When Your Man Gets Upset About Money

Secret #3: He may not realize that money is not the only thing that matters to you

I know this sounds very weird, but bear with me. Deep in a man’s heart, there’s something that believes you primarily love him for what he can provide for you. As if being a great husband, great father, great listener, humorous story-teller, godly leader… none of that will matter to you if he doesn’t make enough money to provide the big house, the two-car garage, and the weekends at the lake.

In a man’s mind, “providing” means one thing: providing financially. Period. And for him, those hours of sweat and worry are a key way he feels he can say “I love you” to you and the other members of your household. To bring home the bacon, as they say, makes your husband feel worthy of you. So he sees you walking in the door with shopping bags as both an affirmation that he’s loving you well – and as confirmation that yep, this is what matters to her. He thinks, Okay, good to know: I have to keep the money churning along. So he takes more shifts at work, or stays more hours on the road, in order to do so.

Yet those extra hours often mean time away right when you most want him involved in the life of the family. What men often don’t realize (but we prove to them in the survey data of women from For Men Only) is that time, closeness, playing with the kids or being there to do the dishes usually matters just as much to women as all those extra things a man is working to provide financially. Guys have a hard time believing that we women mean it, but it is liberating once they grasp that we truly want them more than what they can provide. Which leads to our final secret.