‘What do men really want from their partners?’

Dear readers,
A friend once asked me: “Dr. Nj, what do men really want from a woman?” This friend whom I will call Cheryl went on to say: “I do everything for Frank (referring to her husband of nearly 25 years) but he never acknowledges my efforts openly or show me affection openly. I go the extra mile, cooking his meals, doing his laundry, buying his clothes and shoes and hear this – I even schedule his doctor’s appointments and cut his hair. Frank never holds the door for me, never remembers our anniversary or my birthday. I am sick of taking all his abuses and I am about to file for divorce.”
Cheryl was by now very well worked up with her voice raised a tad higher than normal. I listened carefully trying hard not to interject but to allow her to vent. Afterwards, Cheryl wiped her eyes and said, “I am sorry, it is just that I feel so used up and dried out; I do not know my right from my left anymore. I do not even know how to please a man.” And then laughed in a hysterical manner as she gathered her stuff and walked towards her car. I bade Cheryl goodbye and went straight to my sunroom to think about this subject: what do men really want from women?
Many couples are dissatisfied in their marriages and do not know how to vent like Cheryl did. Instead they bottle it up and remain unhappy for a very longtime. Sometimes these women do not even let their spouses know that “there is fire on the mountain” and not talk of letting them “put out the fire.”  Women remain miserable in an unhappy and unexciting and loveless relationship because they do not know how to please their spouses and their spouses are not telling them what it is they want.
So, I set out to find out what men want and called a couple of my male friends and colleagues. I will share what five of them said in answer to this question and invigorate many relationships so that men and women can both be happy in the relationship.
My friend Pierre grimaced as I put the question to him. I soon learned that he was going through a bitter divorce from his wife of only six years. He was very adamant in getting his point across to me as he said: “Women are very stubborn. Period. I have tried to show her how I like things to be and she cannot get it. I am through with Diane really. All I want is for her to take the time and study me. She knows that I love her but I cannot really say that she loves me. If she loves me she would do things exactly as I like. Can you imagine that after six years, she refuses to buy the foods that I love insisting on buying grocery that she claims are both healthy and easy to cook. I like steak, why does she never buy steak?”
Pierre insisted that men want someone to love them unconditionally, someone to pamper and cherish them and someone to leave them “to be.” I asked what he meant and he said, “I do not want a mother, I want a lover.”
I asked my other friend George what men really want and he said: “We want to be recognized as the king of the jungle and that includes respect, obedience, trust, total surrender.” I looked at George as though he had two heads and guessing my thoughts he said, “I am dead serious. If women can allow us “to be” everything would be all right.”
In analyzing these statements from five male friends from varying cultures and backgrounds (Pierre is from Haiti, George from Ivory coast, Osa and Linus from Nigeria, and Emmanuel from Peruvia in Italy), all five of them basically said: “Leave us to be our own bad selves.  Do not attempt to change us.  If we are reckless, so be it.  Do not tell us what to do.”
Unfortunately, women are nurturers and managers by nature and it can be argued that generally women are better organizers. Then the question is: how can women learn to adapt to these revelations by men and still maintain a healthy non-competitive, non-threatening environment with their spouses? In other words, how can men gain trust by the simple actions that women take to sustain their relationships?
I think that the points below may provide a parameter for how to deal with the main issues that can make or mar a relationship. They are: finances and economics, freedom, in-law syndrome, sexual health and fostering the male-ego and building authority of a man. If women can learn a little from these tips and use them to improve their own unique methods, perhaps men and women may begin to finally reach an accord on what Cheryl asked me earlier: “What do men really want?”
■ Dr. NJ
•To be continued next week