Posted on 01/20/2008 9:42:43 PM PST by Bear_Slayer
Now obviously I can't speak for every male, but I feel qualified to speak in general terms.
This is aimed at the married woman, but is applicable to the woman that is involved in a long term relationship.
Learn these things and you might get your relationship to last. Ignore them at your peril.
1. He is not your zit. Stop picking at him.
Women love to pick at zits. They'll sneak up on you while you're shaving and start squeezing. It's an annoying habit they can't break. They also do this emotionally and intellectually. This is done when they ask us silly questions like:
"Do you love me because you need me, our need me because you love me?"
The fact is we love you and need you. Beyond that, we have no idea. Some invisible rock hit us in the head one day and we realized we can't live without you, until you drive us insane, then we can't live with you.
Similar questions are along the lines of, "Do these pants make my butt look big?"
The fact is, you have a big butt and your butt makes those pants look big. Another fact: we don't care. When the invisiable rock hit us, it didn't clue us in that you had a big butt; it simply made us aware of the fact, "Girl nice. Me like girl, lot."
I knew a woman once that had a big butt. She wasn't even the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but the invisible rock was huge and I would have crawled through broken glass to be with her if she were single.
You have a big butt. Get over it. If you are constantly aware of your own big butt, you will make us constantly aware of it and you don't want that.
2. It's ok for him to compare you to his mother, as in, "That's not how my mother does it."
The fact is our mother is the only significant woman that ever loved us, until you came along. She fed, bathed, dress, nurtured, encouraged and loved us -- and we like how our mom made our potatos, cookies, &etc. Don't change the recipe. We like it that way. There is nothing Freudian about it.
3. Don't expect a deep relationship and don't try to draw us into meaningful conversations.
We're not comfortable exploring our inner feelings. Most guys don't trust their feelings and the smarter ones recognize that its their feelings that got them into the relationship in the first place.
Do you want a meaningful relationship? Go sip lattes with your friends and explore each other's cavernous feelings. It's a level you can all relate to and prop one another up.
4. Don't trust everything your girlfriend tells you.
Just because they read it in Redbook or Ms. does not make it so. Those magazines are written by women, for women, that grew up on Danielle Steele.
And don't ask us. We don't know and we're not that complicated anyways. If you simply watch us, without over-analyzing you'll figure us out. At a basic level we eat, we sleep, we copulate, and we play sports. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily at different times.
5. You don't always have to be talking.
Men can communicate through subtle mechanisms. It's how we know when a woman likes us, or when the guy across the bar is looking for a fight, etc.
6. Don't make us carry you through life.
We're trying to get through it also. We'll be happy to stand in front and take some of the blows, but listen, carry your own baggage. We got our own to deal with.
Lastly,
When the big rock hit us, it really didn't matter what you looked like on the outside. Love is blind. We fell in love with the way your eyes twinkle when you smile. When you giggle when we say something silly or funny. And yes, even the way your breasts look in that tight sweater. However, none of that will matter ever again if you screw it up by driving us insane.
I don’t understand either.
Oddly, some folks never give any positive indication that they do.
How the heck is the spouse supposed to figure that (s)he is loved, if all (s)he ever hears is negative blather?
I pity your poor wife/girlfriend.
That you had to post this to a public forum instead of having a private chat with the person you intend to build a “lasting relationship” is telling.
To Women:
If you find a guy like this - RUN!
LOL. Or Micheal Kinsley...
One of the reasons I ‘turned conservative’ is the romantic notion that conservative men really loved their women and were faithful to them. While liberal men were ‘all about me and my needs’ and quicker to screw around and lie to their wives.
Great thread! Some very well expressed and poignant posts...and funny ones (the List from 1950 is a hoot!) There maybe political issues we can resolve, but I bet this same thread would be as timely in 20 years as it is today...human nature doesn’t really ever change. PaMom
And just remember, conservative men usually have jobs too and get off the couch, except in Sundays in fall of course.
I only explaniation I can think of is that it is generational.
LOL!
Allow me my weekends in off with girlfriends and my 2 weeks in Egypt in June/July.
CIB-173RDABN summed it up nicely in his post. That’s what it SHOULD be.
Your complaint on an earlier post; “leave my stuff alone,” is not exclusive as men messing with women’s things (in general). You’ll find many men here saying the exact same thing.
Perhaps the guy who threw away your CD was just a jerk and a control freak. A lot of guys have had women do the exact same thing to them. They’ll likely tell you “she was a ‘jerk’ and a control freak.”
Find a guy who respects you. While your at it, find a guy you respect and treat him with respect. Doing this would solve a lot of relationship problems.
Marry her, and come and talk to us in 8 years.
IF you keep up pampering her; she will be able to keep pampering you. If you get to think, "She just loves doing this, so I can stop," she's gonna' get tired of it.
I recommend that both of you read, His Needs; Her Needs. It would make a great marriage contract for the kind of woman she currently seems to be.
No matter how wonderful she seems to be now....
And yet a lot of women are praising him for posting it. Go figure!
You're dating girls...not women.
We had some new friends we had started to hang out with. He was ex-LAPD, she was the classic abused wife. He would say such hateful things to her in front of us.
One day I told him if he couldn't be kind to the mother of his children in our presence, he was no longer welcomed in our home. (I swear that is what I said).
We are no longer friends with this couple.
Political philosophy and religious preference may be a good predictor of personal character, but is not a guarantee.
Color me “stumped”.
You forgot "Respect yourself and don't settle for being treated with disrespect."
If the woman in your example respected him and respected herself she would never tolerate the life she's living.
I tell my wife of 25 years, "I love you", each night before sleep. I do it because if I die in my sleep, that's the last words out of my mouth I want her to hear and remember.
I give her a kiss each time before I leave the house because, if I die while gone, that's the last thing I want her to remember me doing. Even if she's still sleeping when I get up and go to work, I kiss her in her sleep. She knows I did.
Absolutely...you are correct. There is a postscript to this story. The husband had an affair with another woman in our circle of friends. It was scandalous. They both left their spouses, but after one day, the woman came to her senses and went back to her husband...having no place to go, the ex-lapder went back to his wife who TOOK HIM BACK! Can you imagine? Any respect or empathy I had for the wife was gone...I figured they deserved each other but I did not want any of them in my life. So it goes...
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