Girls, it’s your turn to have the men in your life get some advise about you! If you agree with any of these, you can sweetly suggest your man take a peek at this blog, or just share these with him. Hope you enjoy!

Four Things Every Man Needs To Know About Women

By Randy Carlson

To feel understood is to feel loved. And guys, one of the most precious gifts we can give our wives is a commitment to understand them with our whole heart. This kind of understanding requires a break from our traditional male comfort zone. It’s the challenge of consciously stepping aside from our male viewpoint and trying to see the female perspective. If you’re a man who can do this with ease, your wife is a blessed woman! For the rest of us, it’s a daily contest of resolve over selfishness.

The Apostle Peter reminds us that we are to live with our wives “with an attitude of understanding” (I Peter 3:7). The instruction is clear — get behind the eyes of your wife and you’ll get a fresh view of the world. Barriers to intimacy evaporate in the warmth of understanding and insight. Let me share with you four rules I have learned from peeking at the world from behind the eyes of one woman, my wife, Donna:

1. Every woman wants to feel secure with someone. The question is, does your wife feel secure with you?

Security is more than money in the bank and a two-week vacation every summer. If a woman feels even a hint of broken trust, then a rule of love is violated. She deserves to be number one on the list of your human priorities. Check in with her often and let her know there are no hidden secrets.

Donna is my top confidant and advisor. We don’t move on any important decision unless we agree before God. I have learned the hard way that God has given her spiritual and human insight I often miss on my own.

2. Every woman wants to be loved by someone. The question is, does your wife feel loved by you? Love is a decision of the will.

Here’s a guarantee: When you love your wife there will be periods of personal sacrifice as you focus your attention and concern on her needs. It’s the one + one = one intimacy principle that makes loving our spouses a great pleasure. In the long run every deposit of love we put into our marital bank accounts will come back to us with principle plus interest. The law of the harvest works in marriage. What we sow we reap.

3. Every woman wants to be needed by someone. The question is, does your wife feel needed by you?

God created people to need and be needed by one another. The powerful attraction a man and woman feel toward each other flows out of the reservoir of need. Early on in most relationships there is the, “I’ll meet your needs because you meet my needs” response. While that’s a low level of love, it is where most relationships start and, unfortunately, where some stay.

Over time, however, a growing marriage becomes an experience of, “I’ll meet your needs because I love you.” The “score-keeper” is replaced by a “love-keeper.”

4. Every woman wants to feel understood by someone. The question is, does your wife feel understood by you?

The fact is, your wife wants you to read her mind. If you’ve been married more than two weeks you’ve probably experienced the feeling of getting caught, not only on the wrong page, but also in the wrong book.

When teaching couples how to stay in love with each other, I remind them of this little intimacy formula: Reality – Expectations = Disappointment. True understanding begins with clarification, and if necessary, modification of expectations.

Over the years I’ve also discovered that we men are often guilty of misreading routine for satisfaction. We wrongly assume that without fire there is no heat, and miss the smoldering embers of frustration deep inside our spouse.

Violating most of these four rules is something we might get away with for awhile; but, not for long. Problems in the marital realm are much like the physical realm. Neglect over an extended time is costly. When we violate enough rules, enough times, the game is over – and we lose.

Illness or death to the physical body, and illness or death to the marital union, are each the result of neglect. Our marriage is a precious gift–one worth honoring and caring for.

Randy Carlson is the President of Family Life Communications Incorporated and Parent Talk Radio. Thanks to Patricia Possert for assisting with this article.