When boys are young, and there are just other boys around, their mindset is, “Look what I can do!” “I can swing higher” or “I can do that too.. race ya.”
As girls it's “Should we play house or school?" "Why don’t we play house, one says, then turning to the other girls saying, 'is that okay with you'?" "Sure!"
Because of the male drive to succeed, meaning everything else is secondary. Little boys tend to use “I” “Look what I can do!” Boys are primed for independence, and that only gets stronger as they get older.
Little girls, on the other hand, typically are more relational using we or you. They decide things by committee getting everyone in on the decision.
In marriage, that’s why it's important for us to get our husband's opinion of things that are important to us, but not everything that is important to us is important to him. Sometimes men don’t have opinions, because what we are asking them doesn’t register high on their scale of what is important. It's not that our opinions aren’t important to them, but they don't see some of the things that are important to us as being important at all.
Boys are born competitive. They are determined to go after what they want, because of this competitive drive, the urge to be conqueror, and the craving to win. Your husband also desires immediate gratification, not down the road gratification. This is why he wants to tell you immediately about something he just nailed at work and what the boss says about it. Within every man there is a need to conquer, that’s why getting in the fast lane of life is so important. It's why he wants control of the remote. He has conquered something.
This focus seems very singular to women, but we don’t need to take it personally. It's not meant to be directed toward us, we just need to realize that our conqueror is conquering one task at a time.
Some men have a craving to win. To these men, life is about winning, to a woman it's about the journey along the way. This really is a compliment to us, as wives. We should be flattered. Your husband saw you as his prize to be won, and went for it, and got the gold medal.. you!
Men like to fix things. They like to tinker. They are wired to enjoy adventure, and its rarely safe. Men have big dreams, and tend to be visionary while our focus is inward. It's our job to be the ‘yes’ in their lives.
We can encourage the confidence our husbands need. When they see the risk, it's our yes that becomes the confidence. A quick definition of ‘manliness’ is confidence with a risk. That yes you can give is more powerful than any inborn belief they have about their own ability. A wife has the capacity to be a man's greatest assurance of all – simply by being his yes.
Although sometimes our man needs to be babied, we are not his mother! We aren’t there to discipline him or dictate his every movement. He is a man and we need to respect him as a man, respect his masculinity. He needs to be patted on the back. We need to be his boost of confidence, and most of all, he needs to know that you are on his side, that you are in his corner, regardless of what may come. By mothering our husbands, it oppresses his self-esteem, takes away manliness, and is being disrespectful of him. We need to encourage our husbands. We need to lift them up so that they feel respected and valued.
Next week, we will talk about the other woman in your man's life.. his mother. See you next Thursday.
Jeni Morelock
