the last time you took a weekend together? Then he’s shouting at you that he’s a quality-time person. Will you take the time to invest in marriage and your mate, or will you continue on the fast track and put him on the back burner? (I can guarantee you that men won’t tolerate being put on the back burner for very long.)

Does your husband say, “Well, last year you got me new golf clubs. This year I got a bath towel for my birthday”? Then he’s a give-me-gifts type of guy.

Does he say, “You used to make me homemade pancakes for breakfast on Tuesdays, and you never do anymore”? There’s your clue. He’s an acts-of-service guy.

Does he complain that you never have sex anymore? If so, he’s screaming in your ear, “Touch me, make love to me, pursue me.” He’s a physical-touch kind of guy.

Can you have more than one love language? Definitely. I’m both a quality-time and a physical-touch kind of guy. Sande is a gift-giving and an acts-of-service kind of gal. So why not take another step toward understanding your husband and identify his love language?

What to Do on Thursday

1. Kiss him. Not the peck-on-the-cheek kind, but the I-want-you kind.

2. Play sleuth. Observe your husband. What makes him feel most loved? How can you tell?

3. Say “I love you” in the way that means the most to him.

4. Take a risk. Step out of your comfort zone. Surprise him. (I’ll leave that to your imagination.)

I’ll Say It Again: Men Are as Dumb as Mud

By the time I asked Sande to marry me, my sister was married and living in another city. My brother was in grad school. No one pulled me aside and said, “This is how you ask a woman to marry you.” I had no clue I was supposed to do something romantic—like take her to a five-fork restaurant. So you know what I did? I gave Sande her engagement ring in a field behind my parents’ home.

I think back now and shake my head. How dumb I was. Holy crow. I’m glad she said yes.

More than 40 years of marriage later, I’ve learned a lot about romance. I have the best teacher in the world—my wife, Sande.

You see, a man by nature is a lousy lover. He doesn’t understand women; he doesn’t know where to start understanding women. He needs you to be the gentle lover who leads him along the way and loves him unconditionally. If you do that, you’ll have a husband who comes home and cooks dinner when you have the flu, even if he can make only boxed macaroni and cheese. He’ll be the daddy who doesn’t mind that the kids adhere to him like honey, and he’ll wrestle them while you make dinner. He’ll be the one who helps you problem solve the program on the computer, the one who muscles the garbage cans out to the driveway. He’ll do dishes in the kitchen with no complaints. He’ll rub your back when you ask him, and he’ll look at you with love in his eyes.

Now, I ask you, what woman wouldn’t want that?

All you need to do is a little clapping, a little encouraging, and your seal will perform to his highest abilities. Just don’t forget the three-pound fish at the end for his reward. Take him into your bedroom, lock the door, and give him all you’ve got.

That’s how you get a new husband by Friday—and you’ll be a much happier wife too.

Friday
It Takes a Real Woman
to Make a Man Feel Like a Real Man

How to open your man’s heart, revolutionize your love life, and turn him into the knight you’ve always dreamed of.

I recently had a conversation with the mom of a fourth-grade girl who wasn’t like anyone else in her class. “In my class,” the girl told her mom, “there’s the Pink Bow girls, who like dolls and dressing up and pretending they’re married, and the Hannah Montana girls, who like to pretend they’re rock stars. I don’t fit in either of those groups. I like to play with the boys so much more. They tell you what they think and don’t mess around.” That same girl (all 50 pounds of her) was the only girl who would play football with the third- to fifth-grade boys after school.

As the whole group huddled, do you know what those boys who knew her said?

Matt said, “No tackling the girl, got it?”

“Yeah,” Corey chimed in. “Only one finger allowed on her.”

Those tough boys not only allowed that girl to play, but they enjoyed playing with her. But here’s what’s interesting: they automatically served as her protectors, her heroes. Did anyone tell them to do that? No, but that was how they were wired. “Protect the girl” is what innately registered in the coprocessors of their brain. They didn’t want her to get hurt.

When the girl took the ball and ran with it, all the boys cheered her on. And when they picked teams again, all the boys wanted her on their side. (And this is at an age where boys punch girls to get their attention if they like them.)

Isn’t that what you want? A protector? A hero who wants you on his side? Just like those little boys were self-proclaimed protectors of that little girl, your husband (still a boy at heart in a grown-up body) wants to protect you and be your knight—even if you do need to polish his armor from time to time to keep it at its shining best.

Men often run silent, but they run deep, to quote an old movie title. They take in information you give them, mull it over, and analyze it logically from every vantage point they can find. That’s also part of their provider and protector instinct. It’s just the nature of the beast.

Roll Over, Beethoven, Ms. America Has Arrived!

There are some sensitive areas in this book that you might not like to hear, and this will be one of them. How do I know you might not like what I’m going to say next? Because I’m a veteran of speaking in front of audiences nationwide, and the response is always the same. I’ve been on
The View
talking about sex. I’ve been in places where wise men never go. As the old song by Brook Benton says, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Yup, that’s me.

Some women bristle at the thought of putting their husband first because they feel that puts them in an inferior position.

Usually there are very good reasons for women to feel this way. (A lot of it has to do with how Daddy treated them; and let’s face it, men have wiped their feet on women for centuries, so there’s some history here.) But that doesn’t mean they have to feel like that. And thinking that way won’t help their marriage.

Let me recap what we talked about earlier in the book. Clearly men and women are not the same, but they're of equal social value. When you put your husband first, you're not making yourself a doormat. You're playing the game smart. An NFL coach recently said on camera, "I'm not sure we have the best athletes in the league, but I think we have the smartest athletes in the league." Interestingly, at the time of this writing, that team and that coach are undefeated in the NFL.

Some women bristle at the thought of putting their husband first because they feel that puts them in an
inferior position.

In the marriage game, you have to play smart. You have to push aside your socially conditioned responses and indignations. If you continue to think,
Why is it my job to make the first move? Why should I put him first? What is this, caveman logic?
you might as well pull the plug now, since you’re going to be a divorce statistic. You have to set aside your girlfriends’ incredulity: “You’re doing
what
for Bob?”

Think of it this way. Apply the simple (but not easy) principles in this book. Give him a little bit and just watch what he gives you back. He’s driven to be the provider. He wants to make you happy, to please you in all things. But you have to make him feel important, special, needed, wanted, affirmed, loved, respected, and fulfilled. Your happy, fulfilled husband will knock himself out to be a good husband to you.

You’re a strong woman, a decision maker. You can do eight things at a time with a speed that makes your husband jealous—and a bit intimidated. You even make a wicked PB and J (without the crust) for your firstborn child. So why do you feel threatened, used, or second-class in any way?

Women today wear so many different hats—surgeons, pilots, stay-at-home moms, teachers. They even start publishing companies in their homes. There’s no limit to what a woman can do today. And with that seemingly limitless freedom has come one of the biggest dangers to marriage: the “What’s in it for me?” question.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

If you want to have a new husband by Friday, you need to understand the tremendous effect you have on your husband. The words you say, the way you touch him, the respect you give him, the way you listen to him—all those things influence your husband greatly.