Shaunti Feldhahn's Blog, page 37

Sometimes Hope Shows Up in the Most Unlikely Places

Sometimes encouragement happens in the most unlikely places . . . when we’re least expecting it. A few months ago, I was in a tough season. As I got into my car that morning, I was anticipating another stressful day in a long string of stressful days: my dad’s recent, incapacitating stroke had really thrown me; it was painful to see my brilliant, loving father unable to really communicate, walk, or do much for himself. At the same time as we were working to move my parents closer to us so we could care for them better, we were getting my daughter ready to go to college, and I was also working hard to fulfill my research obligations. Oh yes, and there was a book published in there too!

But right in the middle of that, I had an experience where God used a crazy, “chance” encounter to remind me that He was still there in the midst of it.

On this particular day, I was looking at an apartment complex near our home as a potential place for my parents to live. I had scheduled an appointment to meet the leasing agent and take a tour. Little did I know (goose-bump alert!) how this encounter would impact my spirit and my outlook.

Here’s what happened…

An Unexpected Connection Between Two Strangers

I arrived at my appointment for the tour, and the leasing agent—a young, twenty-something woman—started showing me around. She was very sweet and attentive. As we talked she asked what I did for a living and I told her I was a speaker and a writer. She said “Oh, you’re a writer! What do you write?”

I told her I write books and she said “Gosh, books—I haven’t ever read any books. I mean, I read a couple in high school when I had to, but my friends have all told me that I have to read more. I’ve just never really been a reader.”

“In fact,” she continued, “The only two books I’ve ever read in my life, other than for school, are these two books called For Women Only and For Young Women Only.”

I literally stopped walking, stunned, in the middle of the parking lot. She kept walking, then turned around and said “What?”

I could hardly talk. “Those are my books. I wrote those.”

She said “What?!? I can’t believe it!” As we recovered from our amazement, she told me about the impact those books had had on her life.

Understanding and Living Out Relationships Better

She had been telling me about her relationship during our tour. She had a daughter who was in kindergarten and she was no longer with the father. They had never been married, and now she was engaged to another man who she really cared for.

When I told her the books she had read were my books, she said somebody at the church she attended had recommended that she read them. She said, “I suddenly saw all these reasons that my first relationship had failed due to how I was treating my boyfriend. It has now completely changed my relationship with my fiancé. I really think we’re going to make it, and my daughter is going to have a man in the home who loves her like a father. It’s totally because I had no idea of these things and now I do.”

She had learned and applied the basic but powerful relationship principles that we’ve uncovered in our research and shared in our book, blogs, and speaking engagements.

God’s Message of Encouragement

As you can probably imagine, this unexpected encounter was an incredible blessing to me. To cross paths with this sweet young woman whose only two books she’s ever read as an adult were my books—it was absolutely amazing! And it was so encouraging for me at a time when I so badly needed it. It was like God was saying to me: Look, everything that you’re doing and that your team is doing is making a difference. Don’t worry, I’m still here, I’m still in this.

We sometimes think, “Wow, what a coincidence.”

But I don’t believe there is any such thing. God is at work in every moment, situation, and circumstance of our lives. We just have to see those “God-incidences” when they happen, and see that they are God speaking to us. Now, that one was hard to miss! It was the equivalent of a SHOUT. (I guess God knew I needed it!) But let’s be encouraged to have our eyes much more open, and our ears trained to hear the ways that He is speaking to us and moving in our lives, all along.

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Peace: A 40-day Devotional Journey For Moms, focuses on discovering biblical direction to become a woman of serenity and delight in all seasons – and have impact for generations to come.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article first appeared at Patheos.

The post Sometimes Hope Shows Up in the Most Unlikely Places appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

What You Need to Do Before You Have Sex With Your Wife

So, guys, you’ve just had a big fight with your wife and now you’re ready to cool off and mend the relationship. What better way to make up than to spend a little intimate time together, right?

Just one little problem, though: physical intimacy is the farthest thing from her mind. What’s the deal?

For a woman, physical intimacy isn’t usually the solution to a problem, but rather, evidence that the problem has been resolved. In fact, rather than bridging the gap of emotional distance, it can actually make the problem worse. While physical intimacy helps a man to feel close to his wife, women are just the opposite. Women have to feel close in order to want to be intimate.

Through researching my book For Women Only, I began to understand that physical intimacy plays a huge role in how men feel about themselves. But when my husband Jeff and I surveyed thousands of women for our book For Men Only, we found that a woman’s desire is directly tied into the way her husband treats her. Her body’s ability to respond to you physically is tied to how she feels about you emotionally.

In other words, if your wife is feeling distanced from you emotionally – if you haven’t been talking much, or if you two are at odds – her body probably won’t be able to respond to you. So even though you may greatly desire closeness – even if, say, harsh words were spoken between you – her physical response switch might be turned to “off.”

Feeling and building everyday closeness with your wife is a must, but exactly what does that entail? We women need to feel pursued and loved outside the bedroom just as a guy needs to feel physically desired by his wife inside the bedroom.

Guys, physical intimacy starts in her heart, so your focus really needs to be on filling her emotional bank account. Think about what you did while you were dating that made her think you were irresistible. It wasn’t just about arranging the big candlelight dinners, was it? I’m guessing you invited her over to watch a movie, cuddle on the couch, and share some popcorn. Maybe you wrote her a little note from time to time telling her you were thinking about her. Why not do that now?

She still needs to know that you are smitten with her, so pursue her and help her feel close to you outside of physically intimate moments. She wants to feel as though you are best friends, that you can talk about anything, and that there are no secrets between you. All of these things help her feel close to you and help her mentally prepare to be physically intimate.

Now, just a quick warning: don’t let physical intimacy be your main intention for creating this day-to-day closeness – your wife will see right through this. Instead, remember to be attentive even when intimacy isn’t an option. Sometimes, hug her just to hug her!

So even though you may be craving physical closeness after an intense talk or an argument, keep in mind that your wife needs to have some emotional recuperation time.

Attend to your wife’s heart by pursuing her outside of the bedroom, and I’ll bet you’ll be delighted by her reaction!

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Peace: A 40-day Devotional Journey For Moms, focuses on discovering biblical direction to become a woman of serenity and delight in all seasons – and have impact for generations to come.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post What You Need to Do Before You Have Sex With Your Wife appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Received

We recently celebrated our son’s 16th birthday. Trust me, Jeff and I spent more than a few moments wondering where the time had gone. How was it that we now have a daughter in college and a son who is allowed to get a drivers license?!

The celebration was simple, involving a dozen of his friends—some new, some he’s known his whole life. We laughed, we bowled, we ate pizza and cake. He planned it all himself . . . and it was glorious. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But to be honest—I originally didn’t think it could be this way.

I still remember the conference volunteer who picked me up at the airport when my kids were small. When she said she had four teenagers, I responded, as many people would, “Oh my! Bless you! How are you surviving?” I had the impression that the “adolescent years” were something to brace for. I dreaded the idea of my sweet little ones morphing into distant and disrespectful teens.

The volunteer smiled. “I have to tell you: I think that stereotype is so wrong. And dangerous.”

And I can honestly say that what she said next was the single most important piece of parenting advice I’ve ever received—especially for the teen years, but really, for any age.

What You Look For Is What You’ll Find

The event volunteer continued: “I loved the stage when my kids were small, and I love the teenage stage even more. Sure, there are challenges, but there are challenges in every stage. Every season with my kids has been better than the one before. I think that is what we’re supposed to expect.”

She then shared a belief that I have since officially studied and have seen over and over again in our research (and in neuroscience): what we expect is what we will look for, and what we look for is what we will find. If we expect difficulties (terrible twos, threenagers, difficult tweens, disrespectful and moody teens, etc.), those are what we will notice—and probably overreact to!

She said, “I would urge you to look forward to every season of parenting, so you enjoy the blessings of each one, rather than getting hung up on the challenges.”

Decide the Best Is Yet To Come

A number of years later after talking to this mom of teenagers, my ten-year-old daughter and I were driving in our minivan when she gave me her first serious, no-holds-barred, legit, pre-teen eye roll in response to something I said.

Now, normally, my head explodes at signs of disrespect—and so does my voice! But suddenly, it was as if God flashed my mind back to my conversation with that mom. I had to make a decision about how I was going to view and communicate in this new season of parenting before me.

I took a moment to be calm, and said to my daughter, “Honey, let’s have a conversation about this. You may not realize it, but you were really disrespectful right there, and that’s not okay. I know you think dad and I just have random rules, and we don’t understand you. You think that we don’t know what we’re talking about. And you might have those feelings again. So here’s my request: Can you have grace with us for, oh, about the next ten years?”

My daughter laughed, but then stopped as she realized I meant it. “I’m serious, honey. Can we agree that until you go off to college, whenever you think we don’t know what we’re talking about, that you’ll have grace with us? Because otherwise, these next ten years might be unpleasant for all of us.”

She looked at me for a minute. I could tell she was suddenly taking my request seriously. “Okay,” she said. No eye roll in sight.

The next time another eye roll made an appearance, I reminded her, “Remember our agreement? That isn’t okay. And this is one of those times when you can show grace.” And you know what? It worked.  

How You See Something Determines How You Handle Something

When Jeff and I started looking at parenting this way, suddenly, we had so much more peace. We viewed the disrespect that arose (and yes, it still did happen at times!) as what it actually was: isolated occurrences, rather than as a systemic pattern of behavior or character flaw that needed to be strongly addressed.

Although we wouldn’t let poor behavior slide, we were determined to address it with calmness, humor, and logic instead of highly charged emotion. (And let me tell you, if we hadn’t decided to view these as one-off incidents, there would have been some highly charged emotion from my side!) Then because we didn’t jump all over her, our daughter was more willing to listen to what we had to say.

We still had high expectations for our kids, but they were reasonable expectations. We had begun to anticipate the best—not the worst—through the various stages of their lives.

And I don’t think that ever would have happened if that one event volunteer hadn’t gently corrected my thinking.

As we journey through the seasons of our children’s lives, rather than dreading the coming stage or clinging to the current one, let’s be excited about how our kids are changing and who they’re becoming. Transforming our outlook will transform our interactions with them. Yes, they might have difficult moments, but let’s anticipate that we will not only get through those seasons, we’ll also enjoy them.

Relax, moms, and take heart—the best is yet to come!

*Excerpts taken from Shaunti’s upcoming book Find Peace: A 40-day Devotional Journey for Moms due out April 10, 2019. Click here to pre-order your copy today!

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Received appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Cave Mode

In the interest of sharing a personal and ministry update, I wanted to let you know that the next few months are going to be an interesting season for Jeff and me. I’m going to go into what my staff jokingly refers to as “Cave Mode.”

Here’s the thing: Jeff and I are finishing up two years of research for our next book – but we’re quite behind on the actual book deadline. This is in part due to the usual craziness but also because, as many of you know, my father had a stroke last year. I’ve really wanted and needed to be more available for my family during this season. But now the book HAS to get done. I wish we could escape to some cute cabin in the mountains to get weeks of focused writing done, but since we have kids and speaking schedules, that just isn’t gonna happen! But we ARE going to be hitting it hard to finish the final survey and write the book, which investigates why money causes “issues” in 94% of relationships, and what to do about it (in ways that have everything to do with the relationship and nothing to do with money!) If you want to learn more about the book, and our partnership with Thrivent’s Love and Money project, click here.

So now I have to go into my “cave” and not come out until the work is done. I don’t have meetings, I don’t do radio interviews and I write all of my blogs and content ahead of time (so you’ll still see new content). Otherwise I’m speaking at events and writing this book and that’s it. I apologize in advance that my staff will be responding to all of my emails, and I’m probably not going to be able to respond to Facebook or Twitter comments.

Speaking of my staff . . . not only would I appreciate your prayers, but my staff would as well! Not only are they going to have to run everything without me, but there just might have been a pattern in the past (ahem) where I become a wee bit of a grouchy bear in cave mode, who comes out of her cave to bark, “Do this! Don’t do that! Grrrr!” and then disappears back into her cave. (Yeah. I’m working on that.)

But most specifically, we’d appreciate prayers for wisdom and anointing over this book, which really does have the potential to transform many, many marriages. But we need wisdom from the Lord to know how to distill it into simple, “Aha!” moments. So, stay tuned as we navigate the next few months. We’ll keep you posted on how things are going—at the very least, my staff can report back that I’m emerging once in awhile to see the light of day. And at some point the project will be completed and we will be so excited to have a new, incredibly important topic to cover that affects nearly every marriage relationship!   

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post Cave Mode appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

4 Secrets That Will Kill Your Relationship (Or Your Business)

Unless you’re in counterterrorism, nothing good comes from keeping secrets from those you care about. And believe it or not, a recent and infamous business debacle has a big lesson on the four most dangerous ways we try to hide things—even in our marriages.  

For several years, I’ve followed the story of Theranos, the company helmed by media darling Elizabeth Holmes. This twenty-something genius was transforming the medical industry by creating (she claimed) a revolutionary technology that could test for hundreds of diseases and conditions with only a drop of blood. Imagine if a patient who needed to monitor various blood levels could prick a finger and test themselves multiple times a day! Imagine if pharmaceutical trials could catch adverse reactions in a few hours instead of days, or doctors could do on-the-spot analysis. She raised one billion dollars from investors, and the board included big names like George Shulz, Senator Bill Frist, and Henry Kissinger.

Because I do a lot of women’s leadership work, I was excited to see a female CEO leading a startup that was poised to do great things.

Until, we learned, her entire platform was a house of cards about to implode. And it wasn’t because the technology wasn’t a great idea, or even because it couldn’t be achieved in some form eventually. It was because of the oldest temptation in the human race: the temptation to hide and keep secrets instead of being transparent.  

The book Bad Blood, written by the Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who first uncovered the fraud, is a cautionary tale in many ways, but for me as a social researcher it is a case study on four secrets that will kill your relationship . . . whether that is a marriage or a business partnership.

Secret #1: You get yourself in a hole – and hide it.

It turns out that Theranos was making great strides, but couldn’t actually analyze most conditions with a pin-prick by the time they were due to roll out their technology. They had sold the concept to Walgreens and Safeway, both of whom spent millions of dollars to create testing centers in their stores. But instead of keeping their partners in the loop and being candid about the delays, Theranos let them think everything was fine. Secretly, Theranos’ leadership decided to use regular commercial analyzers to do the blood analysis while trying frantically to get their device to do what they said it could.

We think we would never do what Theranos did. We would never have that lack of integrity, right? But . . . how many of us have hidden things that affected our partner?

For example, how many of us have ever spent a little too much on our credit cards for Christmas, the kids’ birthday party, or that weekend away with friends—and not told our spouse about it? After all, we tell ourselves, it will only take a few months of extra payments to pay it off.  Sure, that means money available for other things is reduced and our spouse doesn’t know that . . . but we’ll fix it.

Right?

Here’s the truth: Hiding uncomfortable facts about something that could affect your spouse (or business partner, or boss, or roommate) is committing relational fraud. And it will almost certainly come back to bite you—and them—eventually.

For Theranos, once the deception was made public, things quickly fell apart. Safeway and Walgreens lost their millions, the Theranos investors lost one billion, the Theranos board was disgraced (probably justified since they didn’t insist on proper accountability), the company is now defunct, and a federal grand jury indicted Holmes for fraud. Her trial is coming up.

Secret #2: When you have a chance to confess, you double down on your denials—ignoring that your partner will get doubly hurt

When Theranos’ partners began to have questions, including about the accuracy of the few blood tests that were actually done on their devices, Holmes and her romantic and business partner, Sunny Balwani, repeatedly insisted that all was fine. And multiple patients ended up in the hospital as a result.

It is mortifying to tell those closest to you that you’ve been less than candid. But having them find out the truth the hard way is far, far worse.

After I spoke at a recent woman’s conference, one attendee told me she was deeply shaken when she recently discovered her husband had been talking to an old girlfriend online. Not because he was having an affair (he wasn’t) or because she felt like she was going to lose him (she knew he loved and was committed to her)—but because she had specifically asked and he had several times reassured her that he wasn’t in contact with any prior flames.  

When she stumbled across their online communication, it called into question everything she felt she could trust about him. What else was he deceiving her about? Had he really gotten over his teenage pornography problem? Was that bottle of beer in the trash can a sign that he had a drinking issue? Did he have other relationships she didn’t know about? Her husband was ashamed and insisted that he didn’t tell her the truth only because it was no big deal and yet he knew she would think it was.

And yet, his repeated lies made it a big deal. A woman he loves very much is now in pain and suspicious every day. That’s no way to live.

Secret #3: We squash transparency—because we feel like we “should” be able to keep some things private, or because we want no dissent

Holmes and Balwani kept everything private. In their mind, loyalty to the cause meant that their approach, their numbers, and their science could never be questioned. Crucial, irreplaceable, internal scientists, finance gurus and strategists were summarily fired because they tried to ask well-intentioned (and very necessary!) questions about whether a given strategy was the best idea, challenge a particular fact, or bring red flags to the attention of leadership.

Even worse, everything inside the company had to remain siloed; no-one was allowed to talk about or share anything. Even scientists who needed to compare notes with each other to create the technology were not allowed to do so. This group was not allowed to know that that group had a solution to a thorny problem—and most within Theranos were not allowed to know that any problems even existed!   

In this culture of intense secrecy, there was zero transparency. And with zero transparency, there is zero accountability to catch small problems before they become big ones. There is also no trust.

Again, we may think we would never be like that. And hopefully we wouldn’t! But here’s a question: Does your spouse have your passwords to all your email, bank, and social media accounts? Would you be okay if they were to randomly pick up your phone and read your text messages or browsing history every now and then? Not out of a suspicious heart (which is a whole other issue that we cannot cover properly here), but out of a simple desire to be let into all of your life?

If your answer is anything other than “yes, of course they can see everything!” then perhaps you have a seed of the same lack of transparency. Don’t let it grow into a dark infection. Confront the temptation to keep some things private from your spouse. If there is something you’ve been hiding (see Secret #1 and #2), make a plan for bringing it into the light soon.

So why do human beings tend toward hiding things, and a lack of transparency, when deep down we know that only healthy transparency will give us the marriage (or often, the business partnership) we’re longing for?

Secret #4: We are fearful—so we want to be in control

Many observers think that some version of the lifesaving, game-changing Theranos technology actually could have been developed in time. And as I read the book, there’s clearly just one reason why it didn’t: Elizabeth Holmes wanted to keep control of everything that was going on. Everyone had to report up to her. And this effort to control was also behind the edict to not share anything with each other.

So the inventors who were working on the credit-card-like device that would hold the blood and its chemical reaction weren’t allowed to talk to the scientists who were trying to make sure that the reactions were correct. The people raising the financial investment weren’t allowed to talk to anyone to understand how the technology worked.

So the concept—and the company—failed, not because it was a bad idea and Elizabeth Holmes knew from the beginning that it was a giant fraud scheme, but simply because she wanted to keep control. And to do that she kept secrets, prohibited internal communication, and decimated transparency.

How often do we derail our relationships that same way? We’re not trying to cause a problem, but we’re trying to protect ourselves—so we don’t tell our spouse everything. We don’t tell our spouse, “Hey, I know you said not to spend anything until payday, but I got some new clothes for the kids anyway. I didn’t want to argue with you, but it’s the beginning of the school year and this is important for them.”

We may not say, “I have to tell you something unfortunate. I got written up at work.”

Instead, we simply avoid having the conversation, thinking the other person doesn’t need to know.

We do this because we worry. Maybe my spouse will harangue me about every little purchase.  Maybe my wife will fly off the handle or worry too much if she finds out I got a warning at work. Maybe my spouse, business partner or roommate will leave me (emotionally or physically) if they find out about this personal problem I have. Maybe they’ll get too stressed out; and it isn’t good for their health.

Yes, I’m sure there are a few cases where we can justify silence temporarily. I know of one wife who waited a few days to tell her business-owner husband, who had just had intense triple bypass heart surgery, that his main General Manager had quit with no warning. But those are rare.

The truth is: in most cases, our desire for control and secrecy is usually trying to prevent a problem from happening—but in the end, it usually creates the very problem we’re trying to protect ourselves from.

So what’s the secret to a lack of secrets? Keep the lines of communication open to protect your marriage

When we have the temptation to hide, remember: a lack of transparency is always going to cause more problems than it (temporarily) solves. And it will usually derail something that could have been addressed and solved in a much healthier way.  We’ll never know, but it is entirely possible that something beautiful could have been created by Theranos if the transparency had been there.

The story of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, approached in the popular book as a business lesson, really spoke to me about a much bigger lesson: Keep the lines of communication open in your marriage, and even in your business or roommate partnerships. Don’t hide experiences, struggles, decisions, or failures—especially from your spouse. Have the hard conversations. Open up, even when it is hard. Allow questions. Even welcome them.

And if something big has been hidden (an addiction, secret relationship, credit card debt), get help from a pastor, counselor or wise mentor if necessary so that you can reveal and address your secret in a way that honors your spouse and your future together.

Take the risk to create a culture of healthy transparency. In the end, you’ll not only protect but improve the health and happiness of the relationships that matter most.

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post 4 Secrets That Will Kill Your Relationship (Or Your Business) appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Does Your Wife Worry How You’ll React When She Shares?

I know what it’s like to take a daughter to college, and it’s not easy. So when a man shared this story with me, I could understand why his wife was acting the way she was. And it wasn’t her that needed to change; it was him.

After they dropped off their daughter for her freshman year of college, they intended to add a few days on to their drive home and do some sightseeing now that it was just the two of them. The well-meaning husband had planned it, thinking of his wife and how hard it might be for her to let their “little girl” go. But on the second day of their drive back, just when he thought it would be getting easier for his wife, she became moody and uncommunicative. He asked more than once what was wrong, and she simply said, “Nothing.” It really bothered him, to the point of a quick return home, because it was something she’d done before—after all, they had a college-age child, so they’d seen some highs and lows in marriage. It drove him crazy when she wouldn’t open up, even after he persisted. Finally, she told him that she had been upset since their first day, when he needed to take a work call that lasted two hours. She thought he was going to take the entire two days off. He explained that it was a busy time at work and she knew that. He also told her not to let that one little thing ruin their trip.

So what was really behind her hurt feelings and his frustration? Let’s look a little closer.

When A Woman Doesn’t Open Up To Her Husband, It’s Because She Has Learned Not To

This man didn’t understand why his wife would only reveal her feelings after multiple requests from him. He just didn’t get it; many husbands don’t. In my research, I’ve conducted thousands of interviews for the books I’ve written on relationships between men and women. I’ve found that when a woman doesn’t open up easily to her husband, it’s because she has learned not to. At some point along the way—whether it was her father, an old boyfriend, or perhaps her husband even now—a woman learns that to open up about her emotions equals a negative reaction.

He needed to consider if he had ever overreacted or reacted negatively to his wife when she did share how she was feeling. So many times, wives try to talk to their husbands about something important to them, and husbands view it as criticism, reacting suddenly and harshly. This teaches wives that their marriage is not a safe place to share their true feelings.

To Rebuild Your Wife’s Trust, Apologize . . . And Be Patient

If you’re struggling with a similar issue in your own marriage, try doing what I advised this man to do. Apologize for whatever it was that hurt your wife. In this particular husband’s situation, it was having to be on the phone when his wife needed him. The important step is to say something like, “I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t needed to be on that conference call either. Your feelings are important to me.”

Over time, this kind of response—expressed without an undercurrent of irritation—will help your wife heal from her past experiences. It slowly rebuilds trust that she can share her emotions and know that you will be able to calmly receive them. You can’t usually control a circumstance or how your wife feels, but you can control how you respond. And that can make a big difference in how you comfortable your wife feels opening up to you.

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post Does Your Wife Worry How You’ll React When She Shares? appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Your Husband Wants Sex? 3 Things He’s Thinking Inside

When your husband approaches you for sex, it goes beyond a need for a physical release or a desire for pleasure. There are emotions under the surface, emotions that you might not realize are very powerful. Keep reading to learn more.

1. “I need to feel desirable.” We women often think sex is primarily a physical need for a guy, but that’s not most of what is going on. When his wife responds to him — or initiates it herself! — it meets a deep emotional need to feel that his wife desires him.

2. “I love you and want to be closer to you.”  Women typically want to feel close outside the bedroom in order to feel close inside the bedroom. But for many men, when they feel tension in the air, when there’s distance, when they know something’s just not right… they miss their wife. For a man’s biological chemistry, in fact, sex is one of the only times that his brain releases oxytocin, the bonding hormone, which brings a great feeling of closeness with someone. When he reaches for you, you may think, I cannot believe he would want sex now, when we’re at odds / fighting / distant. But instead, realize: he’s reaching for you in order to get back that feeling of closeness with you that he is longing for.

3. “I’m really vulnerable right now.” Because sex is more of an emotional need than a physical one for him, many men in my research told me there is no time more insecure, scary, and vulnerable than when they approach their wives in that way. They are essentially laying their “desirability” and their heart out in front of you and asking, “what do you think of me?” Without realizing it, when we are tired or just not in the mood, it is easy to brush him off in a way that cuts that vulnerable heart deeply. Now, just to be clear, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a say in the matter! Of course, there will be times we simply aren’t able to respond. But when that happens, it is even more critical that we tell him how much we care, how much we love him, and make a promise to plan some fun for another night!

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post Your Husband Wants Sex? 3 Things He’s Thinking Inside appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Toxic Masculinity or an Attack on Masculinity?

My Thoughts on “Toxic Masculinity”: A Series

Part 1: “Toxic Masculinity” or an Attack on Masculinity?

Last week I posted a brief piece in response to two hot-button items generating a firestorm of controversy: a Gillette ad with the #MeToo-era challenge “Is this the best a man can get?”, and the American Psychological Association’s (APA) new Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men.

This is the more in-depth look I promised. In fact, there are so many important angles to this—important to men and to all of us—that I anticipate posting several pieces in the coming weeks. (Click here to receive my posts.)

First, a summary: As a social researcher who has interviewed and surveyed well over 15,000 men and boys to understand how they think and feel—and as the mother of a 16-year-old son—I was overwhelmed with sadness when I tried to read the APA report. I was honestly dumbfounded that guidelines by and for psychological professionals could so overtly label “traditional masculinity” as “harmful” instead of challenging the negatives while also purposefully affirming the positives.

Now, I strongly believe the APA is well-intentioned and deeply concerned about the social and emotional problems affecting so many men and boys. I applaud that they see the need for guidelines. Rates of male depression, addiction, incarceration, and academic failure long ago passed a systemic tipping point. We have moved from isolated, individual impacts and to a male malaise that is systemically impacting society.

The problem is: we have had so many decades of false narratives and inaccurate groupthink about men in media and culture, that even those who sincerely want to help men truly appear to believe the lies. So any approach based on those inaccurate beliefs—including many of the current “guidelines”—won’t touch the real problems and can actually make matters worse.

Here are some crucial facts I strongly believe the APA is missing—and some solutions that will help change the trajectory of our men and boys.  

Big picture overview: There is little or no acknowledgement that the way men are wired can be a very good thing

In the APA report, there was almost no acknowledgement that the way men are created can be very positive and absolutely necessary for family and society—the strength, the protectiveness, the desire to take care of people, the desire to do good things. There was a whole section on the vital importance of fathers, but I didn’t see a single recognition that many of the reasons fathers are so important are the commonly-male wirings that were being hammered in the report!

There also didn’t seem to be any explicit recognition of the fact that the toxic (abusive, harmful) application of masculinity is a small percentage compared to the entire population of men. The stereotypically negative/clueless/hapless/overly aggressive portrayal of men in the media is, in reality, far from the majority of men. (More on that in Part 2.)

Most men just want to be good husbands, be good dads, be good at their job, and do good things. But by definition as men, they are “masculine.” They may all be different from each other—some are the traditionally “macho” or stoic types, but many are sensitive, thoughtful, talkative, every pattern of the rainbow—but they are all men. They’re not women, and they don’t want to be women—they want their masculine strength to help people, not hurt people.

But men (and boys) today are caught in a bizarre situation. As a man next to me on the airplane recently told me, “It does feel as if there is a war on men. Have you noticed that on TV shows, men are the only people-group you’re allowed to have overt derision toward? You can’t do that with different religious groups, or women, or various ethnicities—but men as a whole are fair game. It doesn’t really affect me, because I’m 53 years old, and I know who I am. I don’t take it personally. But I do think it is probably deeply affecting our younger men. They don’t even know whether they can or can’t open a door for a woman without being yelled at. And when you can’t win, you check out.”

Society doesn’t yet recognize that a male malaise/crisis even exists, or that a different approach is needed

Many people today don’t believe there is a need to help men and boys. Even the APA felt compelled to preface its report with the apologetic recognition that (I’m paraphrasing here): Yes, so sorry for producing this report, when we do know that men historically have held the power. They’ve been the ones held as the norms even for psychological and medical study. We do know most positions of business and policy leadership around the country (and world) are held by men.  

But it can be true that the person at the top of the pyramid is likely to be a man, while at the same time be true that those at the very, very bottom of the pyramid, crushed under the weight of no hope, are most likely men as well. It can also be true that many in the middle of the pyramid—especially our sons—are absorbing an astonishing amount of derision and misunderstanding against men today.

Men are deeply misunderstood today—because there is an epidemic lack of awareness or validation of how men are wired

After my first research project about men was published as the book For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men, I saw a stunning pattern after the book started getting a lot of attention. Day after day, when people would come up to talk to me after I spoke at a university, community event, church, or corporation, there was always at least one man who had to pause for a moment because he started getting emotional.

“Sorry,” a tall, imposing-looking man told me at a large event in Canada, embarrassed as his eyes were red with trying to tamp down his feelings. “Hold on. Sorry. I’m just really . . . overwhelmed . . . by the idea that my wife might finally be able to understand me.”

As I’m traveling, I often interview random strangers to learn of their perceptions on things. Yesterday, I spoke to two clearly thoughtful, interested women while waiting for our flight who didn’t even understand what I was getting at when I asked their opinion on whether there are “masculine” emotional traits, and which, if any, were positive as well as negative. They strongly agreed that traditional masculinity was toxic (“It’s about time!” one exclaimed, when I asked about the APA report), but also shared their strong (and somewhat contradictory) opinion that there were also not specific things to understand about men’s underlying emotions.

“I think it’s been a problem for a long time that guys are expected to be macho and take care of people financially and all this other B.S..” one said. “We need to de-genderize a lot of these character attributes and just take personal responsibility.”

While I agree with the “personal responsibility” part, there is all too often a rejection of the notion that there is anything specific to understand about men.

No wonder some men shut down, check out, don’t share their feelings, and have higher rates of depression

As a result of this trend, over and over and over again, my staff and I have heard from men who have felt that their feelings, way of processing/communicating, and way of being are not valid or validated. In many cases the men themselves didn’t even realize that they had a unique set of feelings and predispositions that were common to most men—that they weren’t alone!  

For years these men have plowed forward, trying to be good husbands, fathers, salesmen or students, internally accepting the assumption of their wives, teachers, the media, their pastors and even their marriage therapists or business coaches that they are the ones who need to be fixed. That they don’t study or learn the right way. That surely the marriage problems are their fault, because women of course are better at relationships, right?

Think about the level of cluelessness that this represents toward half the population and you’ll see how astounding this truly is.

More fundamentally: Think about how hard it would be to keep going, keep trying, in the face of this constant, subconscious blame; this undercurrent of cluelessness and disdain, and suddenly, you start to see how easy it would be for a man to shut down and check out. You start to see how easy it would be for a schoolboy who doesn’t learn well in a girl-centric learning environment, to feel stupid and decide he’s better at basketball than science, thanks. How easy it would be for a young man in this environment—especially a young minority man who feels not only disdained as a man but as a person of color!—to have a lack of hope.

And as Proverbs so aptly captures it: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”

That is the malaise I’m worried about, for men today—and our sons. A subconscious but very real lack of hope. A lack of belief that they are valuable. That they make a difference.

Yes, I’m making generalizations—but the gender differences do exist

Yes, of course I am making major generalizations here, and not every man (or every woman) will think or feel or process or communicate the same. But on my surveys (and the surveys of many other social scientists), and in the fMRI scans done by neuroscientists, it is beyond debate that men and women often simply have different neuro-emotional wiring. Anything else is simply wishful thinking on the part of people who don’t want it to be so.

And yes, there are men who are themselves clueless or truly insensitive Neanderthals—just like there are with women. But on the whole men are working to be good, productive and caring people and deserve our understanding, just like women do.

The first step is understanding men—and each other

I’ll cover more solutions in Part 2 of this series, but here’s the starting point:

The solutions to this are both very simple and very complex. The complex solution will be somehow generating a sea change in our culture that acknowledges that there are legitimate, valid differences between how men and women often think and feel. And many of these can help us understand each other better.

But the simple solution comes one person, one interaction at a time—working to understand the men or women in your life, to honor how they are similar or different from you. To see their different insecurities, needs, ways of processing, and predispositions.  

More on that next time. But that will be the start for that sea change.  

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post Toxic Masculinity or an Attack on Masculinity? appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Support Your Husband in His Battle Against Visual Temptation

It seems like we’re being bombarded on a daily basis with suggestive images everywhere we turn—TV commercials, magazine ads, mainstream websites, and online marketing. It’s hard to even watch a TV show without being confronted with images that border on pornography. One time, when a friend was watching TV with her husband and a Victoria’s Secret commercial came on, he said “I really shouldn’t be watching this”—and she blocked his view. Since then, whenever a commercial like that comes on she says “Don’t look!” and blocks their view. It’s become an in-joke and they laugh over it. But it’s effective—and seriously important.

Why? Because this man is separating himself from a visual cue so it doesn’t trigger a common visual male temptation in his mind—which means that he’s trying to love and honor his wife well. And I know he’s not alone. Many men are making an effort to fight back against the enticing images that appear in media of all kinds. What about your husband? Does he take steps to protect himself? If so, support him in those efforts—he’s truly fighting a battle because of specific challenges that men face in this area based on how their brain is wired.

Intrigued? I was too, when I first learned about the science that is at work in a man’s brain. Let’s get technical, then see how this information applies to your man’s mind… and heart.

Women should know some key information on how the male brain is wired.

To understand the challenges their man faces, women should know some important information about how the male brain is wired. In the back of the brain (the part that regulates breathing, digestion and the other stuff we don’t consciously think about), there’s a small center called the nucleus accumbens. This is the center that lights up when you’re famished and you see food across the room. You’re drawn to notice that food in a very gut-level way. The next thing that happens, though, is that the cortical (thinking) centers in your brain kick in and you can decide if you’re going to start eating immediately or wait until the rest of the dinner party arrives. 

Part of a man’s brain creates an automatic temptation to look at suggestive images.

Clinical studies show the same process happens in a man’s brain when he sees a woman showing off her body. The nucleus accumbens in his brain lights up and he has an automatic, physical temptation to take in that image. But then his thoughts and his willpower kick in and he can decide whether he wants to continue taking in the image or pull his thoughts away. Many men try to honor their wives by forcing their thoughts and eyes away, but as long as the image is staring them in the face, the nucleus accumbens is being triggered. This temptation to look has nothing to do with your relationship or whether he finds you attractive or not; it’s purely a biological temptation that he has to fight.  

Honor and support your husband as he seeks to honor you well.

My friend’s husband is trying to honor and love his wife well by securing her partnership in removing visual temptation instead of indulging it. She has a good man! And so do many of us wives. By making a conscious effort to look away from (or avoid altogether) suggestive images, our man is choosing to do the right thing. And the impact moves from the brain to the heart as he chooses to prioritize us and the health of our marriage. So if and when your husband asks for, or secures for himself, similar boundaries to temptation—thank him for being a good husband, be a supportive partner, and help him fight back against the visual temptations that are so prevalent in our culture today.

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post Support Your Husband in His Battle Against Visual Temptation appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

My Take On “Toxic Masculinity”: A Heads-Up

I’ve been contacted by a lot of readers and those in the media asking for my opinion on the American Psychological Association’s new guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men—especially given the controversy surrounding its use of the phrase “toxic masculinity.” I’m sure many of you have seen the Gillette ad surrounding this hot topic (click here to view it).  Given how much chatter there’s been over it (both positive and negative) in the media over the last few days, the topic of masculinity seems to be at the top of every newsfeed.

The short version of the controversy is this: the APA guidelines are generally based around the definition of masculinity as a social construct that is “harmful.”  The guidelines rightly note that men are more likely to be aggressive, competitive, and so on, but they focus almost entirely on how to train that “toxic” stuff right out of our men and boys rather than recognizing the positive sides of those traits, and the many men who are using those traits in healthy, wonderful, honorable ways. Rather than how to encourage and support men and boys who aren’t using them well, to channel them in the right direction.   

I wanted to post this quick heads-up note today, because so many people are talking about it, and asking what I think, given my 17 years of research into the deep, private ways that men think and feel, and how they are biologically and neurologically wired.  I’ll be writing a purposeful piece about this next week in response. (I wish I could have done it this week, but we’re in the middle of one of our main surveys for our next book, and I just haven’t had the spare minutes!)

But here’s the bottom line of what I think: when I started reading the APA guidelines, it made me so sad I couldn’t get through the whole thing. About halfway through I started skimming. I wanted to be a good little researcher and truly dig in, but I was simply overwhelmingly saddened by the lack of recognition of the positive side of masculinity. I speak with so many men who simply don’t feel validated for the healthy, honorable people they are, and it was shocking to see that be perpetuated by the psychological professionals who should be helping men.

Now please hear me: I’m absolutely positive that the APA’s intentions were good, sincerely trying to confront what is actually a problem—masculine norms can be abused, there can be an inappropriate excusing of “boys will be boys” and we have to hold each other to high standards. The intention was good but unfortunately in today’s society with some groupthink, political correctness and denial of biology (and frankly, the denial of what is healthy for men), the APA’s report is actually perpetuating the problems that they are sincerely trying to solve.

So stay tuned for my upcoming (more in-depth) post on this important subject of “toxic masculinity” and how we can be a part of the solution in supporting our men and sons to be the best they can be—with our full support, love and appreciation for who they are designed to be.

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.

The post My Take On “Toxic Masculinity”: A Heads-Up appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.