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

by John M. Gottman

Nothing is more of a mood killer than a man who asks for permission. “May I kiss you now?” It’s polite, but it’s not likely to ignite any chemical cocktails in her brain. Instead, read her nonverbal signals to know if it’s the right moment.

She may not go for the kiss herself (no romance novel cover has the woman bending the man backward to kiss him), but she will send the signal when she wants you to go for it.

You ignore the signs that she’s either attracted to you or not. (Meaning you fail to make your move or you make your move too soon.)

When you’re in the first stages of attraction (love, lust, or whatever you want to call it), you’re experiencing a cascade of hormones that induce a state that psychologists called limerence. You may not know the word, but you know the feeling. It’s falling in love, it’s what makes you think about the woman all the time. It’s what makes you able to go without sleep and without food. It induces feelings of euphoria and ecstasy. It makes life more erotic and thrilling and beautiful.

Watch how your romantic partner treats her pets, friends, and family, and you’ll get a good idea about how she will treat you in a relationship. Step back and try to observe her as objectively as you can. Is she kind? Is she respectful? Is she patient? Does she show compassion, is she considerate, or is she self-centered? Knowing her true profile means knowing her heart and mind, as well as her body. Do you trust her? Do you feel a sense of ease in interactions with her? Can you laugh together easily? Do you get her sense of humor? Does she get yours?

HEART. Try to notice if she is kind or if she complains about her friends and family all of the time. If something negative happens, does she blame others? Does she take any responsibility for miscommunications with friends and family? Is she honest in her other relationships, or does she lie and make excuses? Is she loyal? Does she keep the secrets entrusted to her, or do you hear her gossiping shortly after a friend or family member confides in her? Remember, people don’t really change their basic character, and if she doesn’t value trust and loyalty with those closest to her, she won’t value it with you. Is she open-minded, or closed? Is she conscientious (she keeps promises and does what she commits to)? Is she agreeable, or does she provoke others and stoke conflict and disagreement? Is she “neurotic”? The technical term “neurotic” really means two possible cognitive styles: (1) she sees potential negativity everywhere, so she approaches any new situation with an expectation of total disaster, and/or (2) she ruminates endlessly on every small negative event. MIND. Do her words and actions match up? Does she follow through with what she says she is going to do? Is she trusting or suspicious of you? Does she say she trusts you but looks through your phone or interrogates you about where you’ve been? Is she accepting of your friends, or does she find some fault with every one of them? Does she snoop through your drawers, want to read your e-mail, or question you about th...

THE DAMSEL IN DISTRESS. Does she present herself as a victim? Does she endlessly talk about the negative relationships in her life? Friends who have betrayed her? Past boyfriends who have cheated on her or let her down in some way? Does she tend to divide people into two categories, the Good and the Bad? Be careful. You may at first be the One True Good Guy, or the Rescuer, but eventually you will probably join the list of Bad Guys. Does she dwell on her physical ailments, personal traumas, or family woes? Now, in the course of dating and getting to know each other, you will share your personal histories, and most personal histories do include some painful things. But the question is, does she derive her identity from her trauma? Does she seem to relish the role of being a victim, or does she talk about what she’s learned from past mistakes, heartaches, or traumas? There’s a big difference between the two. If she feels that everyone in her life has let her down, then you could be the next name on that list.

THE PRINCESS. Does she present herself as if she’s above everyone else? Does she treat others badly—waiters, service workers, strangers—and act as if they are beneath her in class, status, or value? If so, you may have a princess on your hands. Princesses rarely say “thank you” when you open a door or pull out a chair for them. They swirl about in a cloud of entitlement and often demand you spend a lot of money to show you care. A Princess will often have unrealistic expectations of you. You may be her prince at first, but ultimately you’ll find yourself in the ranks of all her other lowly subjects. She lacks empathy and common courtesy, and she will put others down to feel better about herself. There was once a New Yorker cartoon of a Princess who angrily said to a waiter, “Do you know who I think I am?”

THE COMPETER. Does she lead with her success? Are the first words out of her mouth always about her conquests or achievements, and does she rarely show interest in you? Does she try to one-up you or other people around her? The Competer is, obviously, competitive, and she often has a chip on her shoulder. She will flirt with other people to make you jealous just so you know how lucky you are to be with her. This character type delights in other people’s mistakes. She is controlling of others and also of herself. She may be perfectionistic. This is the kind...

THE DRAMA QUEEN. Do drama and chaos seem to follow her around? Is life a series of her problems, one after another, and she looks to you to fix them all? Is every day a new crisis? Now most people want a partner, not a project, but some men find themselves drawn into the swirling chaos that surrounds the Drama Queen. She runs out of gas, gets locked out of her house, and has endless drama with exes and friends alike. She may also have a drug or alcohol problem. Does she have more than two or three drinks in an evening? Are her pupils overly large or overly small, which are signs of potential drug use? Does she refuse to eat? Can she have a good time if it doesn’t i...

The most important question to ask yourself about the woman you want to date or have a relationship with is this: How does she make you feel when you are with her? Is there a sense of ease in relating and laughing that makes you feel like you’ve somehow come home? Do you feel energized and happy? Are you able to talk endlessly and communicate well? Do you have the same values? Do you want to know everything about her and bring her to meet your friends and family? Does she make you feel good about yourself? Does she bring out your inner Hero?

No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t. —Marilyn Monroe

Men adore the female body. It’s soft. It’s smooth. It has endless curves to roam your hands up and down. Let’s be perfectly honest: Men crave a woman’s body and never get tired of looking at a woman’s body. And when that body belongs to your woman, you let her know how much you love her body, over and over again.

Most women have been taught from an early age that their physical attractiveness is their greatest asset and their most intrinsic way of pleasing others and getting love. A woman doesn’t see herself separately from her body, and therefore she often defines her worth in terms of her body. Beauty for women is a survival strategy, and there is constant pressure to be beautiful and to compare what she sees in the mirror to what society tells her is beautiful.

And the problem is, a woman doesn’t feel that she can “build” her beauty like she can her physical strength, her stamina, her knowledge, her competence, or her wisdom. She doesn’t feel that she can build her attractiveness the way she can her résumé. In fact, media messages tell her that her beauty will only deteriorate as she ages. Men are measured by their prowess, success, performance, and ability to be effective in their chosen field or occupation. Women are not only judged on all of those qualities, but also how they look and dress in the process.

And as a man, you might think it’s funny to comment on the doughnut she’s eating or the size of her thighs—but it’s not. And for every disparaging thing you say, you’re going to need to say hundreds if not thousands of complimentary things to make up for it.

Clinical psychologist and author Joni Johnston, PsyD, writes that after the bubonic plague in Europe wiped out one-third of the population, the ideal in feminine beauty was looking pregnant. Even a woman who was single was encouraged to look “fertile.” One has only to look at the great paintings from the Renaissance through the Victorian era to see that the feminine ideal used to be women who were curvaceous, voluptuous, and generally rounder than today’s ideal. This was the original airbrushing, but instead of creating ultrathin and emaciated women, those Renaissance painters portrayed a full-bodied woman as the epitome of sensuality and sexuality. The thin woman ideal emerged in the 1920s, as women’s civil rights grew and women began to reject traditional feminine images. Since then, this ideal has taken on a life of its own and is the cause of all sorts of eating disorders in young women. Also, when a society is well fed, thinness denotes self-control or an ethereal abstinence that appears saintly. So thinness became chic in the 1920s, when the industrial revolution was booming and the middle class was well fed and growing.

Think about the preoccupation that most men have with the size, shape, and acceptability of their penises and imagine that you felt this insecure about every aspect of your body. Now you have some understanding of how most women feel about their bodies, all the time.

A woman’s desire is dependent on her feeling desirable.

i like my body when it is with your body. it is so quite new a thing. muscles better and nerves more. —e. e. cummings

There is a common myth that if a woman doesn’t reach orgasm, the man is not a skillful or good lover. That he has failed. This is definitely a myth because ultimately, a woman is responsible for her own sexual pleasure. As Doug’s mother once said, “In life, everyone is responsible for their own orgasm.” (Wise words from a wise woman.)

Don’t rush. Experience her desire. She will know the difference between you making love to her and you going through a routine with the sole intention of getting her ready to receive your almighty penis.

If for any reason you do not like oral sex, we say “Get over it.” Man up.

Her research found that the causes of women’s anger could be rooted in one or more of three categories: powerlessness, injustice, and the irresponsibility of other people.

It’s called diffuse physiological arousal (DPA), and in our study of more than 3,000 couples, we found that it is impossible to communicate when in this physiologically aroused state. You know you are flooded if your heart rate is over 100 beats per minute (or 80, if you are in great physical shape). That’s the point at which you start secreting adrenaline and launch into DPA. In DPA, you lose access to your sense of humor, cannot listen very well (hearing and peripheral vision are compromised), and tend to repeat yourself (which we call “the summarizing yourself syndrome”). None of these are very good portents for great attunement.

So what can you do when you get emotionally flooded? (And even the most enlightened man gets flooded when he feels criticized or attacked.) The Heroes have three simple strategies that have been scientifically proven to reduce their heart rate. The first is to breathe and the second is to count to 10. Breathing and counting to 10 are ways of downregulating or self-soothing. When you take a deep breath you stimulate the vagus nerve, which in turn reduces your heart rate and lowers your blood pressure.

If you still feel no noticeable decrease in your desire to attack your woman verbally (or even physically), then the third strategy is to take a break. There is a difference, however, between taking a break and taking flight. You can’t just abandon your woman in the middle of a heated conversation. You have to say something to the effect of, “You know what, I’m having a hard time listening to you right now, and I will come back in 30 minutes so we can continue to talk.”

The third strategy of taking a break only works if it’s a break where you are not thinking about getting even or thinking about being an innocent victim of the alleged spear throwing. If you take a break but spend it thinking about either of these things, you are going to stay physically aroused and emotionally flooded. You need to totally distract yourself. The break needs to be at least 20 minutes long because it takes that long to diffuse the flooding hormones. If after 20 minutes you are still not calm, then come back to your partner and tell her you need a little more time before responding. In our research, we showed that after conflict a man’s heart rate did not lower when he thought about his wife’s negative qualities. Surprisingly, it also didn’t lower when he spent 20 minutes thinking about his wife’s positive qualities. Guess what lowered the heart rate of our participants: reading a magazine. What you need when you’re emotionally flooded is a distraction. You need to think about anything but the person you are in conflict with and the conversation that caused the emotional flooding. It’s about self-soothing and down-regulating your nervous system. Think about your golf game. Think about baseball. Think about England. Think about anything that has nothing to do with your conflict, and you will soon be able to think clearly. Doing something physical can also help. You can take a walk, read a book, listen to music, go for a run, do some yoga, or meditate.

A Hero tries to find out where it hurts, and he does so by asking one or more of the following three important questions: 1.What do you need? 2.What are you concerned about? 3.What are you feeling?

The well-being of the tribe depended on the women and their foraging skills, their memories, and their creativity, all of which evolved so they could bring back the gifts of their foraging and make life better in the tribe.

In a long-term study of marital success, psychologists Peter Bentler, PhD, and Michael Newcomb, PhD, found that what best predicted whether marriages would last was, believe it or not, a woman’s clothes-consciousness.4 The grim reality is that if she looks good, she will not only attract a partner, but also keep him.

The nurses with breast cancer who had 10 or more friends were four times more likely to survive having cancer. Friendships were the single most important factor for these women—even more important than having a spouse, which showed no benefit or effect on cancer survival rates.

A woman’s relationship with other females determined her safety and well-being and also her children’s social status. The more female relationships she had and maintained, the higher the status of her children.

In over 40 years of research and work with couples, we have come to believe that you can’t make it work with just anybody.

All of the arguing in this stage of love is around trust and one question: Will you be there for me if I need you?

So stage two is about building trust, and stage three is about building loyalty. When you are in the third stage of love, you’ve chosen commitment. You know that this woman is the woman for you—it’s an amazing choice to make, but it also means that you’re vulnerable and you can get hurt. In this stage, you’ve chosen to go down the rabbit hole with your partner and to take an amazing journey together. You are commited to another person’s wellbeing as much as you are committed to your own. This is powerful, and it goes both ways. Each of the stages of love is selective, and this third stage only works out if you are both committed to monogamy and mutual sacrifice for one another.

There are couples who made the choice to be committed and to marry, but who never went through all the stages of love, including the limerence phase. We found in our research that the couples we worked with who never “fell in love” always wondered if they had made the right choice and always felt like something was missing in their relationship.

Couples in stage three of love, we have found, always seem to feel there is a purpose to their relationship—that together they have created something bigger than themselves. And when these couples talk about meeting, falling in love, and choosing to be committed to each other, there are always expressions of fondness and admiration. They have a certain kind of ease with each other and an ability to talk to and confide in each other. They have created a sense of shared meaning and purpose in their lives. There is trust and loyalty.

There may be 10,000 women on the planet with whom you can have a really satisfying lifelong love relationship. So there’s not “the one,” but many potential ones.

But there is one arena where compatibility is very important—feelings. How do you both relate to anger, sadness, fear, and joy? How do you express affection and love? If you have very different feelings about feelings, it can cause lots of trouble and lots of work (to make the relationship work).

If you’re like most men, you think you can ensure your longevity by eating right, working out at the gym, and watching your weight. But research shows that taking the same amount of time and investing it in connecting emotionally with the people closest to you in life, especially with the woman in your life, is what really ensures your health and a long life. A great relationship with a woman is really the best form of self-interest.

In the book American Couples, authors Pepper Schwartz and Philip Blumstein studied more than 12,000 heterosexual cohabiters, same-sex couples, and married couples.1 What they found surprised them. They expected that people who lived together would become more similar to married couples the longer they lived together. (Even our US laws say that after 7 years of cohabitation you’re essentially married.) But what they found in their American sample was that the opposite was true: The longer a couple cohabited, the less they looked like a married couple when it came to commitment. And we’re not just talking about sexual fidelity. Cohabiters were less likely to support each other during times of financial trouble or to be there for any kind of trouble. Cohabiters were also more likely to leave if someone better came along. In other words, there was a lack of commitment or way less commitment among those who were living together rather than married.

You don’t need to have similar likes and dislikes to work as a couple, but you do need to be compatible in how you handle conflict and express emotions and affection.

If there is one thing that guys excel at, it is play. There are huge differences in how men and women play with babies. A father’s play with a baby is more physical and tactile, while a mother’s play is more visual and verbal. Author and pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, MD, puts it this way: “mothers stroke, fathers poke.” A father’s play has fits and starts, because let’s face it, if men are playing, they want it to be fun. If something isn’t fun, they will stop and start something new every time. In our Love Lab videos, we saw that women will persist in showing a baby some picture they think is important for the baby. “Here’s the giraffe. The giraffe is the tallest animal in the zoo.” Even if the baby crawls away, the mom will persist in showing the picture of the giraffe to the baby. For example, “Who is the tallest in the zoo?” said one mom to a 7-month-old baby as she showed him the picture of a giraffe. He crawled away. He didn’t care about the giraffe. She circled around him and showed him the picture again. “Who is the tallest in the zoo?” And again he crawled away. Mom was relentless. She tried again, even as the baby again retreated. Mom is a baby’s patient teacher. Dads, on the other hand, will drop a game like a hot potato if the baby isn’t interested. If they see the baby looking at a toy truck on the floor, dads start making truck sounds, “Chug, chug, chug, rumm, rummm, rummmm!” The baby is automatically captivated, and the dad becomes the truck. Guys are lik...

Biller and Blanchard reported that kids who had the hardest time with both social relationships and grades had fathers who were cold, authoritarian, derogatory, and intrusive.