On Marriage..

While we're on the topic of marriage,

I just finished this book, For Women Only:

I was split on some of the things I read. She surveyed thousands of husbands and the book is her findings and advice. There were good stuff:

7 Revelations:

Our surface understanding: "Men need Respect"

What that means in practice: "Men would rather feel unloved than inadequate and disrespected.

Our surface understanding: "Men are insecure"

What that means in practice: "Despite their in control exterior, men often feel like imposters and are insecure that their inadequacies will be discovered"

Our surface understanding: "Men are providers"

What that means in practice: "Even if you personally made enough money to support the family's lifestyle, it would make no difference to the mental burden he feels to provide.

Our surface understanding: "Men want more sex"

What that means in practice: "Your sexual desire for your husband profoundly affects his sense of well-being and confidence in all areas of his life."

Our surface understanding: "Men are visual"

What that means in practice: "Even happily married men struggle with being pulled toward live and recollected images of other women"

Our surface understanding: "Men are unromantic clods"

What that means in practice: "Actually, most men enjoy romance (sometimes in different ways) and want to be romantic-but hesitate because they doubt they can succeed.

Our surface understanding: "Men care about appearance"

What that means in practice: "You don't need to be a size 3, but your man does need to see you making the effort to take care of yourself-and he will take on significant cost or inconvenience in order to support you"

I was feeling fine until I got to the end. That's when I realized the book was ALL about the man, the man, the man. I remember clearly the days when I had little infants and toddlers to take care of and how HARD it was to give attention to my husband and take care of his needs to. My own needs weren't being met. I never did figure out how to get over that when my kids were little, but thankfully now that I'm out of that stage in my life, I have been able to focus on strenthening our relationship. I'm not physically burned out by the attention that little children that rely solely on you for their survival need.

So, even though I KNEW all this stuff even back then, I didn't know how and where to come up with the ENERGY to do it all.

So, what do you think, any suggestions to those Mom's still out there dealing with trying to focus on their relationship while at the same time as raising her little ones?

I think the author has a book called "For Men Only" about us women...I might go read it to get a well rounded look at things...