A big deal is always made about what women need and want, and what men need and want. What we need and want as a gender is thought to be different than the needs of the opposite sex. Women want romance and affection and mushiness; men want sex and food and time alone with the tv remote. Women need romantic sex and men need is on a purely carnal level. Women want less sex than men. Over the course of three marriages, however, and along with the help of informal interwebz observations and relationships with men and women both, I've learned that this is complete bullshit. The lines between genders are really blurred when it comes to both our emotional and sexual needs.
It's a lie, the idea that men would just as soon skip the date, the roses, the eye contact. Men get the same high women do, when they're in love. They need the same emotional connection that comes with intimacy. Sometimes, they, too, just need to be held. There have been nights after an argument where Greg and I have gone to bed not mad, but disgruntled. Both of us felt inadequate and less than wanted. All I wanted, in those moments, was for my husband to roll over and pull me close and hold me and reassure me. But he never did. Why? Not because he didn't want to, apparently. Apparently, it was because he needed the same from me! I would occasionally reach out and touch him, briefly, hoping he'd know how much I needed him to come hold me, and while I was doing it, he was hoping I would come closer and hold him.
Men, as much as women, need to feel safe. They need to be able to cry in front of you. They need to be able to unload their worries. They need their wives to listen. They need to be able to trust you enough to open up to you. They need to know you're not going to tell your mom or your sister or your best friend or hell, maybe even your cat. Just like women, sometimes men don't want their problem fixed, they just need you to listen. Sometimes that IS the fix.
On the other hand, I can tell you how much I like control of the remote now and then. I like Tosh.0 just fine, but what if I want to watch desperate housewife reruns? And sex. I crave just as much -- maybe more -- as Greg. I am somewhat insatiable. It doesn't vary by week of the month and it doesn't stop when I'm angry or stressed or in pain of any kind (except this one time I had a toothache and all I wanted was for someone to shoot me). It's like a bandaid. It helps destress. It helps me feel connected. Orgasms are really good, too, of course, and Greg's never failed to satisfy (he really might kill me for this entire paragraph) but my main need is to be as physically close as I can get. I'm like an alcoholic, self medicating with my addiction. And I'm obsessed. But sometimes... Sometimes it really is all about the damn orgasm. Or three... however many can be had, women want them. Sometimes it doesn't really matter who is giving said orgasms. You just neeeeed them. It's not about connection, just frantic, hard sex. Both sexes need all aspects; the romantic need and the biological need.
I've learned what bullshit it is, the idea that "men want to be respected and women want to be loved" in a relationship. Of course men want to be respected, but they also want to feel loved. They need you to tell them, unrestrained, how much you appreciate them and how the things they do make your heart swell. They like love letters. Mushy ones. They appreciate cards on random days that just tell them you love them. Wax poetic. He'll love it. I promise.
It is important for a woman to feel loved, but guys, we want to feel respected, too. We want to know that you notice a job well done. We need you to acknowledge that we worked our asses off to clean/remodel/cook/get promoted/get an A in that bitch of a math class we had to take/got out of the store with all three of the same kids we brought in, and not only that, they're alive. We want you to listen attentively to our days' details as if hearing us out and understanding our viewpoints is the most important thing in the world. We need you to not laugh if we miss a point or don't understand something, just like you. Who likes to be laughed at?
Give, all of yourself, as good as you'd like to get it. A relationship's quality and ability to last is entirely dependent on both consistent emotional and physical needs being met, and on mutual love and requited respect.
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