Shaunti Feldhahn's Blog, page 64

Actions Don’t Always Speak Louder than Words: How Should You Affirm Your Wife?

Dear Shaunti,

I’m in hot water.  My wife is the most beautiful, amazing woman I know. (I’m sure she’d tell you otherwise, but it’s true.)  But I just don’t talk a lot, and it is hard for me to remember to say things like “You look pretty” out loud.  Last week, she had an epic melt-down while I was watching TV.  She snatched the remote out of my hand, and told me I never compliment her, don’t appreciate her and all she does, never notice her efforts to keep the house neat or take care of the kids… and the list goes on (for a while).  But I do appreciate her!  I bring her flowers regularly, and I try to help her keep the house neat.  She’s an amazing wife.  And even after more than 10 years of marriage, she’s a looker – I just don’t remember to say that kind of stuff.  How can I suddenly become a “talker,” when that just isn’t me?

In the Doghouse

Dear Doghouse,

That old saying, “actions speak louder than words” can sometimes get us in a lot of trouble. Because both matter. A lot.  And all the bring-her-flowers actions in the world won’t matter if your wife needs to hear you say “I love you” and “You’re beautiful”… and you don’t.  I don’t know what happened with the whole TV-room meltdown, but my guess is that your wife wants to know that you to notice her more than the TV.

Your wife, like most women, needs to hear you say out loud that she’s beautiful to you.  In our For Men Only surveys, we found that overwhelmingly true especially among women like your wife.  Among women in that busy, raising-kids season, 85% are longing for their husbands to say these things, not just think them.

Because unless you say it, how will she know you feel that way?   After all, this culture pretty much ensures she will assume the opposite.  It is tough out there in a world where the “ideal” female image is Photoshopped so that even the supermodels hardly measure up!  And if they don’t, even the best wife and mom can easily feel that she’s just one step this side of ugly. Every day the magazines in the check-out line and the commercials on television tell your wife that she needs to lose weight, look younger, be sexy – in all honesty, be perfect.  This kind of pressure can be crippling and hurtful, and it is constantly in your wife’s face.

As her man, you have incredible power to build her up (or tear her down) by what you say… or don’t say.  Because staying silent while your wife is beaten up by those “you’re not enough” messages is not a neutral posture.  Either you’re fighting those messages by what you tell her (“You get more beautiful every year”), or you’re leaving her to get beat up alone.

You say you don’t remember to “say that kind of stuff?”  Picture me trying really hard to not roll my eyes.

Do you remember to tell your boss what happened in that meeting yesterday?  Do you remember to call back your client?

I guarantee you that every day at work or in other parts of your life there are dozens of things you’ve trained yourself to say out loud.  Why?  Because they absolutely need to be said in order for your job or that activity to function well.

Well guess what?  Telling your wife that she is beautiful, or that you appreciate what she does, is what needs to be said in order for your marriage to function well.

This isn’t an option.  It is not a “nice to have” that you can afford to forget at the end of a long, tiring day. You must learn the habit and the skill of complimenting and thanking your wife, just like you learn the habit and the skill of telling your boss what he or she needs to know.

So here’s your assignment to build that habit: Every day for the next month, think of at least three affirming words or expressions of gratitude – “You look beautiful today” or “Thank you so much for making this great dinner” – and say them.

That kind of compliment might not feel natural at first, but if you stick with it, it’ll eventually feel as comfortable as “Pass the remote.”

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths at your church or event? Inquire about Shaunti speaking, here.

Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article first appeared at Patheos.

The post Actions Don’t Always Speak Louder than Words: How Should You Affirm Your Wife? appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Why is it that MEN always seem to be the ones who look at porn and cheat?

Dear Shaunti,

Why is it always men who look at porn, hide things, and cheat?  I’m a single woman, and I can’t help but notice that in the news last week, the one thing Josh Duggar and most of the Ashley Madison cheaters have in common is that they are all men.   Supposedly, even the few women on the hacked Ashley Madison site were fake profiles, just to reel in all those men out there who want to cheat.  It is crazy.  It makes me think women are just inherently more trustworthy.  Part of me still wants to meet someone, but how can I ever trust any guy again?

-Single and Cynical

Dear Single,

First of all, it is not always men who look at porn, hide things and cheat.  Women do too.  We don’t have some inherent saintliness in us that makes us better people.

But the pattern you’re noticing about more-men-than-women is very real, and it exposes something really important to understand about the differences between us. It’s just that your bottom line conclusion is wrong: the differences aren’t about one gender being inherently less trustworthy, but about the very different challenges that come from living in today’s culture.  And it is so ironic that the main reason I see this so clearly is that I released a book about these challenges, Through A Man’s Eyes, just a few weeks ago.

This is obviously an oversimplification but here are three reasons why this pattern of porn use and cheating seems to happen far more with men than with women:

Due to how their brain wiring interprets attractive sights, men are constantly, all day long, being sexually stimulated.  I explain the brain wiring behind this in another column, but the bottom line is that the male brain is wired to be very sexually stimulated when a man sees a scantily-dressed, good-looking member of the opposite sex. By contrast, a woman can appreciate a good-looking man, but her brain is not sexually stimulated in the same way. For a guy, even if he doesn’t want that sort of stimulation, it just happens.  And then he has to choose what to do about it.  Thus, in this culture, hour after hour, when he sees the sexy television commercials, the cleavage on his office colleague, the cheerleader in the booty shorts at the mall, or the provocative sidebar on the internet news article, he has to constantly turn his mind away from thoughts of sex if he wants to honor his wife (or the other woman) in his thought life.


Some men give in to the porn temptation as a result – and it becomes a gateway drug.  As you can imagine, some men grow weary of the struggle to pull those sexual thoughts down, and they give in to the temptation to secretly look at the porn that is always just a click away and – to use a family-friendly euphemism – to “self-stimulate” at the same time.   Other men, of course, don’t see any need to turn away sexual thoughts of other women, and will even recruit their wives to watch porn with them: the if-you-can’t-beat-‘em-you-might-as-well-join-em philosophy.  But porn is a lot like a gateway drug. Just like with pot or cocaine, after a while a user needs more and more intense versions in order to get the same high.  And regardless, it can become truly addictive in itself.  Similarly, some porn users find that they want “more” of a stimulus to get the same pleasure and excitement – and that they are truly in the grip of addiction.  Some users will, sadly, go harder core with other types of porn – and with progressing to actual women instead of pictures of them.  And since men usually are ashamed of and hide the first step into temptation, the rest of the progression also stays hidden – and the men stay trapped.


This progression happens even though very few men started out wanting to hurt their wives.  Although this is cold comfort to a hurting wife, the hard truth is that porn is evilly brilliant at reeling in men who would have never set out to become addicted and devastate their wives and families.  In my research the vast majority of men – more than 99% — truly love their wives.  If I could have surveyed Josh Duggar or any of the other Ashley Madison users before they first looked at porn, I’ll bet they never would have guessed that that first click would lead them to where they are today.  It is a sobering wake up call for anyone – man or woman – to realize the dangers of that first step of wrongdoing, and where it can lead you.

Bottom line?  Yes, there were millions of men caught using the Ashley Madison site, and relatively few women.   But there were many millions of others who stayed true to their wives and children.  Even with all the temptations of this culture, there are millions of men – married and single — who work hard to take their thoughts captive, and try to avoid that fateful progression of porn use.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with men as a gender, except that they are living in a culture filled with very public sights that were only supposed to be seen in private.  And that they have for too long felt that they couldn’t talk to people (especially their wives) about the temptations that come with it.

As a society, we need to condemn poor choices, warn men off of even starting them, but we can’t condemn the men for being men.  I urge you to continue to look for those honorable single men who are out there, trying to make good choices – and be a part of a movement that vows to support these men and thank them for doing so.

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths – including helping women understand men – at your event, church service or network? Inquire about Shaunti speaking, here.

Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article first appeared at Patheos.

The post Why is it that MEN always seem to be the ones who look at porn and cheat? appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Wives, Don’t Punish Your Husband For Being Visual

Tip #57: Women, don’t punish your husband for being visual

I couldn’t believe it when I saw one wife’s comment about what she did when she found that her husband had been viewing pornography. Understandably shocked and hurt, she next did something I found hard to understand. She not only refused to have sex with him; she also put on 150 pounds. Just to make sure he got her point that viewing porn was not okay.

“I showed him,” she said.

Yikes.

As Craig Gross and I have helped women process what it means that men are visual and how to address any problems that have arisen, we’ve found that people tend to fall into two categories: those who handle their new knowledge fairly well, and those who handle it in a way that is self-destructive and can even make a bad situation worse. Even crazier, some of the “destructive” responses have been from women whose husbands don’t seem to be making poor choices but are simply living with a normal visual male brain in an abnormal, sexually-stimulating culture.

When one woman, happily married for 15 years, found out that a male brain can’t not be biologically stimulated by the sight of a scantily-dressed female she suddenly said she couldn’t trust her husband anymore. Even though her husband consistently worked to honor God and honor her in his thought life, would never look at porn, and turned away from the provocative images he saw on TV and magazines, it didn’t matter. Just learning that he was wired visually broke her heart, and she completely withdrew from him. She stopped being intimate with him, and often broke out in tears. This husband was almost in tears himself as he explained to us that his wife’s new knowledge had wrecked their marriage and that he was being punished for something that, ironically, he was handling well. But he couldn’t get her to see it that way.

Believe me, I understand the concern so many women have when they suddenly learn what “men are visual” really means: I wrestled with it myself as I began learning this stuff a few years ago! But here’s my suggestion: If you are a bit freaked out at the idea of men (i.e. your man) being visual, make sure you are prepared to address it in a healthy way before you do one single thing about it. For example, if you are finding yourself obsessing over the idea that your man’s visual biology must mean he doesn’t care about you, then please borrow a friend’s copy of Through A Man’s Eyes (our book about this) and read the chapter entitled “Nixing the Knee-Jerk” before you say anything to your husband.

It will make a huge difference if you understand how to communicate about it in a way that will help your marriage instead of hurt it – especially if there’s already something hurtful going on. Because handling that situation well, in such a way that he’ll want to get help, for example, can make a huge difference to bringing healing. And above all, if there isn’t a problem, resolve to not to “punish” your husband simply for being a visual creature in a culture in which he is being constantly stimulated without his consent.

Just as men need to choose to “take their thoughts captive” and ensure they don’t let their visual minds run away with them, we as women need to do the same with our thoughts and feelings about the whole topic of his visual brain.

Yes, this can be a difficult topic. It comes with a lot of emotions. If something problematic is going on, it may not be “fair” that we have to work to handle the situation well when we’re also handling hurt. But both for our husbands and ourselves, if we want healing and wholeness for them and us, it is worth it to work to do so.

Join us next Monday for the next installment in our Marriage Monday series!

Do you want Shaunti to share these life-changing truths at your church or event? Inquire about Shaunti speaking, here.

Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages and her newest, The Good News About Marriage. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

The post Wives, Don’t Punish Your Husband For Being Visual appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

I’m Unhealthy and My Wife is Unhappy

Dear Shaunti,

Things haven’t been great between me and my wife the past few months. I’m not happy at work, we’re behind on our bills, and I’ve been pretty down.  I’ve gained thirty pounds in the last year from eating a lot of junk and watching a lot of TV, which is not good because I’m a diabetic. I’ve wound up in the emergency room a couple times because of high blood sugar. My wife says she’s fed up and if I don’t start taking my health seriously and start looking for a job that makes me “less miserable” (her words, not mine), she is going to move in with her parents. I don’t know how I’d make it without her – she’s truly my better half and best friend.   I just feel so paralyzed. What do I do?

Sincerely,

Sad and Stuck

Dear Stuck,

Have you heard the story of Eric and Angie Hite?

Angie walked away from their marriage when Eric ballooned to 563 lbs. You might be thinking that its cruel to leave someone over their weight.  But it wasn’t about the weight for her, and I’m pretty sure it’s not about the weight for your wife, either.

You see, in her case, Angie was once a widow and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing another husband…at least not to something preventable. Eric had struggled to find work, which sank him into a depression, which contributed to his severe obesity, putting him in line for all sorts of health problems.

Well, Eric decided he didn’t want to lose his wife to something preventable either. Inspired by the Proclaimers’ 1988 hit song “500 Miles,” Eric started biking, and not just around the block.  He was heartbroken but determined; he started a cross-country trek to both lose weight and prove to his wife that he would do literally anything to win her back.

“I wanted to prove to her that I can take my health back and be able to grow old to her. I wanted to build a new future for us,” Eric told USA Today.

And thankfully …IT WORKED! Not only did Angie come back to him, she went into training to join him on the road.  He officially started in Cape Cod, with the goal of dipping his feet in the Pacific Ocean with Angie at his side.

Why did this matter to Eric’s wife – and perhaps yours? Well, here’s a parallel you might appreciate. In my research for For Women Only, I found that it was emotionally important to men that their wives take care of themselves.  That didn’t mean they wanted their wives to suddenly look like a Victoria’s Secret model, but just to do things like sometimes changing out of the ratty sweatpants or staying in enough physical shape to go out and do things together.  The men said they simply felt cared for when they saw their wives making those efforts to take care of themselves.

Well guess what – it works the same way for most women.  And just like men don’t expect a bikini model, we women don’t expect a carbon copy of Brad Pitt. But we do expect our guy to make an effort to take care of himself, and I think the story of Eric and Angie Hite is the perfect example of why it means so much. Here’s a fairly young woman who has already gone through the pain of losing a spouse. Now she’s married to her second husband, who promised to love her and care for her, and if it’s God’s will, to grow old with her. When Eric let himself go, it sent the clear message to Angie that he didn’t care if any of that happened. Oh, it probably wasn’t intentional, but can you see why Angie interpreted it that way?

It sounds to me like your wife is pushing you away because she’s actually afraid of losing you. So don’t let it go as far as Eric Hite did.  If the two of you are on the verge of splitting up, take a deep breath and force yourself to take one step at a time out of your paralysis.  Ask your wife for one or two little things that you could do, that would make a big difference to her.  Maybe it is eliminating all junk food in the house so she doesn’t have to sit and worry night after night about another diabetic emergency.  Maybe it is your willingness to walk for 15 minutes each night after dinner.   Maybe it means you stop being stubborn about going to the doctor when she asks you to.

You don’t need to accomplish something big and overwhelming like biking across the country, but you do need to start.  Remember, Angie Hite didn’t take her husband back because he made it all the way to California. She took him back because he got up and started moving.

You might be surprised at the distance you cover in your relationship by taking that one first step!

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths at your church or event? Inquire about Shaunti speaking, here.

Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.



This article first appeared at Patheos.

The post I’m Unhealthy and My Wife is Unhappy appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Lackluster Sex Life? Be a Flirt!

Dear Shaunti,

My husband and I were both pretty sexually inexperienced when we first got married, so everything about our sex life was new, mysterious and exciting.  But now we have two teenagers and we both work full-time.  When we find the time for physical intimacy, it feels very forced. Like we’re just going through the motions.  And that old spark isn’t there outside the bedroom either.  A friend suggested that we watch porn movies to get us back to the old excitement, but I’m really not comfortable with it – is that something we should consider?  I just want us to be excited about our physical relationship again.  It sounds like a cliché to ask what we can do to spice things up again, but… what can we do to spice things up again? 

–  Bored in the Bedroom 

Dear Bored,

First, just to get that one question out of the way: run the other direction when someone suggests you watch porn to spice things up.  Poison is not a spice.

But thankfully, what will spice things up is – believe it or not! — really, really simple: start flirting with your husband.  Be sexually playful.  I don’t just mean in the bedroom (although that can’t hurt!) but at other times.

I gave that same advice to a woman at one of my events, and she emailed me later to say it took courage but she started flirting like this – and saw a change almost immediately.  She started by texting her husband about some homework they had to do with the kids that evening and finished her text with, “And if we get done with homework in time to get the kids in bed at a good hour, you can get started on your homework later.”  Her husband came in the door that evening with a huge smile, hugged the kids, and grinned at his wife as he told them ‘homework time!’

Now, some people advocate much more explicit texting – such as with pictures.  I’ll admit: that makes me nervous since all sorts of things could go wrong that could add to your problem instead of adding to your passion.  Your kids could find them (don’t underestimate the nosiness factor when it comes to teenagers), one of his buddies could see them by accident, and honestly, once you send something into cyberspace or the cloud, it’s there forever.  Hackers routinely find and post those pictures.  So I would be very cautious about that.  But other than that, sexually playful flirting is great for marriages.

As you’ve maybe experienced in your own life, knowing that you’re going to be physical with your husband at a particular time builds anticipation.  If you’re like most women, and you aren’t anticipating it, it is probably difficult for you to just snap your fingers and switch from Mom Mode to Ready to Rock Mode when your husband looks over and gives you that tell-tale wink.   But being suggestive with your husband builds serious anticipation – not just in you but in him as well.  And being playful keeps it from being oh-so-serious.  It builds the ultra-important sense that the two of you can have fun in this area just like any other.

Being purposeful about keeping your love life alive will have benefits far beyond the bedroom: it will truly protect your marriage.  For example, I found in my research for For Women Only that if a man’s wife is enthusiastic in bed, it makes him feel loved and supported in a very unique way. For him, it’s not just about the physical act: it’s a way for him to be totally vulnerable with his wife. Most women need to already feel a strong sense of emotional security and closeness in order to want to have sex. But for a man, sex actually builds emotional security and closeness.

If regular, enthusiastic sex makes a guy feel loved and supported, just imagine what it must do for a guy to know that his wife thinks about him in this way when they’re apart and is anticipating being with him later!

So, if texting suggestive things to your husband seems kind of scary to you, slip him a note in his lunch. Whisper something sensual in his ear.  Lean over suggestively when you hand him his coffee as he sits at the table after dinner, just enough so that he can see but the kids can’t.  Cop a feel when he walks by.

Someone has to break the ice, right?   But if you try these things I’ll bet it won’t take long for you to see there’s no more ice to break!

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths at your church or event? Inquire about Shaunti speaking, here.

Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article first appeared at Patheos.

The post Lackluster Sex Life? Be a Flirt! appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Does being “all-in” mean not having boundaries?

Dear Shaunti,

I just finished your book The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, and learned a lot.  But I also noticed that one of your research findings is the importance of not holding anything back emotionally.  Yet I’m also reading Boundaries in Marriage by Henry Cloud. It feels like a tension there between his conclusion and yours.  Can’t boundaries be a healthy part of a happy marriage?

-Out of Bounds

Dear Out of Bounds –

Well, first… thanks for your kind words about my book!  I almost always tackle personal advice here, but you raise a great question that we’ve heard from many others so I wanted to address it.  And please keep in mind: I’m not a counselor!  But here’s what I’ve seen in the research.

When I talk about the danger of holding back emotionally and not being “all in,” I’m specifically talking about situations where a spouse is doing things like holding back their heart, keeping secrets, sharing things with a friend that they don’t share with their spouse, or having a secret bank account in order to not fully commit simply because they don’t want to, or because they have a hard time giving their full trust.  (“What happens if he flakes out on me?  I’ve got to have a stash on the side just in case.”).  I’m not talking about someone who is fully committed to the relationship but must set up guardrails around a difficult situation – like, for example, someone who has a separate bank account because her husband has gambled away the family savings.

Big picture: there’s a huge difference between “drawing a boundary” and “holding back.”

What we normally think of as “boundaries” are only healthy for a marriage if they are set up with the goal of not just protecting a person but also protecting the relationship.

Even in a really serious case  — like, say, a marriage suffering from the husband’s volatile anger — a healthy boundaries-oriented protection for the wife (“If you start shouting, you will need to find somewhere else to sleep tonight”) has the broader goal of trying to teach healthy behavior and ultimately heal the relationship.  Of course there are going to be cases (abuse being one!) where protecting the person has to take priority even if it means hurting the relationship.  But in most other cases, people don’t want the relationship to be hurt!

All of which means that yes, actual boundaries can be used in a healthy, happy marriage, but those situations are probably limited to smaller boundaries that are purposefully designed to keep the relationship healthy.

For example, let me share an actual example I heard from a happy couple I’ll call Rick and Joanie who have been married 30 years.  When they were in their first year of marriage, Rick saw a common pattern.   Something would happen, he would suspect Joanie wasn’t happy, and he didn’t understand why or what he did to make her mad, and so didn’t know how to address it and prevent it happening the next time.  He would ask “Are you okay?” and Joanie would turn away and say in a clipped voice, “I’m fine.”  Now, he knew she wasn’t fine, she knew she wasn’t fine, and they weren’t getting anywhere.  Rick wasn’t a mind reader.  So after a few months, Rick put a boundary in place.  He said, “I’m not going to play games; if I ask ‘are you okay?’ and you say ‘I’m fine’, I’m going to believe your words.”

That boundary worked well.  Joanie realized she needed to be more honest, and share what was going on.  And it drew them closer.

Any “boundaries” other than those designed to protect the relationship are likely to cause problems, not solve them.

To get a counselor’s “read” on this, I shared your question with Kim Anderson, a licensed counselor in the Nashville area.

Let me conclude with what she wrote back to me:

In marriage it is essential that we are “all in”, and that we don’t hold anything back emotionally.  When we hold back a part of ourselves, we lose the opportunity for the true intimacy that we can have with our spouse.  Until we can be open, honest and vulnerable, we can’t experience the beauty that comes from an emotionally healthy relationship.

When we don’t hold back, it means we are willing to show up in our flaws, in our sins, in our guck, so that we can be seen and loved for who we are, not for the mask that we might wear in public.  It does not mean that we don’t still have boundaries, or areas in our lives that are ours.  It means that we show up, we do the work, and we keep the mask off.

 

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths at your church or event? Inquire about Shaunti speaking, here.

Shaunti Feldhahn is the best-selling author of eye-opening, research-based books about men, women and relationships, including For Women Only, For Men Only, the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage, and her newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes. A Harvard-trained social researcher and popular speaker, her findings are regularly featured in media as diverse as The Today Show, Focus on the Family, and the New York Times. Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article first appeared at Patheos.

The post Does being “all-in” mean not having boundaries? appeared first on Shaunti Feldhahn.

Bikinis, Boys, and Back to School Clothes

As I write this, I am sitting at the pool watching two twelve-year-old boys – my son and a friend – try not to stare at a gaggle of shapely teenage girls in bikinis.

Also as I write this, on my to-do list for later is taking my 15-year-old daughter on an errand to pick up back-to-school clothes and sports uniform gear. I’m already bracing for the “But Mom!” conversations about whether the only available shorts are too short.

Oh, the irony.

You see, after a multi-year research project about the visual nature of men, I’m spending a lot of time these days trying to help men and women understand each other on a rather sensitive issue. Which means in my own family I’m trying both to help my growing son learn how to honor girls in his thought life (including by not ogling and fantasizing about them) and to help my daughter learn how to honor boys by not making that discipline exponentially more difficult.

Yes, we patiently explain to the teen boys we work with, your brain is wired in a very visual way. We understand that you want to look. Those are very appealing sights, and your brain is designed to be stimulated by them. You may want to fantasize. But you have to honor the girls instead. We know it is difficult, but every day you need to work to look away, to respect those girls as more than just a collection of body parts. You need to tear down those salacious thoughts. You need to reserve those looks and thoughts for your eventual wife.

Yes, we patiently explain to the teen and pre-teen girls we work with; you are special and beautiful and are wired to want to look and feel that way. We understand that you feel attractive when you wear the latest fashions, even though they might be tight, short, or revealing. We understand how important it is to you to fit in and not feel weird — for example, by not being the only girl in sight wearing a one-piece swim suit. But you also need to know about the wiring of the male brain, and how to honor the boys around you. We know it is difficult today, but you need to try to find fashions that are cute and yet don’t show off your body parts. We ask guys to do the hard work of treating you with respect; please be willing to do the same for them. 

And of course, all over the country, those same types of conversations are taking place at an adult level as well… although often with much stronger emotions attached.

In this common discussion about what guys think and what women wear, it is so easy to take sides, get offended, or become indignant about what that other person should do or not do, that we miss the bigger picture. Whether we are talking about teenagers at the mall or about adults at the office, church or gym, we all have responsibilities to each other in how we think, in how we interact, and in how we present ourselves.

“Look out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others.” The Apostle Paul said that two thousand years ago, but on this issue it pretty much sums it up today.

Shaunti Feldhahn is a groundbreaking social researcher, popular speaker and the best-selling author of many books, including  For Women Only  and  For Men Only . In her latest book,  Through A Man’s Eyes , Shaunti has teamed up with Craig Gross, the founder of XXXchurch.com, to open women’s eyes to the visual nature of men and what it means for a husband, boyfriend or son. See menarevisual.com or shaunti.com for more.

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New Research on Divorce Risks & Age of Marriage

Question: I saw that chances of divorce rise again for those married over age 32.  Is that true?

New Research on Divorce Risks & Age of Marriage

You may have seen the alarming articles, warning readers that now getting married at a later age will increase your chances of divorce. Yes, a new study did come out showing that delaying too long might actually increase the odds of divorce, but with no conclusive reasons as to why. And those articles make it sound like the risk is huge when it is still quite small, compared to those getting married at a young age.

Here are a few details.  Nick Wolfinger, sociologist at University of Utah, looked at the same data (2006-2010 CDC/NSFG) that we did for The Good News About Marriage.  Posted by Institute for Family Studies, the research found that those who get married after age 32 increase their odds of divorce by 5% every year.  This is quite a new development, as previous research suggested the risk of divorce simply leveling off after a certain age. After receiving some criticism with his findings, he repeated this same analysis with nearly identical findings, using the 2011-2013 CDC/NSFG data.

Interestingly, Wolfinger compares the results of the 1996 CDC/NFSG to the 2006/2010 CDC/NSFG data, somewhat like Shaunti did in The Good News About Marriage. He used a different method that allows nonlinear relationships to be revealed.  Wolfinger found an increase in divorce on both ends of the graph, those that marry under 20 and those that marry over 35.  The over 35 group increased 6% in that time frame, while the under 20 group only rose 3%.  Keep in mind that this data, as we point out in The Good News About Marriage, is used to measure fertility, so has a bigger population of younger marriages than the national norm.

Wolfinger also confirmed what others, including us, have reported: getting married in your mid-to-late twenties and even into early thirties seems to reduce the risk of divorce the most.  His analysis shows that for each additional year a person ages before marrying, they reduce their chance of divorce by a significant 11 percent.  That is until the age 32 or thereabouts and then the divorce risk begins to increase.  The National Marriage Project’s 2013 publication, Knot Yet, also found women who wed when they were in their midtwenties reported the highest percentage of being “very happy.”

Both studies show the highest divorce percentage, bar none, remains with those that get married as teenagers.  Wolfinger estimated only a 19% chance of divorce in the first five years of marriage for those 35 and over, as compared to a 32% chance of divorce in the under 20 group.  And in Wolfinger’s update using the more recent data, the chance of divorce for the young marrieds reaches 38%, as compared to 17% in the 35 and over group.

The good news for those single in their thirties: the divorce risk is still way lower than getting married super young. Also, as reported in Knot Yet, when one adds up those that reported being “very happy” when married at 30 or over, with those that reported being “pretty happy,” the result was 88% of overall happy marriages and only 8 percent divorced.  That is still pretty good news.

Tally Whitehead, M.A.P.T., is a researcher and writer as well as Director of Christian Formation at her church. She has served as Shaunti’s Senior Researcher for the last several years and was a contributing author for The Good News About Marriage. She resides in the Columbus, Ohio area with her husband and four kids. You can find out more about Tally at www.tallywhitehead.com

Links to Studies

Wolfinger’s original study can be found at: http://family-studies.org/want-to-avoid-divorce-wait-to-get-married-but-not-too-long/

Wolfinger’s research update can be found at: http://family-studies.org/replicating-the-goldilocks-theory-of-marriage-and-divorce/

The National Marriage Project’s Knot Yet report can be found at: http://twentysomethingmarriage.org/

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3 Crucial Facts You Really Need To Know About A Man’s Brain

The funniest movie moment I’ve seen this summer comes at the very end of Inside Out, as the main preteen girl character talks to a preteen boy at a hockey rink. We’ve been seeing inside her head the whole movie, but instantly the camera zooms out of her brain and into his…. where his mental control room is suddenly in chaos. The warning lights flash “GIRL! GIRL! GIRL!” and everything in his mind seizes up or turns somersaults.

My 12-year-old son saw that and said, “Actually… that’s pretty much what it feels like.”

If you are a girl or woman who didn’t know that you have the ability to create an electrical storm in the male brain, join the club. A few years ago, I was shocked as I first started learning some of this stuff! But since it’s actually really important, I investigated, for my newest book, Through A Man’s Eyes, to find out what goes on in the male brain when a man or boy sees certain things.

So here are three key facts we females usually don’t know about the male brain wiring – but really need to!

Fact #1: The male brain is physically different

I would say “Their brains are wired weird,” but that would get me in trouble. What I mean is this: men don’t just think differently than women, the structure of their brains is physically different. Not only that, the male brain has a completely different chemical-hormonal mix in many ways. And that structure and that chemical makeup are focused around processing life visually.

By contrast, the female brain is focused around processing life verbally and emotionally.

In other words, at the most simplistic level, a guy sees life while a woman feels and talks about life. Whether he is a 12-year-old boy or an 82-year-old man, it is impossible for a male to not be visually oriented – just as it is impossible for a woman not to experience emotions about certain things.

Fact #2: The sight of the female body triggers an involuntary sexual reaction.

Yes, I know it’s a huge shocker that men think about sex a lot. Check. But that’s not exactly what I mean.

Certain sights are automatically, biologically, sexual in nature to the male brain – which means those sights deliver a dose of pleasure regardless of whether the guy wants them to. For example, even a five-year-old boy, who has no idea what sex is, will have an instantaneous and gut-level feeling of pleasure when he sees the college-age babysitter whose clothes (or lack thereof) draw overt attention to a great figure. Even a fifty-year-old husband who loves and honors his wife, can have an involuntary, instantaneous spike of pleasure in his brain when the image of the provocative lingerie model flashes across the television screen before he can look away.

I’m sure that some of you – like me – are a bit surprised or disturbed at the notion of an involuntary pleasurable reaction. That is because our brain is wired completely differently. Thus, most women have never experienced any kind of involuntary, gut-level, sexually-pleasurable reaction to visual images. So we have no idea that men do. Every day.

There is, however, a brain parallel we can understand. Let’s say you haven’t eaten all day and you walk into a dinner party to find a mouthwatering buffet across the room. In that split-second, a center in the back of your brain called the nucleus accumbens lights up and triggers an instinctive reaction: I want to consume that. Zero thought involved. It’s an automatic response.

Well, the same thing happens to a guy when he sees a woman dressed in a way that calls overt attention to her knockout figure. His nucleus accumbens lights up, triggering an automatic sense of pleasure and desire. He doesn’t desire the person, exactly, but that image.  And it’s critical to remember that his brain did that involuntarily.

He is then very tempted to actually look at that sexy image – to “consume” it, so to speak — because doing so would continue that dose of pleasure in his brain.

Fact #3: After the biological reaction comes the mental choice

So then the $10 million question is: what happens next in that visual brain of his?

In the next split-second after the nucleus accumbens lights up involuntarily, the cortical (thinking) centers kick in at the front of the brain. This is where the thought process, will, and decision-making occur. Suddenly, the man has a decision to make: to actually savor the sight of that attractive woman in the clingy outfit… or to look away and honor God and (if he’s married) his wife in his thought life? Remember, the first reaction (temptation/desire) was automatic, biological, and involuntary; the next step will be a choice.

How your husband, boyfriend, or son might actually handle that choice, and what you can do about it, is a topic for another day (and one we cover thoroughly in Through a Man’s Eyes).

For now, let’s venture to agree on the fact that although this visual wiring might seem foreign – and even, for some of us, alarming! – it appears that God created men’s and women’s brains to work in these ways. And if so, that means He created men to be visual and intends that to be a good thing, not a bad one!

Yes, this wiring can certainly pose challenges for modern men as they are confronted with sights in public that they were only supposed to see in private. As many wives have sadly seen firsthand, some men have become trapped in bad choices that become unhealthy for them and very hurtful for the relationship. (Although thankfully, many wives have also seen that understanding this temptation can be a vital step in moving their man toward healing.)

But this wiring can also be a wonderful thing. After all, remember: when a man looks at his bride, he can fully enjoy that nucleus accumbens lighting up! And then both of them can then enjoy everything that comes with it!

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths – including helping women understand men – at your event, church service or network? .

Husbands, It’s Okay To Be Attracted To Images Of Other Women

Within days of releasing For Women Only, based on my research study of the inner lives of men, my husband Jeff told me it was all his male buddies wanted to talk about. Not because their wives could finally understand them… but because they could finally understand themselves. 

The most popular topic of discussion? The “Visual” chapter, where I explained that even the most honorable, happily-married men are confronted every day in this culture by dozens of attractive, sexualized images of other women that they don’t want to have rattling around in their brains. They have to spend time and effort tearing down those images and taking those thoughts captive. And it can be exhausting.

The reaction from some of Jeff’s friends? Immense, explosive relief.

I was really confused, but Jeff explained:

Guys don’t generally sit around and talk about this kind of internal stuff the way women do, so how would they know that other guys are the same as they are? It’s not like you sit around at Starbucks going, “You got images?” “Yep, I got images.”

So some guys have been feeling shame for years because they thought that the temptation itself meant that they were failing and sinful. It is a relief for a man to know that just having an image pop into his head doesn’t mean he’s a failure. For him to know that “Yeah, I don’t like that it confronts me, but what matters is what I do next.”

In the years since that conversation, my research has continued and I’ve heard Jeff’s point of view from many other men I’ve interviewed. Now, just to be clear: I’m talking here about men being attracted by an image, not being attracted to another woman as a person — as in, that female colleague at the office. Further, what I’m discussing here only applies to men who are generally making the right choices and are trying as best they can to keep their thought lives pure.

But there are way too many of these honorable men – truly good guys – who have been feeling shame (or made to feel shame) because they instinctively want to look at the hot woman at the grocery store who is falling out of her top. They feel a gut-level desire to savor the sight of the lithe twenty-something at the gym who is showing off all of her assets. The type of man I’m talking about will generally try to wrench his head away… but deep down inside, there’s a part of him that would rather look.

Guys, is that you?

Ladies, does this describe your husband?

It’s important to say this: it is normal to be attracted to an attractive image. There is literally nothing wrong with that part of it. In fact, a man’s brain is so hard-wired for visual processing that it is almost impossible for a man to not find that image appealing. I would argue, in fact, that his brain is functioning in precisely the way God designed.

However.

It is even more important to emphasize this: being attracted to an image and doing something about it – such as a lingering look or thought about that other woman — are two very, very different things. In the Bible, God clearly says that a man must not allow himself to take that lingering look. He must not allow his thoughts to go in a lustful direction. Those go beyond “attraction” and into “action.” And the actions of lust, in God’s economy, equal a heart of adultery. 

Yes, it is normal to want to look – but the only time a man can indulge that desire is when he is with his wife.

There’s no way to know this for sure, but I think God designed the male brain to be attracted to an attractive image on purpose – and that that purpose was to bond a man to his wife. Remember, Adam’s first words when he saw Eve were essentially, “Hubba, hubba.” I’ve been investigating this topic for years as Craig Gross and I have been writing our new, more in-depth book on this topic, Through A Man’s Eyes, and neuroscientists have found that the visual male brain wiring has a direct tie to a man’s emotional connection to his wife.

Guys, your visual temptations are not abnormal. They are challenging, and you all have told me that you wish you didn’t have them. But you need to know that they exist for most men in this culture.

The key, of course, is what you do about it.

As a woman who understands this topic, I want to thank those of you who are making those right choices every difficult day. You are trying as best you can to live pure, in an impure culture. There is no way to express how much that means to me as a woman, and – most importantly — to the woman in your life.

And to the men who perhaps haven’t been making the rigorous choice to keep your thoughts for your wife: can I challenge you?

Please. Step up to the high calling that God has for you.

Make the godly choices.

If you need help to do so, get it. Rigorously reserve those thoughts and actions, for your wife (or future wife). Because when you are home with your wife, the attraction and the action are, finally, allowed to be one and the same.

Do you want Shaunti to share life-changing truths – including helping women understand men – at your event, church service or network? .