Do you know the most common concern I hear from women who come to me for relationship counseling?
It can be summed up in 6 words: “If only I could understand men.”
It always baffles me that women think men are such a mystery, because I believe men are simple creatures with simple wants and needs.
In comparison, women are significantly more complex and harder to figure out.
I say this not just because I happen to be a man, but because I’ve done relationship counseling with both women and men. And I can tell you, the men have a far more daunting challenge trying to understand women.
Still, women the world over constantly struggle to understand men. They find it frustrating that they can’t climb inside a man’s head and see what he’s really thinking when he acts the way he does. “That would make life so much easier,” they sigh.
Isn’t it amazing that so many of the bestselling books on how to attract a man are written by women? And yet more women than ever are having relationship troubles. Go figure.
The Worst Advice Comes From…
This brings me to women asking each other for opinions about how to fix their relationships, or turning to women’s magazines for answers.
I’ve seen far too many women spend hours with their girlfriends, psychoanalyzing men to death, trying to figure them out, and missing the mark.
I don’t wish to discredit anyone, but the truth remains: when women give other women advice, they give it in a way another woman can swallow. They sugarcoat the pill into something palatable.
When a woman is dumped, cheated on, or hurt, her friends comfort her with words like…
- “It’s his loss.”
- “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
- “The right man will come along when it’s supposed to happen.”
Those are comforting words. But they give her nothing she can actually do to avoid being treated that way again. Or better still, nothing that shows her how to make a man cherish, love, and stay devoted to her.
I can’t really blame women, though. Most don’t know the truth about men. And the ones who do usually find it hard to accept.
What He Says He Likes Isn’t Always What He Likes
Here is something most women never get told.
What a man says he wants and what actually pulls him in are often two different things. Ask him and he’ll point to the tallest, the prettiest, the easiest to be around. Then watch who he can’t stop thinking about, and it’s someone else entirely.
The woman he can’t get out of his head isn’t always the most striking one in the room. She has something quieter that he craves and can’t quite name.
This is why a woman needs to understand men better than men understand themselves. Most men are a little clueless about their own hearts. We don’t spend the day analyzing our feelings the way you do.
So rather than complaining about how men are, wouldn’t it be easier to understand what makes a man tick, and use it to your benefit?
The Four Types Of Men
Once you stop lumping all men together, things get a lot clearer. In my experience there are four types, and knowing which one you’re dealing with changes everything.
The good man. He knows how to be in a relationship and he means to treat a woman well. He’s at the top of the heap. When you find him, lean in.
The clueless man. He doesn’t always know the right thing to do, but his heart is in the right place. He’s a work in progress, and he’s usually worth your patience.
The difficult man. He has drama, baggage, or habits that keep getting in the way. He may mean well, but his life always seems to complicate things, and he treats a woman well only some of the time, if at all.
The toxic man. He’s charming and he knows exactly what he’s doing. He treats you just well enough to keep you around, and no better. You’ll see it in how he speaks to you when no one’s watching.
There’s also the emotionally unavailable man, who can be any of the four but simply won’t make a real connection with you, even while he acts like he wants one.
The point isn’t to grade men like a report card. It’s to be honest about who is standing in front of you, so you stop pouring your heart into a man who was never going to pour his back.
Use A Man’s Tendencies For Your Benefit
The secret is to accept men as they are, celebrate them, and like them in spite of how different they are from you.
Once you accept a man instead of resisting him, instead of calling him a jerk or worse, you can use his natural tendencies in your favor.
Men are bigger and stronger than women, so you can’t fight a man with force and expect to win. But with feminine softness, you can harness a man’s strength and turn it toward you. That’s when you have the upper hand in the relationship.
And here is the part most women miss. You cannot control or change a man. You can only control yourself.
So the real work isn’t figuring out how to fix him. It’s knowing what kind of man fits your life, accepting the one who does exactly as he is, and letting him feel how good it is to be near you.
That is a woman’s power to love. And once you understand it, men stop being a mystery.
