Why does my husband seem so ‘fragile’?”
The words hung there on the jumbo screens during a live, interactive segment of a marriage conference I led with Jeff last year. Other audience members typed similar anonymous questions, which popped up onto the screen in real-time:
- “Why does he view helpful ideas at home as criticism?”
- “Why does he shut down in an argument?”
The audience skewed pretty young (probably 90% were in their twenties and young thirties), but these young wives and fiancés were asking age-old questions. Two pretty important misunderstandings that Jeff and I see at every event where we do this sort of anonymous Q&A were surfacing.
Based on nationally representative research for my bestselling book For Women Only—and from interviews and surveys with more than 20,000 men over the years—I’ve been able to peer deep into the inner lives of men. And here, according to the research, are two fundamental misunderstandings that were driving their questions:
- Misunderstanding #1: Men are prideful and have a big ego, so they can’t stand to be questioned
- Misunderstanding #2: Men avoid issues by checking out
Wives, underneath these assumptions and misunderstandings there are some really, important truths about what is going on inside our men that we have to grasp in order to know what to do about it.
What’s really going on
First, I’ll summarize quickly what’s driving these two sensitive areas, then get to the actions that will transform the situation.
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