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Marriage

I Want Her to Want Me as Much as I Want Her

Written by: Jason H

Many men I coach have a common complaint it goes something like this:

J: “What do you want from your wife?”

Dude: “I want her to want me as much as I want her.”

Let’s break that statement down.  The man sincerely wants and desires his wife sexually and constantly professes his love for her.  He simply wants her to feel the same way in a reciprocal nature.  That’s fair right?  Yes, all things equal it sure is.  However, that’s not reality folks.  This is Disney Land Bullshit just like a lot of the things we’ve been fed all our lives about relationships.
The men that say this to me use three words very frequently:
  1. Need
  2. Want
  3. Make

They NEED their wife to function (not true).  They WANT their wife to reciprocate (fair enough).  They WANT to produce actions to make her reciprocate (She’s going to do what she WANTS to do). This is a sad tale of a man chasing affection and the wife knows it.  This turns her off even more.  This is the needy little boy stuff that many of our discussions at HFM revolve around.  It’s a central problem with many of the folks here and something we actively work to coach them on.
This needy guy tells me the following things:

  1. His wife makes him feel unwanted and unneeded
  2. He wants his wife to uplift him (give him confidence)
  3. He wants his wife to lust after him
  4. He wants his wife to see things and do things his way
  5. He needs to know that his efforts are worth something
  6. He needs his wife to think he is superior to all other men on the planet

He’s consumed by two basic questions:

  1. How do I get my wife to want me?
  2. How do I get the closeness we once had back?

This consumes his thoughts all day long and it’s destroying him from the inside out.  The wife can smell the rotting carrion of a man’s carcass a mile away and is disgusted by it.


The Cats and the Dogs

Some of you may have heard that analogy that men are like dogs and women are like cats.  There is some truth to this.  Men can be very loyal creatures that thrive on validation.  Think about your household dog.  When you walk down the stairs, they jump off the couch to greet you, tail wagging, licking you all over and loves you unconditionally.  This describes many men.  Cats on the other hand generally only come to you for affection on their terms.  If you chase them all over the house looking to pet them they will run away until cornered and then they will scratch or bite you.  They spend much of their time away doing their own thing on their terms and come in and out of your life. Many women are like this.  Humans aren’t exactly like this but, the analogy works enough to use it here.

The Hard Truth

  1. You do not NEED your wife’s love and affection to survive. 
  2. You cannot MAKE her want you but, you can potentially influence her wants.
  3. Your WANTS may not be aligned with her WANTS.  That is reality.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 


As depicted in the picture, your social needs (psychological) are middle of the pack.  You will not die from a lack of them.  The base of the triangle (basic needs) are life and death.  Keep this in mind.

Plan of Action

Mindset: You should have standards of conduct and expectations.  Rid your mind of the outcome based thinking.  Put yourself in the mindset that you don’t NEED anything from your wife but, you desire a valuable mutually beneficial relationship with her.  A man does not NEED a woman’s time, sex, or anything else to survive but, having it can be a great thing when its solid.  Rather, he presents her the opportunity to engage in his time, sex, love, and affection. Productive Mindset is the corner stone of much of the coaching here at HFM.

Influencing Wants: You cannot force (Make) your wife want anything.  You CAN influence her wants towards you by focusing on your path and purpose and becoming the holistically attractive man that many women desire.  Even after all this, she may not want YOU.  You only get what you want by being desirable and taking appropriate action to take it when conditions present themselves.

Don’t be tied to a short game Outcome:   If you want sex, love, affection, and that general closeness and after all this personal improvement your wife fails to reciprocate naturally, you have three options:

  • Status Quo- Do nothing and stay together for the kids and the sunken time of the past.
  • The Healthy Talk (build this with an HFM coach)
  • Initiate Divorce:  This may not be your last option.  In fact, for some of you it should be your first, your marriage has been defunct for so long, your wife is broken beyond repair, or the trust has been broken through infidelity or other major breaches.  

The bottom line here is that a healthy, holistically attractive, man with self-respect doesn’t try to make anyone do anything.  He certainly doesn’t want to force a woman to do anything. He instead does things that present an attractive choice for others to do mutually enjoyable things with him.

This is the mindset that you need to embrace.

If this article hit home to you consider coaching with me.