The Man's Guide to Women: Scientifically Proven Secrets from the Love Lab About What Women Really Want

by John M. Gottman

So here’s the news flash: Men, you have the power to make or break a relationship. That’s right. Research shows that what men do in a relationship is, by a large margin, the crucial factor that separates a great relationship from a failed one. This does not mean that a woman doesn’t need to do her part, but the data proves that a man’s actions are the key variable that determines whether a relationship succeeds or fails, which is ironic, since most relationship books are written for women. That’s kind of like doing open-heart surgery on the wrong patient.

All of the research studies show that men who are in happy, healthy relationships make more money, have more sex (yes, believe it or not, married men typically have much more and better sex than single men), live longer, suffer less chronic illness, and show less cognitive impairment—i.e., don’t lose their minds—in their later years.

What trustworthiness looks like in dating and mating is this: You are who you say you are and you do what you say you are going to do. It’s about reliability, accountability, and showing up just as you are (but with good hygiene).

Fathers turn out to be the most critical factor in the health and success of children across a wide range of influences. When fathers are not involved with their kids, there’s a five times greater likelihood that the kids will live in poverty, a three times greater likelihood that they’ll fail in school, and a two times greater likelihood that they will have emotional and behavioral problems, use drugs, get involved in crime, or commit suicide.

In our Love Lab, we found that women have two major complaints about men. The first complaint is: “He is never there for me.” The second complaint is: “There isn’t enough intimacy and connection.”

In contrast, men have two major complaints about women: “There’s too much fighting, and there’s not enough sex.”

These separate complaints from men and women are, in fact, causally related and can be addressed through a simple skill we like to call attunement. When men “attune” to their women, there is less fighting, more frequent (and better) sex, and both men and women no longer feel so alone.

The fights of many couples result from men dismissing women’s emotions instead of attuning to them. You dismiss a woman’s emotions every time you try to fix them, distract her from them, minimize them, mock them, or ignore them altogether.

Attention equals affection. Attention ultimately is how you express love.

Understanding is an intellectual pursuit, while empathy is an emotional pursuit.

If some part of you is screaming, “If I do this, she will roll right over me—she’ll win!” remember that attuning with how she feels doesn’t mean that you agree with everything that she says, just that you hear her—that you “get it.” And we promise that if you do this first, your discussion about how you might solve the conflict between you will go much better (see Chapter 10). You will have less fighting and more sex. Because instead of being simply pissed off at you, she will feel safe and heard, and therefore interested in and willing to solve the problem between you so you can get on with the fun of being together.

Being genuinely interested in her is much more important than trying to be interesting to her.

if you want a relationship with a woman to last, she needs to know who you are, and she needs to feel safe with you. Emotional safety, like emotional connection, is built through the process of attuning. When a woman makes a bid for your attention, when she reaches out to you emotionally and you meet her reach, this demonstrates your trustworthiness and emotional safety. If you shut her down, ignore her, or otherwise don’t attune (especially when she is upset), she will not feel safe with you emotionally, nor will she feel safe to be herself with you.

We’ve already defined from our research what it is men want: less fighting and more sex. But in a more general way, a man wants to be desired and to feel like the woman in his life wants him, adores him, and approves of him just the way he is.

You don’t want to be the source of her unhappiness, and when she’s unhappy, you want to fix whatever’s broken and move on. Men feel responsible for women’s feelings. And this is where men go way, way wrong.

Nothing can send a grown man into a panic faster than tears that seem to come out of nowhere, make no logical sense, and call for a 2-hour “talk” to make them subside.

As he listened to her, he saw himself as responsible for changing her negative, unhappy state to a more positive, optimistic one. He believed his role as her husband was to make her happy, so when she was unhappy he would suggest a way that he could solve the problem, and he’d offer how he would choose to feel if he were in the same situation. Sound logical? Big mistake. The man was full of what he saw as sage advice, like, “When the world deals you a bad hand, you just play the hand you are dealt.” The advice did nothing to help his wife feel listened to. On the contrary, it made her feel that he thought she was stupid to be distressed at all, so she felt humiliated for having been so emotional. What could this man have done differently? How could he have been there for her? Demonstrated his trustworthiness? It goes back to attunement.

They were very serious about the game, but there was also a lot of laughter. But once in a while a boy got overly emotional. Most of the time the kids just ignored this disruption and kept playing the game, hoping it would work itself out. But sometimes the boys would deal directly with the emotion. For example, one day a kid named Brian started to cry, loudly. Another kid, Gabe, who was sort of the self-appointed captain of this semiorganized chaos, stopped everyone by shouting, “Hey everyone! Stop!” and went over to Brian. “What’s the matter?” he asked. Brian, through his tears, said, “I never get the ball.” Gabe then shouted to the other kids, “Let’s go! Only this time Brian gets the ball. Here’s the ball. Okay, you’re it, Brian. Let’s go!” And they were off. Problem solved. Emotions dealt with. The goal of the boys was to keep the ball in play no matter what the cost. Emotions just got in the way of the game. Crying was like an unwelcome leech that had landed on someone and was messing up the fun. The goal was to get rid of the leech and continue the play. This seems to be true of males whether they are 8 or 48. The goal for men is generally dispensing with the emotion so that the play and fun (relationship) can continue.

Lisa and Kathy are playing hopscotch when Kathy starts to cry. “What’s wrong?” asks Lisa. “You hurt my feelings,” says Kathy. “How did I do that?” asks Lisa. Kathy explains that she wanted Lisa to wear the same barrette in her hair that Kathy had on, and she had brought an extra one from home especially for Lisa. She was hoping that Lisa would wear it as a sign that they were best friends. Lisa says she doesn’t like to wear barrettes in her hair. Kathy cries harder. “But I do want to be best friends,” says Lisa. It doesn’t stop there. The girls go on to review how they first met and how they became friends. They talk about doing a sleepover, plan whose house it is going to be at, and discuss what they might do together during the sleepover. They decide to one day marry brothers, so they can become sisters. This goes on and on. The game of hopscotch is long forgotten. It is only a context for the relationship. And emotions are a way of getting closer. They are the stuff of intimacy, and that’s the real reason the girls play the game: The feeling of connection with one another. The actual game is okay, but it’s often just a mask for exploring the closeness of the relationship. For the girls, the goal isn’t the game and stopping the play isn’t a drawback or a disruption of the fun. Emotions are not a problem for girls. They are a good thing, an opportunity for intimacy. To girls, expressing the feelings requires taking a risk, opening up, and trusting one another. It’s a good...

Men are always asking the question, “What are women trying to accomplish when they become emotional?” This is a hopelessly male question. Women are baffled by this question. When men say a woman is being “emotional,” they are not talking about joy, fun, play, humor, interest, excitement, adventure, lust, or passion. They are not talking about the positive emotions. Men have no problem with a woman expressing those emotions. Men have a problem with the so-called “negative” emotions, like sadness, anger, fear, disappointment, jealousy, loneliness, shame, and insecurity. These are emotions that many men would just rather not have at all, much less constantly talk about or dwell on. The majority of men believe that talking about these feelings will only make matters worse. This is not true.

Emotions are opportunities for intimacy.

When a woman wants to connect with you, especially when she’s upset about something, you A-TT-U-N-E: You Attend to her, you physically Turn Toward her, you seek to Understand her by asking questions, you Nondefensively Listen, and you Empathize by accepting and affirming her emotions.

During the first 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle (when estrogen is peaking), women are friendlier, more talkative, more socially relaxed, calmer, and more emotionally sensitive. During the second 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle (when progesterone is peaking), women can be more irritable, more stressed, and less calm, plus they want to be alone more. They can also be more focused on their interior worlds and more creative. This is a general guideline and varies from woman to woman; it also changes as a woman gets older and goes through perimenopause and menopause. Many women experience an increase in irritability and insomnia in the perimenopause period (mid-forties to mid-fifties) that is exacerbated by stress. A Hero helps his perimenopausal partner take care of herself, get more sleep, and doesn’t take her mood personally.

The only constant is change. And the less you take her moods personally, the better off you will be. Believe it or not, her moods generally have nothing to do with you.

It is also the case that testosterone levels are higher in men during adolescence and young adulthood and, consequently, the sex drive peaks at those ages. For women, the sex drive doesn’t peak until the thirties, making for interesting challenges and opportunities as long-term relationships mature. Men and women often find that their sex drives align more closely as they enter their forties and fifties.

What men need to know is that high stress causes men to get less fearful, but when women feel high stress they get more fearful and are more likely to be afraid in the future. Women are more likely to feel fear in response to a stressful situation than men are. Women also experience much more fear over the course of a lifetime, and once they feel fear in a situation, they will be even more afraid when that situation arises again in the future.

Offering comfort to a woman when she is afraid can immediately shut down her brain’s fear response. That is, of course, assuming she’s happy with you. If she’s unhappy with you, your comfort may not be effective.

JOHNATHAN SAT AT the head of the table. He spoke first, and then the other five people around him took turns speaking. When each was finished, they looked to him for approval. Every suggestion made was tentative until he validated that the course they were on was correct. He could think on his feet, strategize, and make decisions quickly and unequivocally. He held an erect and commanding posture. Anyone walking into the room would have no doubt that he was the person who held the power. Sandra had gone out with Johnathan a few times. They were nice enough dates, but she hadn’t felt a whole lot of chemistry between them. She had almost relegated him to the friend zone—but then she sat down at this table and watched him do what he did best. As she listened to him dispatch orders with confidence, fairness, and imagination, Sandra found herself, for the first time, incredibly attracted to him. She felt the spark. She saw him as the master of all he surveyed. And it was around this particular table, during this particular game of Dungeons & Dragons, that Sandra began to fall in love with the man who would someday become her husband. After all, who doesn’t fall in love with the Dungeon Master?

Napoleon Dynamite had it somewhat right when he said, “Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” Now you might not have nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, or computer hacking skills, but whatever your skills, women will be attracted to the expertise you demonstrate in your particular area of interest. In other words, if you collect stamps, be the most powerful, high-status stamp collector there is. If you collect garbage, be the most fascinating, knowledgeable, and powerful garbage collector you can be. Women are attracted to men who are the CEO and president of. . . themselves. We’re not talking about arrogance, however. There is a big difference between confidence and arrogance. Confidence will attract a woman. Arrogance will repel her faster than you can say, “Help me shave my back.” Confidence comes from being secure in your abilities. Arrogance actually comes from being insecure in your abilities.

The men who were successful were space maximizers, showing their dominance in the social setting by stretching out their legs, throwing an arm around their chair, or otherwise owning the space they occupied. The men who were successful also made “significantly more glancing behaviors.” This means they looked a women in the eyes and often accompanied that with a smile. (Otherwise, staring a woman down is just creepy.) Successful men also made fewer “closed-body movements”—think of folding your arms across your chest like a schoolboy being scolded. If you are in a group of people and are practically hugging yourself, you are not going to be seen as socially dominant.3 Never stand with one arm across your torso holding onto your other arm or crossing your legs at the knee—you might be comfortable, but from an evolutionary perspective, you can kiss your offspring goodbye.

Social dominance is also shown by what researchers call intragender touching. This amounts to something as simple as you slapping your buddy on the back or throwing an arm around his shoulders, mano a mano. This signals social dominance and will make you more likely to get the go-ahead signal from a woman.

On the other end of the spectrum, research has also shown that if you are someone who fidgets or makes crazy, random nervous gestures with your hands, you’re going to appear less confident, less socially dominant, and therefore less desirable to wom...

Acording to research by Fhionna Moore, PhD, from the University of Dundee, women find low-stress men much more attractive than men with higher levels of cortisol (a stress hormone). Apparently remaining calm is another one of those evolutionary advantages that women are very attracted to. If there’s a saber-toothed tiger attacking your cave, no woman wants a man who is going to freak out and end up fainting from all the excitement.

From her observations, she created a list of 52 things women do when they flirt. Women tilt their heads, give a particular man short glances, dart their eyes if he looks, run their fingers through their hair, lick their lips, and expose their necks. These women showed their palms to the man, hiked up their skirts a bit, revealed more of their legs, turned in their seats, or caressed an object, sometimes in suggestive, even sensual ways. They walked across the room, swaying their hips, and brushed by a man, touching him fleetingly with their thighs or breasts. Their actions were often subtle, but all were definite signals that a woman was interested and approachable. Many of these gestures are ones that women do unconsciously, not even knowing that they are doing them.

If you approach a woman and she continues to talk to her friend, she’s not interested. If she won’t make eye contact with you while politely engaging in small talk or she is looking over your head and scanning the room, your chances are less than zero. If she yawns or leans or turns away, you need to move on.

Where men go wrong is thinking that she will suddenly become interested once she finds out how fascinating, rich, or muscular they are. When she says no to a dance, a drink, or a conversation it does not mean that you should try harder. Rejection sucks, but no always means no. If you find a serious lack of interest from multiple women, day after day, or night after night, take another look at the cues you are sending. The point isn’t to keep knocking on doors to find out who’s attracted to you; the point is to make yourself as universally attractive as possible.

And attractive, as we’ve discussed earlier, has many, many components. Women find funny men more attractive, because humor is an indicator of intelligence. Women don’t like meekness in a man, either, because meekness makes men seem less confident and less ambitious, and therefore weaker from an evolutionary perspective. Remember to look into her eyes, smile, stand up straight (posture indicates confidence), and don’t fidget. Channel your inner Hero, your inner Superman, and when all is said and done—if she’s not interested, don’t make it personal. If she doesn’t want you, you don’t want her. Mutual attraction is the only attraction worth having.

Learn the signs that indicate she’s interested. She repeatedly glances at you and looks away. She leans toward you while talking. She points in your direction with her leg, foot, or shoulders. She plays with or tosses her hair. She fidgets with a piece of jewelry (like an earring) or strokes the stem of her glass.

You ignore the signs that she is not attracted to you and pursue her anyway. Signals of disinterest include: She doesn’t make eye contact (unless she’s shy). She yawns repeatedly when you talk to her. She leans or turns her body away from you. She looks over your head or scans the room. She tells you she’s not interested in you.

Women are impressed with a guy who has emotional energy, who is passionate about whatever he’s talking about, and who asks questions and really listens to the answers. In the Love Lab, we found that successful couples reported that their first impressions were positive and not superficial. It wasn’t about how handsome or beautiful someone appeared to be, it was about interest, warmth, and a genuine desire to get to know the other person as a real person. Women are looking for transparency and honest conversation.

Conversation is an art, and it’s an art that puts the other person at center stage.

The main point is that people like people who like them. If you like her, show her through words, actions, and your conversation and listening skills. Undivided attention is a powerful aphrodisiac.

Ask for her phone number or ask her out on a date. And when you do ask, if it’s appropriate, touch her forearm while you do it. Research shows greater compliance to a request if you have “light tactile contact.”5 So touch her forearm for 1 to 2 seconds while you are asking for a dance, or her number, or a date. It’s another way of indicating your social status and confidence. Remember that it’s a light touch—gentle and brief contact. Don’t hold her arm in a death grip until she complies or come across as overly familiar. Brief. Playful. Confident.

Researchers at Duke University found that CEOs with lower voices manage bigger companies and, as a result, make more money. The research specifically found that a decrease in voice pitch of 22.1 hertz translates to an increase in company size of $440 million in assets. They also found that CEOs with lower-pitched voices earned an average of $187,000 a year more than CEOs with higher-pitched voices.

Be creative. Be playful. Plan an adventure. We’ll let you in on a little secret. Riding a roller coaster, bungee jumping, or doing something else adventurous with a little bit of fear mixed in can be helpful on your date. The physiological response to fear is quite similar to the physiological response to arousal. The right amygdala—the part of the brain where you most experience fear—is also one part of the brain where you experience sexual arousal. The two can often get confused. Hormones also play a powerful role. When you engage in an activity that is new, exciting, or dangerous, the same hormonal brew (dopamine, norepinephrine, and phenylethylamine) gets released as when you fall in love. So do something exciting and adventurous together on your date—arouse your central nervous systems and arouse each other.

Unlike men, women are much more geared for collaboration, not competition, so if you are discussing something and you have opposing viewpoints, don’t tell her she is wrong. You can say, “That’s interesting. Tell me more.”

A woman’s sense of smell is stronger than a man’s (estrogen is the culprit), and that’s why women can detect odors far more acutely than men do.

Have you ever noticed a woman smelling the top of a baby’s head? A baby’s head emits pheromones that cause the female brain to produce oxytocin—the hormone responsible for feelings of love and intimacy and pleasure.

There’s another interesting field to explore called philematology—the science of kissing.

To add even a little more pressure, evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup, PhD, of the University at Albany reports that 66 percent of women say they have ended a relationship because of a kiss that did not go well.