All of us have seen – and chuckled at – those sitcoms that show a bumbling husband forgetting his wife’s birthday, or frantically scrambling to find a lame anniversary gift at the last minute. And how many times have we seen the handy but insensitive home-renovation guru buy his wife something like a power saw for Valentine’s Day? Or another husband buying his wife a set of cookware or something, thinking he’s being reeeeally smooth. Well, we women laugh at these TV shows because we think men are kind of bumbling and just don’t want romance.
However, my interviews and surveys with hundreds of men for my book, "For Women Only" demonstrated that that pop-culture idea simply isn’t true! In fact, I was shocked to discover that men desire romance just as much as their wives do!
These days, I speak all over the country to women’s groups, and invariably, when I tell them that men want romance, too, women usually ask me, “Well, if he wants romance, why doesn’t he do something about it?” All my research of men actually shows two different reasons why we don’t see them as being willing to “do something about it.”
The first reason is actually one that many women may not have thought of: guys just feel a little clumsy at romance. They want it, but doing those romantic things doesn’t come naturally, and so they doubt they can do a good job. Secretly, inside, they’re just insecure about it. So they hesitate, and they really need encouragement from their wives.
One guy I interviewed said, “We just feel left-handed romantically.” And another guy said, “You know, for example, if you were my wife, I’ll make myself a fool for you. But if you tease me about not quite getting the candlelight dinner right, it’ll be five years before I try that again. And maybe not then!”
There’s one principle that I think will help some women – no matter how confident your man may look, chances are he secretly doubts himself. So, if you can realize that with romance he needs your encouragement, and give it to him, what you celebrate will be repeated!
The other thing women often don’t realize is that romance sometimes just looks different for a guy. Guys want to go out and do things together and they find that romantic. While I don’t think most guys would admit that taking their wife to Home Depot is a romantic event, they would say it feels pretty cool just being together and doing something with her. It feels really natural; it's something you can easily do, together, for the rest of your lives. While that big romantic event that takes days to plan feels pretty intimidating, and even artificial. And it’s certainly not something that guys feel that they can consistently pull off.
One comment I heard repeatedly from the guys I interviewed revealed the secret for a more romantic husband. If a wife encourages her husband in those “big romantic events” and tells him that she really craves it every now and then —if she tells him how wonderful it was, and how well he did it, and that she is still thinking about it a month or two later— he’ll run through a wall to do it for her again.
