Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / What Do Women Mean By "Be More Romantic"?

Transcript

What Do Women Mean By "Be More Romantic"? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor psych mom, show.
• 0:10
  What I'm going to talk about today is how men can be more
• 0:14
  romantic to their wives. And what this even means, this
• 0:18
  was a reader request and I have written about this.
• 0:22
  But for everybody who wants to know more about the topic, I
• 0:26
  will talk today about how you can be more romantic and what
• 0:31
  your wife is even talking about when she says that.
• 0:35
  So, A lot of guys who are not highly sensitive people, if you
• 0:39
  have a wife, who's a highly sensitive person, and I can also
• 0:42
  link you in the description of this episode to what that even
• 0:45
  means a highly sensitive person. But, you know, if you're a guy
• 0:50
  and you have a wife who you think is sensitive, she probably
• 0:53
  even more sensitive than you think.
• 0:55
  She's probably a highly sensitive person, which is 20%
• 0:58
  of people. It's a trait, it doesn't change.
• 1:02
  And it means that they're more observant, more sensitive They
• 1:06
  feel everything, deeply, whether it's physical pain, whether it's
• 1:10
  emotional pain, whether it's Happy Feelings, everything, they
• 1:13
  feel more deeply. And while that is nice, when
• 1:17
  she's feeling positive things, it can be less nice and more
• 1:22
  harrowing and dangerous seeming when she is very, very upset.
• 1:29
  So things that she wants as a highly sensitive woman, most
• 1:34
  likely if she's big into Rome, She's most likely a highly
• 1:37
  sensitive woman but many most possibly women want romance.
• 1:41
  What these women mean by this is that they want to feel special
• 1:46
  and like you cherish them and you deeply care about them and
• 1:50
  think about them and that they are not just anybody to you.
• 1:55
  I'm always hearing this in couples counseling where the
• 1:59
  woman says, well if I died, he wouldn't care.
• 2:02
  He would move on. He'd be back at work.
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  The next day he'd remarry. Three, he if he wasn't with me,
• 2:07
  he'd be with somebody else. This is not uncommon for women
• 2:13
  who want more romance to say about their husbands and their
• 2:16
  husbands really don't feel like this.
• 2:18
  They do feel a special connection with the woman that
• 2:21
  there with and they frequently get very frustrated.
• 2:24
  Thinking, what else could I possibly do to tell my wife that
• 2:29
  I love her besides, literally telling her that I love her
• 2:32
  going to work. Providing coming home and
• 2:36
  Telling her many men think frequently that she's attractive
• 2:39
  and that they love her. What else can you do?
• 2:43
  Is the rhetorical question, but it should not be rhetorical
• 2:46
  because there are many things you can do.
• 2:48
  So, in this podcast, we will go through some of them so that you
• 2:51
  do not feel quite so terrified and irritated and possibly even
• 2:57
  very angry when you here, yet again, that you are not romantic
• 3:01
  enough. Instead of thinking, why are you
• 3:05
  up? Up my ass about yet.
• 3:06
  Another thing that is bullshit. You can potentially understand
• 3:10
  more about what your wife means. And then empathize because it is
• 3:13
  unlikely that you are actually doing a lot of these things
• 3:16
  already, or she wouldn't be complaining.
• 3:19
  Now, let me in order to facilitate your understanding of
• 3:23
  this topic, let me make an analogy to sex.
• 3:26
  So I frequently say that romance for women is like sex for men
• 3:30
  and specifically like blow jobs for men.
• 3:33
  So you don't have to give your husband a blow job but he would
• 3:35
  I really like it and it's real nice thing to do and it enhances
• 3:39
  his experience and makes them feel special.
• 3:42
  All of those things are the same for romance.
• 3:45
  You do not have to be romantic toward your wife, it is quote
• 3:49
  enough or I guess it could be seen as enough for you just to,
• 3:54
  you know, be nice, courteous helpful and obviously take care
• 3:59
  of stuff around the home. But that does not make her life
• 4:03
  magical just like Plain old missionary intercourse.
• 4:08
  Does not make your life magical unless you are 17.
• 4:11
  Then it makes your life very magical, but when you are older
• 4:14
  and in a monogamous relationship, you would like
• 4:16
  some bells and whistles. This is what women want.
• 4:19
  They want the bells and whistles.
• 4:22
  So they want the emotional blow job romance is an emotional blow
• 4:26
  job for women. So many of you may be thinking,
• 4:31
  well maybe if I got some real blowjobs, I want to give some
• 4:33
  emotional blow jobs but listen. Got to start somewhere, you
• 4:37
  know, maybe if you start giving some of these emotional blow
• 4:40
  jobs, you're going to get some real life blow jobs, you know,
• 4:42
  and it takes to if you are a very non romantic and very
• 4:48
  practical outside of the bedroom, then she may be that
• 4:51
  way inside the bedroom and you do not like, I'm sure pragmatism
• 4:56
  and just kind of doing what you got to do attitude in the
• 5:00
  bedroom. You would like there to be more
• 5:02
  enthusiasm, more special things. As more novelty, more
• 5:07
  excitement, more closeness. This is, of course, women don't
• 5:11
  realize this about men when they want these special things in
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  bed, they feel closer, right? You feel closer doing these
• 5:18
  special things in bed, if you are.
• 5:19
  The average man that makes you feel more connected.
• 5:22
  Well, this is how women feel about romance.
• 5:24
  So practically speaking, what are some tips to be more
• 5:27
  romantic? Well, you can buy her stuff, you
• 5:30
  don't have to spend a million dollars, but if you leave the
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  house and you go to the gas station, To get gas.
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  It will not kill you to go in and get her favorite candy bar
• 5:40
  or, you know, whatever she likes or a magazine.
• 5:44
  Even just, this little thing would be transformative to many
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  relationships as sad as that is because women that are in this
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  boat of not feeling that the man is very romantic.
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  They feel like you literally do not think about her during the
• 5:58
  day. This is so interesting because
• 6:00
  I'll always see the men how often men in this Dynamic.
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  I'll say how often you Think about your wife during the day
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  and the answers never are less than multiple times a day.
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  They always, at least say, multiple times a day and
• 6:13
  sometimes they say, I'm like, always they get about her.
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  She's always in the back of my mind and the woman is astonished
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  because there is no real world evidence for this.
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  He's not texting very much. He text mostly in response,
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  picks up the phone if she calls again, responding and doesn't
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  really go out of his way to do anything much.
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  That would make indicate to her that he was.
• 6:39
  In fact, thinking about her. What a tragedy?
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  This is leaving money on the table here, you are actually
• 6:46
  thinking about your wife, but she doesn't know if she knew,
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  she would be so much happier. So whenever you can think of a
• 6:53
  way to show your wife that in fact you were thinking about her
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  during a time when she thinks you're not thinking about her,
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  this is the money shot. So in my little example of going
• 7:03
  to the gas station, you are thinking about About her.
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  You got out of the car you went in.
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  You got her a Kit Kat. She likes Kit Kats.
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  And you can then put this later on her, you know, desk with a
• 7:15
  little note that says, I love you.
• 7:17
  I thought you might want to treat this would be ramping up
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  the Romance by a factor of about 10 million percent, for many
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  people that are in a non romantic relationship.
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  Just this little thing, ask your wife, if you don't believe me
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  you think that that would be so stupid.
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  Ask your wife if she would like that.
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  And find that to be a cute gesture.
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  I will assure you that the majority of women would think it
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  is next. Oh, and by the way, you don't
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  have to spend a million dollars. Let me reiterate that and
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  reiterate that you do not have to bring home a Lexus with a bow
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  around it. We're not talking about that.
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  If you spend literally not joking, $10 a week, $40 a month
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  on little cute things. The average woman would be like
• 8:05
  thousand percent happier and you could tell that I am a real math
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  person by the the specificity of those numbers.
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  No, I'm not. But this is for Real, your wife
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  would be like 1 million times happier.
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  If she knew that you thought about her in this little way.
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  Next, you have to verbalize what you feel.
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  Do you feel like you deeply, love your wife?
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  That she is very beautiful, that she is a very good mother better
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  than Giving your children a better childhood than the one
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  that you had? Are you thinking that she really
• 8:41
  has a lot on her plate? And she deals with it with a lot
• 8:44
  of Grace. Are you feeling that she is
• 8:47
  always the funniest one in the room.
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  Do you feel that she has a quick intelligence about her?
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  Do you deeply trust her? Anything?
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  Anything that is special about your wife, write this stuff
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  down, if you're not mr. Romantic then you don't think
• 9:04
  about this stuff on a regular. Aces.
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  So, what you do is you take up notepad or an email to yourself
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  and whenever you have a little thought about your wife, write
• 9:16
  it down. By the end of like two weeks,
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  you're going to have a really nice email there to send, but
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  you have to start scanning situations with an eye on what
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  is something nice that I can observe in this situation.
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  This is in and of itself, transformative, if your wife Is
• 9:36
  sitting there tying your son's shoes for the millionth time and
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  singing him a little song and this is a nice moment that makes
• 9:44
  you smile internally. Why does she never hear about
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  it? Train yourself to notice
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  positives. Now, you should be doing this in
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  the workplace to you should be doing this with anybody who
• 9:57
  works for you train yourself to notice positives.
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  You should also be doing this as a parent.
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  This is called and parenting, catch them being good.
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  Catch them being good. So you're not always just saying
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  to your kid. I'll stop doing that.
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  Don't do that. No, no, no bad.
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  Don't instead catch them being good, catch them doing something
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  that you like and say oh great job sitting there.
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  Quietly while I was on a phone call, most people would only say
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  why'd you have to bother me when I was on a phone call but if the
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  child is nice and good and quiet like you've told them a million
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  times. You don't mention it.
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  You just feel like, oh, oh, Good in your head, you don't think
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  anything. However, if you change this
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  Frame, then you can catch your child being good.
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  And they're going to feel a lot closer to you and a lot more
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  likely to do the good thing in the future because it was
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  positive reinforcement. The your relationship will be
• 10:51
  closer and the same thing with your wife.
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  So when you see, when she makes a nice meal, don't think, oh,
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  that's Baseline. She likes to cook say, wow, this
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  is really great. A lot of people don't make nice
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  meals like this regularly. And I feel lucky that you always
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  make these nice dinners, your wife may drop dead of shock.
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  If you don't usually talk like this or she might say, what do
• 11:15
  you want now, don't get disillusioned.
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  If she says, what do you acting so weird?
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  For, what do you want? You just want to get laid.
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  Listen, it's not her fault. If you never say stuff like
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  that, then it would be as bizarre as if she dropped to her
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  knees and gave you the analogous.
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  Blow job you might be within your rights to think.
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  Holy shit. What's On is she cheating on me?
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  What's happening? Because when somebody changes
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  their behavior massively, it is only human to wonder why and
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  what the catalyst is. So if your wife does say why you
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  making all these comments about what I do, you never used to say
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  this, you are going to gain even more points for saying the
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  authentic truth, which is I'm working on our marriage.
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  I'm working on myself. As a husband, I'm listening to a
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  therapists podcast and listening and thinking, Ying boy, that's
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  something I don't do. I'm really not nice enough about
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  the good stuff that you do as wife.
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  No woman is not going to like that.
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  She's not gonna think you're somehow cheating like, oh, he's
• 12:17
  getting ideas from someone women.
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  Love the idea of a man taking his time to research better ways
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  to behave in a relationship. This just like if you came upon
• 12:28
  her studying how to be better in bed, I mean, you would be so
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  thrilled. You would hardly say, Well, I
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  guess you should have come up with that on your own.
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  I mean, it's laughable, most men would be thrilled and excited
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  and your wife would feel the same knowing that you
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  specifically are trying to research how to be a better
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  partner. This is catnip.
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  This is an aphrodisiac for women.
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  In fact, you can actually just go tell your wife that you
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  listen to this podcast and they're already going to like
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  you 10% better just because you said that and because you did.
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  So. What's another way that you can
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  be romantic. We got the little gifts and we
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  got the mention when she's doing something good, another way is
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  to pursue her sexually. Now you may say that you do this
• 13:16
  already. This is one that you got in the
• 13:17
  bag but how do you pursue her sexually?
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  Does it look anything like, it does in romantic movies?
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  Because if you're wanting her to give you sex, that looks like
• 13:26
  porn. Then, it owes only fair that she
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  wants you to be romantic in the ways of Nicholas Sparks is The
• 13:31
  Notebook movie, which is probably a real marriage
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  Destroyer. Because Is no man.
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  Can approximate the main character in that, but they
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  should be trying. Just like your wife, should be
• 13:42
  trying to give you a blowjob out of porn.
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  You should be trying to be the protagonist and the notebook.
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  Go watch The Notebook, that's really what you should do.
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  So many women like that movie. It's I couldn't get through the
• 13:53
  movie but I really like the book book was super romantic, so go
• 13:57
  read it or like Google it or email me.
• 13:59
  And I'll tell you the main idea if you're really that lazy
• 14:02
  though, I mean you probably not going to get anywhere, look it
• 14:05
  up. Read it.
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  It doesn't take too long to read.
• 14:07
  We're not talking about Shakespeare but anyhow.
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  So what you want to do is to pursue her sexually in a
• 14:15
  romantic way. This means, tell her how
• 14:19
  beautiful she is. Tell her how you were looking at
• 14:23
  her and Desiring her. So much tell her that she has
• 14:26
  such a beautiful body and go into into depth.
• 14:30
  You could do this in a normal voice, by the way, don't judge.
• 14:36
  No never joke when you're trying to initiate sex.
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  So many women say this is a massive turnoff.
• 14:42
  Do not joke, do not like honk her boob.
• 14:45
  I have heard it all. Do not like grab her ass and
• 14:48
  make some kind of like silly remark.
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  You should be treating your pursuit of her, very seriously,
• 14:56
  the same as you don't want a joke in the middle of her giving
• 14:59
  you a blow job, that would be a real buzzkill to put it mildly.
• 15:03
  She does not want any humor. Marin your pursuit of her,
• 15:08
  probably, if you're doing this, it's because you're insecure, or
• 15:10
  you're scared of rejection. So you can introspect about that
• 15:14
  as well. Because those are usually the
• 15:16
  reasons that men act humorous about pursuing their wives.
• 15:21
  So initiate in a romantic way, give her a deep kiss.
• 15:26
  Grab her look into her eyes, it pick her up physically women
• 15:32
  like shows of that. The man is powerful.
• 15:35
  Of course, if she says, put me down, put her down, you know?
• 15:39
  But women like to be swept off their feet, often, literally and
• 15:43
  definitely figuratively. So if you can be more romantic
• 15:48
  and serious in your pursuit of her, then in may go a lot better
• 15:53
  than you're joking, or very kind of juvenile seeming attempt to
• 15:59
  initiate which involve any sort of humor.
• 16:02
  There's no humor don't do humor in your initiation.
• 16:05
  Ation just like you don't want her to do humor in bed.
• 16:08
  I mean, if something is funny, people can laugh but do not use
• 16:11
  this as your technique for initiating and then wonder why
• 16:14
  she isn't weak in the knees. She is only human.
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  So, the last thing that I will say is do things that she
• 16:22
  specifically has asked for if this sounds commonsensical,
• 16:27
  that's because it is commonsensical, but so few men
• 16:30
  do it. So, if you are a wife is always
• 16:32
  like, you know, what would be nice?
• 16:33
  You know what would be nice is if you plan to surprise?
• 16:35
  As weekend away. And you're thinking, yeah, you
• 16:37
  know, what would be nice if I want a million dollars?
• 16:39
  That's not the way that your wife means this, what she means
• 16:43
  is, I am nursing this grievance, and I want this weekend away so
• 16:48
  bad. I think about it all the time.
• 16:50
  And in particular, I think about the fact that I've mentioned it
• 16:53
  47 times since 2010, and you've never done it.
• 16:56
  So if there are things like that, do a deep scan, and a deep
• 17:00
  dive of what your wife has mentioned.
• 17:03
  Like all you know, what would be nice, what she means is I I want
• 17:06
  this so much. I wanted so much.
• 17:08
  If your wife is like oh you know what would be nice if like if I
• 17:11
  came home and that whole house was clean.
• 17:14
  So do it was it's like a few hours out of your life and maybe
• 17:18
  this is the transformative moment that makes your wife feel
• 17:21
  heard and understood and like you take care of her and that
• 17:24
  you really listen to her, it's really easy to dismiss what
• 17:29
  people say, but it takes some strength and some courage to
• 17:34
  actually think. Maybe I have been fucking up by
• 17:38
  not taking this, seriously, all along.
• 17:41
  So if your wife has one of these things that she keeps coming
• 17:44
  back to then, actually take it seriously and maybe it will be
• 17:48
  transformative. So a lot of women have these
• 17:51
  empathic ruptures, where the man reacted to them totally
• 17:55
  different than they thought that he would and it basically broke
• 17:59
  their heart. And if you have one of these
• 18:02
  empathic ruptures, and she talks about it a lot try.
• 18:05
  I to fix it. So if you proposed in a way that
• 18:09
  she hated because you were young and you didn't have any money or
• 18:13
  you were ambivalent about marriage and she's always felt
• 18:16
  bad about it propose again, if she always felt bad about the
• 18:21
  fact that you know, you were weird about having, I don't know
• 18:27
  an engagement photo shoot and you were kind of a dick about
• 18:30
  it. Get another photo, shoot, now
• 18:32
  for your anniversary, you can do anything.
• 18:35
  Thing as a do-over. If your wife keeps talking about
• 18:39
  it, that means that she takes it very, very seriously.
• 18:43
  Just like, if you were to say 47 times since 2010, that it would
• 18:47
  be really, really nice. If she dressed up like a
• 18:50
  cheerleader, that's not a joke. You really do want it.
• 18:53
  So it's the same thing for something that she brings up all
• 18:57
  the time, take it, seriously. Okay.
• 19:01
  So those are some practical real world tips on how to To be more
• 19:06
  romantic and what women mean when they say, you are not
• 19:11
  romantic, try to engage in this way and who knows your sex life
• 19:15
  and your marriage overall, May improve by a significant margin.
• 19:20
  All right, that's all folks, hope this was helpful.
• 19:23
  Please like this podcast And subscribe, so that you get all
• 19:27
  my new episodes on Spotify or Apple or Google or however you
• 19:31
  listen. And I'll talk to you soon.