By Keith Oxenrider
Because most men appear to be totally befuddled by women and incapable of figuring out why, after giving their wife (I will focus on ‘wife’ even though this advice should be considered marital state and gender neutral as long as you are in a committed relationship) everything they ask for they are still miserably unhappy and have a woman that might generously be called an evil harpy determined to drive you into an early grave, I have created this page to give these poor fellows a fighting chance to achieve, if not happiness, at least contentment. Even if this isn’t a totally 100% accurate description of your marriage, you might still be able to learn some techniques that can not only lead to a happier ‘you’ who gets laid more often (lets face it, most guys got married with the entire intent to have regular sex, right?) but you can wind up with a wife who no longer treats you nasty and who actually treats you like the partner you started out to be before you said ‘I do’.
This web page started out as a book idea with a friend but due to circumstances and events died after a while, so I cleaned it up a bit and stuck it on my web site for the heck of it.
The hen pecked door mat who slavishly does everything his wife asks, yet who is constantly put down, denigrated, despised and hated for doing so. Also, the guy who is happily married except for that one little thing: getting laid more often. Guys are crude beings with a simple black and white outlook and spend the vast majority of life thinking with the little head (when they are not thinking with their stomach) and most women just cannot comprehend that simple fact. Women, on the other hand, live in an intense emotional world where subtle differences matter and the universe is in shades of gray and sex is often the last thing they think about (way after eating and we all know they barely seem to eat). The funny thing is, to keep the species going these two wildly different groups of people need to come together long enough to reproduce and bring children into adulthood. This page intends to provide a road map to make the process of reproducing and bringing children into adulthood a happier and satisfying one.
Though the focus of this book is men, I include a couple of chapters specifically targeting women. I hope that if women do read this book that they can also work toward an even handed partnership more easily by understanding how guys think.
At the end of this book I hope you will be able to take away some coping skills that can be turned into habits that can allow you to achieve partnership with your wife so you can both be satisfied in your relationship. Ultimately I am hoping you will morph from hen pecked door mat to full fledged partner on an equal footing, though naturally that will mean your wife will need to cede some power. However, as I hope to explain, she has been demanding to give up this power for years, perhaps decades, but you were too clueless to pick up on her subtle signals no matter how loud she shouted them at you.
Though there is a huge amount of information available for teaching guys how to develop the mental tools to pick up ‘chicks’, there isn’t a whole lot for guys who have tied the knot or otherwise committed to a monogamous relationship. While this material is based in part on information gleaned from the world of the pick up artist, it is not intending to teach you anything about that. I presume you are interested in continuing your committed monogamous relationship, just want it to be a happier one where you get laid more often.
Guys are simple organisms, they want to eat, sleep and have sex. The main reason most guys get married is so they have the ability to regularly engage in sexual congress with a woman they find attractive. Sure, we sugar coat it a lot and rationalize, but guys really don’t want to put the toilet seat down, pick up their underwear or stop scratching their belly with their fork while eating dinner, which is exactly what we do when we are single. In order to give up those small joys we need joys to replace them, regular sex is the key. If you are a guy who doesn’t find sex important, then you might still get something out of this because while my focus is on trying to negotiate your way into bed, the concepts are exactly the same no matter what you are interested in achieving.
PUA: Pick Up Artist. There is a plethora of information available on the web that details how to quickly run through 20 women to find the one who will take you to bed tonight. My friend dug through tons of that sort of stuff to cull out the 10% that has applicability to the married guy, then took on the challenge of applying that information to develop a sense of what works. In discussions with him I took that information and wrote this in an effort to produce a manual for understanding what it takes to satisfy women the way that the PUA does, without alienating them the way the PUA does. Since the PUA has no interest in a woman beyond sleeping with them, he has no worries about upsetting them. You, who want to stay with your woman (just want to be happy while doing it), can’t afford to alienate your woman and so the focus on the elements that allow you to evolve to an equal partnership with your woman.
Because most guys have a deep and abiding understanding of sports, I will go with a sports analogy here in the hopes that you will all be able to quickly ‘get it’. Lets imagine for a moment that you know bupkis about boxing. You have been dating this awesome babe for a while now and she seems to dig you. Perhaps you have even got around the bases a few times (not that you don’t know about all sports, just nothing about boxing ;-) and are thinking she is The One. Occasionally you have punched each other in the arm in a friendly way, maybe whacked each other with your hips walking down the sidewalk, etc. Now she suggests that you hop into this weird square space with ropes around the edge and spar a little. You have been having a great time up to now and everything else has been peaches and cream, so how can this be a problem? You hop up into the ring (why is a square called a ring anyway?) and the next thing you know she has started to pummel the crap out of you and you are cowering in the corner wondering what went wrong. She, on the other hand, is yelling at you to get up and upset at the wimp you are cowering in the corner. Perhaps in her adrenaline high state she even kicks you in frustration or even spits on you in disgust. Naturally you are confused, are sporting a couple of black eyes and are now more than a bit terrified of her. What does this have to do with hen pecking women treating you like the door mat you are? Well women are not looking for a yes man (though few will tell you that, possibly because they don’t really understand that guys are really as simple as we are), they are looking for a sparring partner. They like spirited discussions on a wide variety of subjects and were hoping you were going to be that person. Instead, you steadfastly refuse to engage in her favorite sport instead sullenly eat your dinner in front of the TV watching whatever game happens to be on so you can avoid her endless nagging and harping about subjects you couldn’t give a damn about. How exciting would it be for you to have a wife that actually took an interest in your favorite sport and would talk endless hours about stats, coaching decisions, the up and coming rookies, etc.? Because guys are able to get that sort of feedback from other guys and because at our hearts we are simple and uncomplicated and happy to have nothing else going on at home, we are OK with wives that ignore sports. Wives, though, expect us to be interested in their ‘sport’ and will vilify us if we choose to ignore their efforts to engage.
OK, let’s look at a concrete example. From your point of view your wife wants a new car and has her eye set on something that is more than a bit more expensive than you can afford. Your current understanding is she really hates you and wants you to work an extra job just so you can afford to put her in her new car. The reality? She wants to engage in a lengthy discussion on the pros and cons of the different types of cars that are available (though, note here, she doesn’t give a damn about compression ratios, variable vane turbos, low bias tires, etc.). She wants you to spar with her and go back and forth about the options. Sometimes she even wants you to say ‘no’ and she isn’t really interested in the car! What the hell is that all about? Well, think about the average two year old (not that I am comparing women to two year olds, please stick with me a while), they are exploring the boundaries of their world physically as well as emotionally. They want to stay up late, eat whatever they want, trash everything and suffer no consequences. What happens to children that are allowed to have no boundaries? They tend to grow up into ungrateful children who sometimes will hasten your demise so they can piss away their inheritance immediately. Children who are given boundaries, on the other hand, tend to grow up well adjusted, become contributing members of society and eventually become parents of their own. What does this have to do with your wife? Well, your wife wants to have a sparring partner and a well defined ring to spar in. If you cower in the corner every time you are in the ring and further do not insist that sparring only happen in the ring, you wind up with a angry harpy standing over you spiting and kicking. However, if you stand up to her in the ring and are an equal when sparring (which means sometimes you win and sometimes she wins) and most importantly, state emphatically that once out of the ring you cease sparring, you now wind up with a contented woman who loves to be around you simply because you stand up to her in the ring and set the ring’s boundaries. Sound ridiculous? No more ridiculous than our obsession with sports trivia and endless comprehension of engine internals.
A note about problem solving: when a woman comes to you with a ‘problem’ and wants to talk about it, in many cases the LAST thing she wants is for you to ‘solve’ the problem. She wants to discuss the issue with the same endless detail that you would use to dissect a game in the playoffs. We know that the game is over and no amount of dissection will change the outcome, yet we enjoy rehashing the minutiae and repeating that rehashing with every other guy we bump into. That is the exact same thing that women want to do, just without the sports. Next time your wife wants to discuss a problem, treat it as the results of a playoff game and just discuss the elements of the action, how things might have been different if events had happened just so, etc. You might not really enjoy the process, but lets face it, not being unhappy is worlds better than being miserable and if this can help you get laid, all the better, right?
So, do you and your wife a big favor: learn to be a good sparring partner and keep the sparring limited to the ring.
A little disclaimer for those of you too literal minded to understand what an analogy is: the boxing ring is NOT REAL, do NOT physically beat up on your woman! This is a metaphor meant to make it easier for you to understand, (most) women do not really like boxing (or any other sport). If you feel the need to act physically with your woman you should be seeking help!
Since a lot of guys are really dense, we will repeat the analogy with another sport in the hopes you can get it. Those of you who play hockey or are familiar with the sport know that hitting is part of the game. If you got the puck in the corner and are NOT hit, you know that you are playing with a bunch of pansies and know you are going to win. Let us presume that you are not familiar with hockey, but this beautiful babe you have been hanging out with wants you to hop on the ice for a little bit of one-on-one. How disappointed do you think she would be if she slammed into you as you were picking up the puck in a corner only to find you lying on the ice sniveling and whining about what happened? Pretty easy to understand how she would be angry with you: all she wants to do is have a little fun and here you are being such a spineless wimp ruining it all for her. So, understanding that this is a metaphor and that you are NOT expected to slam your wife into the boards (unless she likes to play hockey, in which case why are you reading this when you are married to the perfect woman?), your job is to do a little one-on-one with your wife in the arena she likes, the verbal one. Really guys, she wants someone who will stand up to her and push back. Not in a nasty way (or physical!), but verbally the way she likes. So, keeping the IDEA of the sparring match, the one-on-one digging for the puck in the corner, push back the same way so you can make her happy that she has a willing and able partner for her favorite sport.
Women are constantly testing us to see if we are worthy of their attention. Of course, they don’t claim so, but simple observation reveals the lie (perhaps that is a bit strong, but when someone consistently claims one thing and does another, how else to describe it?). Women ACT like they feel we are unworthy and thus need constant testing, we should RESPOND appropriately. The average Joe has been raised his whole life being told by women (mothers, sisters, aunts, etc.) that the only appropriate way to approach a woman is hat in hand, head bowed and with gifts. Women, despite their claims to the contrary, don’t like those sorts of guys, they are perceived to be spineless and weak willed. What women want is an equal they can joust (spar, check, etc.) with who, from time to time, does something special by giving them a nice back rub, delivers flowers to their work to make their co-workers jealous, etc. So, when a woman tests you and you are found inadequate (you spinelessly yield to her demands), you are rejected because she wants someone who will push back. Thus, when she tests you, push back! It doesn’t have to be forceful or rude (and it is NEVER physical!) and ideally is a bit humorous and jokey, but pushing back is a habit you need to develop. This is not to say that you always have to be ‘right’ and her ‘wrong’ (it is seldom in a relationship where either is consistent one way or another), just that you need to get in the habit of routinely pushing back. She wants to persuade you; women love to discuss things. She wants you to challenge her, how else is she going to make use of the laboriously developed multi-fallback arguments she has formulated in her noggin? She may SAY she wants you to roll over, but that is part of the testing. She wants you to be an equal in the decision making and endlessly caving into her ‘demands’ makes you a contemptible weakling not worthy of her physical attentions. To you and me, her ‘requests’ sure seem like demands, but to her she is simply putting forth a topic for discussion. Now this is not to say that after a decade of treating you like the contemptible worm she has come to know and despise that it will be trivial to turn this around, but once you learn to push back she almost certainly will readjust and come to treat you like an equal partner.
Sometimes You Got To Lose To Win
A partnership is where two people work together to achieve common goals. Partnerships require compromise and willingness to give in sometimes and insist on terms at other times. The problem most guys have is that they have lost the ability to insist and thus always give in. This web page is providing you with tools you can use to insist and not always give in, but you should not take it as meaning you should always win. Indeed, sometimes it is a strategic gain to lose. We will offer a poker analogy since most guys have an instinctive understanding of poker strategy. We all know that the best poker players are the ones that are the most difficult to predict. You never know when they are bluffing, never know when they are acting weak hoping to lure you in, you just never know. To confound things even more, when professional poker players are first getting to know a new player, they might actually throw away the winning hand because they are most interested in how you behave based on what cards you have and then look on the lost chips as an investment in the future. To be successful in poker, you just have to win more chips than you lose, not win more hands than you lose. When practicing your new knowledge on your wife, keep this strategy in mind. Sometimes you want to lose because you want to learn how your spouse is going to react and it is OK to lose ‘small pots’ (unimportant things) so you can win those large pots. Ideal compromises result when both sides think they are getting exactly what they want without giving up anything important. That is quite rare, but rather than insisting on something that is not very valuable to you, the long-term benefit might be to yield now and insist later.
Another example: say your wife has had a very frustrating day fighting with a co-worker, recalcitrant child, etc. Tonight might be better spent just being an understanding husband and patiently listening to her complain (remember, she probably doesn’t want you to solve anything!) and just realize that attempting to sweet talk her into bed is probably not worth the effort. Though I am hoping you will have the tools to make that happen if you so choose, sometimes it is better to save your resources for when they are better applied. If she is already predisposed toward romance, then you have to exert very little effort. If she is neutral, perhaps she will need only a 20-30 minute warm up. Pick your ‘fights’ and accept that sometimes the best course of action is to await another day.
Women say they want an honest man, but what they really want is a man who is honest when he says the nonsense they love so much. Guys recognise ‘players’ immediately and know that these guys treat women like dirt, but we are confounded when the women eat it up. We know these players are lying their asses off when they mouth the words that the women love to hear (of course, we are too stupid to say those words ourselves, perhaps because we know it is such a load of malarkey and we would be lying ourselves), so we harbor a deep seated distrust for women that claim they really want someone who is honest. When we honestly tell them that all we really want is 30 seconds of sex 5-7 times a week, good food on the table whenever we are hungry and a 60 inch HDTV for all the games, they tell us to go straight to hell, further convincing us that women are full of crap about this honesty thing.
What women want is a sparring partner (see above) and the jerk is the excellent sparring partner because he understands the game they want to play. So what women are saying when they say they want honesty is they want someone who is going to honestly care about their feelings, yet be happy to step into the ring and put the boxing gloves on (though I suppose some women prefer bare knuckle fighting (and watch out for those mixed martial arts women and their round kicks!)). However, since most jerks are aspiring or actual PUAs and only interested in the one-night-stand, women get tired of being treated like Kleenex and eventually feel pushed into finding some guy who is going to still be sincerely interested in her the next day, week, month, lifetime. Of course, during the romance period they guy is probably unwittingly doing a bit of sparring which makes the woman think she has found the right guy. Imagine her disappointment when she marries this perfect guy and finds out he is a door mat.
Men are all trained to be door mats by their mothers, aunts, older sisters, etc. We are told over and over to treat women ‘right’, open doors for them, be good providers, etc. I hold that most women are not consciously aware of their (to the unschooled, you are getting schooled right now) schizophrenic behavior because in their world view they are telling us what their fantasy is: a guy who can spar with the best of them but who, outside the ring, will open doors, treat them right, be good providers, etc. What is missing in our education is the whole bit on the boxing ring and what it symbolizes. Clearly if women were smart enough to tell us what they want in language we could understand then there would be no need for this page or the hundreds for picking up women.
In the immortal words of Monty Python: “What's wrong with a kiss, boy? Hmm? Why not start her off with a nice kiss? You don't have to go leaping straight for the clitoris like a bull at a gate. Give her a kiss, boy.”
This won’t be a page on love making, there are plenty other sources of very detailed information. Having said that, I am still going to offer a very short course as it is integral to your overall success that you understand. Women are like ice cold diesel engines: they are often difficult to start and take a long time to warm up, but once they get going they can run forever. Most guys, on the other hand, could most generously be described as ‘the exact opposite’ and therein lies the problem. If your woman treats sex with you the same as she would if she were cleaning up after a sick dog, you may have a serious performance issue that needs resolving. Even if you are the 30 second wonder, you can still provide at least 30 minutes of foreplay and then ensure she has been satisfied before you go to sleep. Most women like sex, they just don’t like sex without foreplay. Provide them what they want and they are much more likely to provide you what you want.
Men are focused on the physical elements of sex, one of the reasons pornography so successfully satisfies the male psyche. No doubt there was a strong evolutionary favor for guys who could immediately come to attention and were ‘fastest out of the gate’, but that was then and this is now. Women like the whole preamble bit, the act of being pursued, the ‘talky’ part where you tell her how beautiful she is and how much you desire her. All things that sort of fall by the wayside after the long-term hookup and go completely in the toilet after children. Thus the ‘secret’ to a satisfying love life is simple: recapture those early days when you took hours to arrange the intimate conditions necessary to proceed to the physical act. Just like the ketchup commercial, anticipation is the key. Quickies are all fine and dandy once in a while; in general you should be aiming for 30 minutes as the minimum acceptable time period. This is not to say you need to be hammering away the entire time, but you should be focused on getting that diesel warmed up enough so it has a chance to get some running in before you get shut down.
Women in general also tend to be very unforthcoming about what they actually like in bed. This might be a cultural thing where women who expressed interest in sex were branded sluts or something like that. It might just be that because what turns them on so much isn’t directly physical but instead is all that ‘bothersome’ foreplay that guys tend to ignore. Thus when a guy is asking about what physically turns them on they can’t give an answer because they want to be emotionally turned on. If your woman likes to have flowers, then a back rub, kisses on her neck and whispering of sweet nothings, then, dammit, give her what she wants! You watch the hour long pre-game show in anticipation of the event, right? Why not provide the same preamble for her? Imagine how much more likely she is to respond to your advances if she actually enjoys the process and isn’t thinking about how gross it is to clean up after this sick dog again.
Nothing is sexier than a woman in the throes of a genuine orgasm. Why do you think the women in pornos fake it all the time? If guys didn’t get off seeing it, they wouldn’t bother. Imagine your personal satisfaction if you learned how to regularly be instrumental in your woman achieving orgasm. It is a worthy goal and you should dedicate yourself to it. If it doesn’t seem like it is worth the effort, particularly when they are so unforthcomming with their feelings, look on it as the challenge to reach the playoffs: you need to practice, practice, practice, do research (read books focused on the woman’s view point, not watch pornos!), practice some more, draw charts, keep records, whatever it takes. Imagine it is like sports fishing. All you can see is the placid surface of the lake. You need to figure out what is going on under the lake surface, where the fish are congregated and what sort of bait they are taking. All you got going for you is the ability to do research and try things until you find something that works. Satisfying your woman is no different. In a perfect world (in which case this page would be unnecessary) your woman would tell you exactly what she desires in bed, but we live in this world and most women are not capable of communicating in a way we feel meaningful (I have a few suggestions for her later, though, so if you think this information has merit you might want to get her to read those few sections) so you need to take up the challenge and research her needs and supply them. Man up!
By the way, don’t expect this to be over in a few weeks! You wouldn’t expect to become the star quarterback playing in the Super Bowl after just a few weeks of effort, right? It takes constant practice, constant study and a continuing willingness to learn. Just like your competitors shift their behavior based on your efforts, your woman will change her tastes as you evolve your love making skills. Never rest on your laurels, you need to work to spice things up regularly. Having said that, you need to be very sure she is interested in certain forms of spice, so once you got her warmed up (remember, she is like starting a diesel during winter) discuss your ideas for extra spice. It might be the simple act of discussing the spice will be all the spice she needs and even if she abhors the idea of actually carrying out the acts mentioned, she could still be turned on by the discussion. Also, she is almost certainly going to be turned on by your efforts to turn her on!
She already knows that, which is why you are at a disadvantage. When you are gently persistent, not being rude or forceful, you put her in the position where she has to constantly be the bad guy. Since women don’t generally like to be (overtly) the bad guy, she starts to yield a bit and after a while (which might be a long while indeed if you are working on a multi-year dry spell) you can make a bit of progress. The important thing is to realize that women are full of ‘later’. They will come up with endless excuses for why you can’t do it NOW. Often perfectly reasonable sounding reasons, but just ignore them and continue with your persistent attentions. If you happen to be a 30 second wonder you might not recognise that what you are actually engaging in is called ‘foreplay’ and is something that loving couples engage in regularly before love making. It is not unreasonable to expect to put in a minimum of 20-30 minutes overcoming her last minute resistance, but if the idea of spending that amount of time warming your sweetie up is alien to you, then we have probably uncovered the core element of why your wife has been keeping you away all these years.
“Tempo is everything, perfection unattainable” Roy McAvoy from the movie 'Tin Cup'
It is important to realize that the journey is the goal, not the destination. You don’t have to worry about being the best lover, your goal is to be a better lover than you have been up to this point. If you are like the average Joe wandering around, you would be depressed to find out how far you have to go, so just focus on setting one foot before the other and start down the path to greatness. Something to keep firmly in mind: you don’t have to be the world’s greatest lover, you only have to be a great lover of your wife. That makes life immensely easier as you can focus on just the things that she likes and don’t have to worry about what every other woman wants.
A partnership is where people work together toward a common goal. Your goal should be a successful and happy life where you both are intellectually and sexually satisfied. It is OK for one to be dominant over another for short periods of time, compromise, after all, is the art of accepting less than what you would like, but the ‘winner’ should shift back and forth regularly. Guys need to get used to the idea that women like to bargain and negotiate and that the journey is often the destination. Women need to get used to the idea that guys really are simple, often ignorant louts that really do spend all day thinking about sex with half their brains and are generally satisfied with a full belly, good night’s sleep and regular sex with a woman they love. Men, stand up to your woman in the boxing ring and insist that sparring only happen there. Women, realize that expecting your man to meet an endlessly shifting set of requirements you refuse to detail to him in order to get you in bed is exactly the route to take to end your relationship. Work toward the middle from both sides and there is an excellent chance that you will both continue to grow more and more satisfied with your relationship until you have the ability to recover those heady days when you were courting one another.
A lot of you are probably wondering just how to take the first step in trying to rebalance your relationship. Here are a couple of ideas for you; some simple little steps you can take that should allow you to see some progress and develop some faith that you are on the right track. Start very simple, maybe a couple of times a month. Don’t be confrontational, just be confident and don’t back down. Let’s start with dinner. Pick a restaurant you really like but you know she doesn’t like. Announce that tonight you are going out to dinner and you would like to have her company. Expect that she will engage you in a debate trying to get you to go to her favorite restaurant. Politely, friendly, insist that alone or together, you are going to your favorite restaurant. Repeatedly invite her to join you, but make it unequivocal that you are going to your restaurant one way or the other. Then, just go. If she refuses to join you, then go enjoy yourself, relax and then come back satisfied and inquire to her evening. If she joins you (as we expect, but if you have a real bad relationship she might not the first or even second time) be sure to order exactly what you want and other than being polite and friendly, let her take care of herself.
Another approach might be to pick a movie you really want to watch (like some Rambo thing with little plot and lots of explosions and dead people; it has to be something she doesn’t want to see, but you really want to see). As above, you simply announce in a friendly and non confrontational manner that you are going out to see such and such show and you would be happy to have her company. When she tries to talk you out of your Rambo movie to watch some teary-eyed chick flick she has as her goal, without being mean or rude, just indicate that you are going to your movie alone or with her. Chances are good that she will be happy to go along with you on your movie, though there is nothing wrong if she doesn’t or instead decides to watch something else when you get to the theater.
The goal here isn’t to get her to watch your movie or go to your restaurant, the goal is to assert that you can make decisions and carry them out in an friendly non-confrontational manner. It gets easier as you practice, so practice often. Once you are comfortable with these smaller things, then you have the confidence to push back against the larger things like the expensive car that requires you to take on a second job to finance. It also helps you work on your ability to confidently banter with your wife which is a key element in the whole sparring thing that women are seeking. They want a guy to push back, they hate guys who are pushovers. You are not losing anything when you push back, you are gaining everything. The key is that they do NOT want to have a physical fight and in nearly all cases they do NOT want to have a rude name calling fight where nasty things are said. They just want someone to push back against them to some middle ground. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, the goal is to aim for a season at .500.
Since women have practiced their emotional sparing with one-another for their entire lives, they naturally are much better at responding on their feet to setbacks and changes in direction. Men, on the other hand, generally lack experience in emotional sparing and often are not prepared for the fluid changes in direction and can’t respond quickly to the attacks. There is a simple method to give you more time: just say you will get back later! Just because they are insisting on some sort of response doesn’t mean you have to give them one. If they have you flustered (which is likely to be the case until you have practiced for a good long while), just politely tell them you will think about it a while and you can continue the discussion later, then just walk away. Even if they are unsatisfied with this response, at least you can short-circuit the impending shouting match and likely you will both be happier for it.
Look, guys really are simple. Women think guys are complicated because women are complicated and they figure guys are the same species and therefore are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth! Most men want three simple things: regular meals they enjoy, plenty of sleep and sex. Sex really is last, honestly! If your man has these three things then the chances are excellent that he will never stray as he has already achieved perfection. Note, however, that not straying is not the same thing as not looking. Guys are visual (why conventional porn is so successful) and can enjoy viewing a beautiful woman while simultaneously enjoying your company and without anything more than a passing fantasy, gone almost as soon as it is formulated, about that leggy blond that strolled by. In fact, if you don’t nag him about his head turning, if you were to ask him 5 minutes later he probably forgot. Not because the woman is somehow unmemorable, but because he does this as often as any beautiful woman comes within visual range. Guys have no complex fantasies about Ms. Right engaging in long romantic walks on the beach, deep gazing into one another’s eyes, slow passionate love making, etc. guys just think about how fantastic she would look without any clothes on and how, with that vision in mind, having sex with her would be enjoyable. Guys have been multi-tasking ever since they reached puberty, they have developed extensive skills to think about what they are doing in their daily tasks whilst simultaneously thinking about sex. Probably the only time men actually focus on one thing is during combat when bullets are flying (at least the ones that survive).
Stop complicating your relationship by presuming that while you are busy thinking deep thoughts about personal interrelationships that your man is doing the same thing. While half of his mind is being entertained by thoughts of whatever beautiful woman he has seen in the last few minutes the other half might not be thinking at all or might be dwelling on the last sports event he enjoyed. It is possible he is considering something work related, but if you bet that the half of his brain not engaged in sexual fantasies is not thinking about anything you are probably going to win most of the time.
I am sure most women are familiar with the phrase “the route to a man’s heart is through his stomach”, well that is indeed quite true. However, to keep your man from straying you also must address his needs somewhat below the stomach. Above there are sections that try to focus your man on your needs, but I also want you to think about his needs. While you have a complicated emotional outlook that likes in-depth exploration of possibilities, men have simple, direct outlook and just want to explore your physicalities. While I try to train your man to take the time to engage in at least some foreplay, you need to consider that you can also smooth things out in your relationship by making yourself available in the most direct physical manner. While there are certainly could be some health concerns that keep a man from responding to a woman he finds attractive, the vast majority of the time your man needs just the barest hint that you are willing and interested to rise to the occasion. This is not to say that you should tolerate 30 seconds and a nap, you shouldn’t, but you should actively encourage your man’s attention from time to time. Playing hard-to-get is only cute sometimes and only if you are not impossible to get. Give your man a passionate kiss and a whispered promise of an afternoon tryst when you send him off to work and you will have his devoted attention the entire day. Just be sure to be receptive when he gets home! Otherwise you become a tease and make the situation worse.
Oh, another thing: you should figure out what you want in your physical relationship and communicate that directly and without any subtlety. As mentioned many times, men are uncomplicated, but they are eager to please. Tell us what you want and we will move heaven and earth to provide it, particularly if it means we get laid. If you want a back massage that turns erotic, we are happy to oblige as long as there is follow through. Don’t promise something and then fail to deliver, that just fosters resentment and anger. Don’t just say ‘later’ either. There is nothing wrong with being too busy now, but make time later and stick with the plan.
If you can’t figure out what you want in bed (or for foreplay, etc.) then you can’t expect your man to figure it out on his own. He knows a lot about pornographic sex, but since that sex is designed to titillate men, not women, it is unlikely that leaving him to his own devices is going to lead to satisfaction. If you really can’t figure out what you want then pick up some romance novels and do some research or ask your girlfriends what they like. Sure most guys will consider a bouquet of flowers and a 45 minute exposition about how beautiful you are as a silly waste of time (something I am hoping to change with this page), but if you make it clear that that is what you desire (and follow through when it happens!) he will rapidly change his mind.
While a lot of women are turned off by their husband’s lack of foreplay and general lack of skill in the romance department, guys can also lose interest just as easily. Particularly today when pornography is so readily available over the Internet, if your man is more satisfied by masturbation than by making love to you then he is going to work less and less at love making leading to increased dissatisfaction and a negative feedback loop to unhappiness for both partners. While you want romance and foreplay your man wants visual stimulation. Wear something sexy for him, be beautiful for him. Engage him at the level where he spends at least half his brain: the physical, visual level. Be the one who turns his head and triggers the fantasies of nakedness and sex.
Finally, stopping being so negative about compliments. In the extremely unlikely event you really are a fat ugly chick, if your husband loves you and desires you and tells you he finds you a beautiful turn on, stop being negative and just enjoy the compliment. More than likely you really aren’t a fat ugly chick and his compliments are entirely sincere (he did marry you, after all, so he had to be attracted to you at some point, right?) and your constant denial and dismissiveness is a real turn off. False modesty is valueless and counter productive as well; if you really think you are the cat’s meow, that is fine. Accept your man’s compliments and enjoy that he is making a sincere effort to make you happy by engaging in romantic foreplay.
There is a huge amount of evidence that a large majority of women are never satisfied in bed. According to my friends wife, who is well connected with many other wives, women achieving orgasm on a regular basis is the rare exception, not the rule. If you ‘fake it’ and lie and tell your man you are satisfied, why should you expect anything else? It is understandable if you are not enjoying yourself and just want the process to be over so you can get on with things, but then you are cheating yourself. Women appear to have a very strong reticence to communicate their sexual needs or desires but that needs to come to a stop. You need to tell your man what you want but you must do it in such a way that he feels challenged, not denigrated. Just like we used a sports metaphor to explain your interest in verbal jousting, you should use a sports metaphor when encouraging him to invest the time and energy to bring you to your desired conclusion. Guys invest huge amounts of energy in sports (while geeky guys might not care about sports, I guarantee there is something they do care deeply about like video games, on-line role playing games, etc.; I just use the sports metaphor because so many guys resonate with that idea), all you need to do is make it a challenge he understands. Communicate your desires like the goal of winning the World Series or Super Bowl. If your man is into biking, then it is about climbing L'Alpe d'Huez. Perhaps he is into video games, find something that resonates there. Maybe he is into World of Warcraft, surely there are parallels there. It is your responsibility to communicate your dissatisfaction in such a way that he is capable of understanding. Don’t use the same words you would use to tell your fellow women, those words are wasted and the effort will make you both frustrated and probably make things worse.
Having said that, one of the most critical things you must keep in mind is you need to tell him what DOESN’T work as soon as you are sure it isn’t working. No one wants to be trying for a home run when he is in a football game, that is humiliating, embarrassing and a total waste of time and energy. If your man has done you the courtesy of taking on the challenge of your sexual satisfaction please do him the courtesy of telling him what is or isn’t working. He will improve on what works and skip what doesn’t but only if he knows. Don’t withhold that information!
Women, you talk and talk and talk and talk to, but never seem to communicate with, your guys. You need to understand that if you are not getting your point across, it is not HIS fault he isn’t getting it. You are the one with the idea, you are the one with the responsibility for getting your point across. Hopefully the sports analogies I have here for your men will help you understand how their (our) brains work better so you can make your points in language they (we) can understand. You tend to over analyze things and impugn too much from our actions, as mentioned above, we have simple thoughts and simple goals. Cater to those simple things and we will move mountains for you. Fail to cater to those simple things and be prepared for the sullen and unhappy guy who is always thinking about how to get out of the relationship (or ignoring you altogether).
This is an analogy most women should understand implicitly and without any issues. If a baby needs its diaper changed it is something that needs to happen right now, not in an hour, not after your headache goes away, not after after after after. Your man has immediate needs also, just like the baby. While ideally no where near as gross as changing diapers, your man needs regular affection that leads to love making and while I am trying to teach him to be persistent in his pursuit of love, I also want to teach you that a) you need to be receptive and just as importantly, b) you need to take the lead from time to time. The vast majority of guys are happy with taking the lead most of the time, but you should not expect him to be doing so 100% of the time. What is the right balance for frequency is an intensely personal subject that has to be negotiated in good faith betwixt the twain of you, but on average, men need it more often than women and that is what we are trying to address here. Unlike changing diapers where the best you can hope for is the feeling of a job well done, when initiating love making there should be an expectation of some joy in the process (if not, you need to be crystal clear telling your man what works and what doesn’t work; unsatisfying love life when you are unwilling to tell him what is wrong is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, not his!). However, you should not be approaching the prospects solely from your own physical satisfaction, you should be approaching it from the point of view is it is something that is necessary to have happen on a regular and on going basis (like changing diapers) and when it needs to be done, it needs to be done right then, not in some far off distant time when the planets have achieved some sort of mystical alignment.
As mentioned in the intro, this text was originally intended to be expanded into a book with detailed examples of techniques that were successful at least once in converting a miserable door mat to a happy sparing partner. Because the project fizzled due to circumstances, I have decided to post it more or less as it ended in the hopes that what is here can be helpful to others.
Copyright 2011 by Keith Oxenrider
Questions or comments to koxenrider[at]sol[dash]biotech[dot]com