Aha!

   As silly as it may sound, for a very long time, I have struggled with the idea of men having feelings.  Obviously it makes sense when a man is sad about a family member dying or is happy because his team won the game. But whenever I hear a man say something about "it really hurt my feelings when...", I instantly think "Wha??? ..I didn't know you had feelings to hurt..What are you talking about??" The first time I remember seeing my Dad cry, I was surprised and confused because I honestly didn't know that men had the physical ability to cry. Crazy, right?
   Well I have started reading For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn-I'm 3 chapters in and already, you guys are making more sense to me! Chapter 2 has been my favorite so far-Your Love Is Not Enough: Why your respect means more to him than even your affection. A man would rather be respected by his wife than feel loved by her. My first reaction to this, as a woman, is "what does that even mean?? If I'm showing you I love you, obviously I respect you. Why is feeling respected more important than feeling loved?" Well, as I read and the author revealed answers to those questions, past conversations with men popped into my head.  My brother-in-law asked me one day, "Ari, why do you act like I don't know what I'm talking about?" I went home feeling like he was mad at me and I had no clue why! All I had done was told him that somebody had said something contrary to the advice he had given me. I wasn't at all saying "Frank, you have no clue what you're talking about. Thanks for the dumb advice." But after reading chapter 2, I'm guessing Frank probably felt like I didn't trust his judgement and therefore, he didn't feel respected by me.
   So then I'm thinking-well, geeeze! Where's the line in all of this?? How do I know if I've accidently disrespected a man?? To me, this is completely overwhelming and intimidating. I don't want to ever come across as disrespectful. And I don't want to walk on eggshells thinking I can't joke around with a guy. (P.S. Ladies-publicly teasing a guy can sometimes be a huge problamo. Be careful what you say/how you say it!)
   The chapter answers my questions: show him you trust and respect him by allowing him to do something without interfering-don't nag at him to get something done (he already knows!)-understand that your man is not stupid-and build him up! There were more points in the chapter-these are pretty big ones though. Anyway, after that chapter, the whole respect thing makes way more sense to me and I understand why it is so incredibly important to a man. Whether you're in a relationship or not, you need to read this book. And men-there's a For Men Only book too--I'm sure there's helpful insight on women in there :)