Women used to confuse me a lot. It seemed there was no logic or rationality to what they wanted.
I wanted her to be satisfied, happy, I wanted to be happy, but damn it was hard to work out what that was - especially as it could change from day to day.
Sound familiar?
What she really wants is...
However there's something that’s made relating to women comparatively simple. When I let this principle guide what I do, relating to my partner, daughter and pretty much every other woman in my world has an ease which it never had before.
The key I discovered is this: one thing a woman really wants is to trust you.
If you’ve just met her, she’s trying to work out if she can. If she’s attracted to you, she’s really trying to work it out and she’ll test you to see if she can trust you.
If you’ve just got her pregnant, chances are she’ll really test you.
If you’re not fully connecting in your relationship, it’s pretty likely that at some point her trust in you has been compromised in some way.
It’s finding out how it has, and working on this, that does wonders.
Yes it's about you
And at heart it’s not as much about what you’ve done or not done - but you show it through what you do or don't do.
It's about the man you are and how solid she feels you to be.
If the trust has been disrupted in your relationship, this is the core component you need pay attention to.
How much she can rely on you. Trust you to be there for her. Strong for her. Soft for her. Supportive her. Lead for her. Take her. Caress her.
Sometimes it's the small things... or the big.
As you most likely know, there’s no real formula for what you do - one day one thing might work, and the next she hates it.
But there are consistent things. Things that build trust between the two of you.
Find out what these things are for her. It could be as simple as tidying up after yourself around the house. Seriously.
It could be about money. It could be about what gets done around the house, the ‘man jobs’. It could be about just listening to her.
All these things, even some small things, can be about trust for her.
Just work on one thing that matters to her. Keep looking for what you can do to build trust. Real trust.
Ask her.
Is this the only thing? No. But if the trust isn't there, anything else isn't going to make as much difference as you'd like.