Emotional Need #2: To know that they “did good.”
It may surprise us to know that men often have a secret question deep down: Am I any good at what I do? I want to be a good husband, a good father… but am I? In particular, many men subconsciously question whether they are good at what they do for you.
As a result, being affirmed in what they do is far more emotionally powerful than we realize. Not long ago, a man at a marriage conference told me and Jeff, “There’s something in me that just wants to hear, ‘You know that way you handled the kids this afternoon? You done good.’”
The problem is: our research for The Kindness Challenge discovered that most of us don’t actually say words of affirmation as often as we think we do. Affirming your husband in the way he longs to hear is likely to be very meaningful to him – and to the relationship.
So how do we do that, in a practical sense? One key way is outlined in the next section.
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