Men need to be admired for who they are and what they do. Men tend to be very performance oriented in a manner very similar to how women are very appearance oriented. Men know that they are judged based on their success. They are judged based on their accomplishments. Women love winners. Women love successful men. All things being equal, the man with the accomplishments will come out ahead of all others in the hearts of women.
The power of success was made clear to a radio audience when a general call went out to the listeners for phone calls of what they would do to get backstage passes and hang with a popular band that was coming to town. It was going to be some kind of contest with some actual backstage passes to give away, but it quickly turned into a women’s call-in offering all sorts of sexual adventures for particular band members if the young women were given the opportunity.
The radio announcers reminded the women that it was a radio program and asked that they refrain from being too graphic. One of the announcers asked a question of one of the particularly risque callers, and she confirmed that she did, in fact, have a boyfriend. He asked if she had ever done something like what she was describing with him. She laughed. “Are you kidding? I’d never do this with him!” The declaration was clear. This successful, famous performer could get from this female, as a total stranger, things she would never consider for the person with whom she had the most romantic, intimate relationship. The difference was success.
Why Men Are The Way They Are starts off with a story that arose in one of Warren Farrell’s men’s meetings. It is illustrative of the lives of many, many men - and, I’d wager, women, too. The story is told by a man who wanted a particular life, to invest his time into worthy endeavors, but he convinced himself that if he did the law firm track first, his environmental law practice would be easier.
At each step he had new responsibilities, a new wife, later new children, then college for which to save, and at each step he convinced himself that he should stick around in the law firm to rise one more level so he’d have the contacts, the money, and the reputation to finally do what he wanted. He was only fooling himself. His financial responsibilities and the obligations he took upon himself would forever lock him out of what he once envisioned. To succeed at work, to bring home the money to take care of his responsbilities, he had to become a particular kind of man. He had to think a certain way, see things in a certain light, and it had to be part of him.
One day his wife talked to him, and she tearfully said that she and the kids didn’t know him, and they didn’t want to live with the man he had become. They were going to leave if something didn’t change, even though they still loved him, they could not stand the life anymore. It hit him like a ton of bricks. As he neared collapse at the men’s group meeting, he not only told the story of what he had done, but of what he had become to do it. He said that for everything he did for his family, he had to become someone they didn’t like. Then he admitted that not only did his family hate what he was, but he, himself, also hated who he was. He had spent twenty years of his life become a man he didn’t like to do things he didn’t want to do.
The Bible says “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” It is a blatant reference to the Crucifixion, but it is also much, much more than that. The word for “life” used in this verse is Psuche. It means not only physical life, but also personality, a way of thinking, and an identity. Jesus not only died for us, but He, God Almighty, became a Man for us. God is not naturally a Man, nor is Man God. He became a Man not because He needed to be a Man, but because we needed Him to be a Man. It was all for us.
Likewise men and women in relationships. If we are committed to the relationship, to building a partnership, then a certain amount of “me” become totally subsumed in “we.” Just like members of a sports team or a commando unit do not act as individuals, but as components of a team, a marriage partnership requires a partnership of husband and wife.
Just as women want to be loved, cherished and appreciated, men want to be respected, valued and appreciated. Admiration tells the man that she apprecaites what he does for her. Admiration for who he is tells him that she respects who he is as a person, that person who becomes who he is so he can most effectively do what he does. She understands that the world of business, jobs, accomplishment and success often requires that he get thick skinned. She understands that he often needs time to shed his emotional armor when he gets home before he can enjoy the touch of her heart to his.
Admiration is missing to tremendous degrees in modern society. The relentless assaults on maleness has led to women being dissatisfied with their husbands, and they express that dissatisfaction effectively. What is missing is the appreciation, the admiration for what he does. He comes under fire for not taking her out of dates, like they used to, but he receives no appreciation for sharing all of his money with her, unlike what he used to. He comes under fire for not spending more time with her, but he is not appreciated for making the committment to marriage. Modern society, so focused on oneself, keeps looking to what we want, not the blessings of what we already have. We become a society that demands from others, rather than one that appreciates what we have.
It starts with children. How many children are reminded and remember that they have free food, free clothing, a free home, free taxi service, free vacations, and all the other things parents provide. They forget to be grateful for that, to express appreciation for all their parents do for them, and they complain that they don’t get more, that they don’t get their way. How selfish! Children should admire their parents for all the parents do.
Worse, we sometimes don’t grow out of it. As adults, how often will we call a manager over when service was exceptional, as compared to how willing we are to call a manager when we have a complaint. As adults, how often will we write a letter of compliment to our child’s teacher, versus how willingly we take action when we don’t like something. How often do we make demands? How often do we try to get things our way without ever really looking at the other side.
In law school they teach you that any really good lawyer should be equally able to argue both sides of a case. In fact, for some assigments, they won’t even tell you which side you will be on until you show up for your moot court performance. One time another student and I argued a case back and forth with passion and conviction until we exhausted our arguments and attacks, then we changed sides and started all over again.
While this is only a school exercise, it is also a valuable life skill: the ability to not only see the other side, but to advocate it. This means you don’t just get to know it well enough to shoot it down, you get to know the other side well enough to shoot your own side down from the opposite point of view. This skill helps hone your thinking for your own side, but it is mostly a great eye opener for the virtues of the other side. Sometimes, as you pursue this exercise with an issue in life, you suddenly discover that your side was the wrong one. In life, that’s when you change sides.
When considering admiration for one’s husband, boyfriend, father, son, brother, or anyone, male or female, look for the best. In one recent example, I watched a son approach his mother for some feedback on how well he did that morning getting ready to go. Frankly, he had not done so well, and he knew that he was lacking. The mother was asked pair of questions: on a scale of 0 to 10, how did he do this morning? She said “About a six.” The second question was “How well does he normally do?” There was a laugh, the kind of laugh that tells you that she was looking for a negative number. Another person in the conversation made the observation “So he did a lot better than he usually does this morning. That’s good!”
The son could be admired for his progress, or he could be criticized for not quite having it down right. If he received admiration and praise for improvement, not for his actual performance, but for doing much, much better than usual, would that encourage him or discourage him from seeking ongoing improvement? Of course, it would encourage him. If his considerable improvement was a result of tremendous effort, but he came up short - expected considering his lack of practice - and he finds that he is only criticized for it, what will that do to his enthusiasm for trying? It will kill it, of course. In the long run, the ability to improve will be more valuable than the ability to be good. Those who know how to improve no matter how good or bad they may be always have the ability to excel, given time and ongoing effort, so it should be admired and encouraged.
Often, in marriage, in child rearing, in family and in friendships, we treat what we want as though we take it for granted. We treat what we feel is inadequate as though it is a problem, no matter how well improved from the challenges of the past. As we deal with admiration issues, we should look for the most admirable qualities in someone and show appreciation for those qualities. We should look for the greatest successes a person has had, and we should admire those qualities.
Remember the Phileo Bank Account: negative tears down with four times the force that positive builds up. We want to build, not tear down. There is a need to tear down when there is clear wrong - which means we must intentionally build up as much as possible so we have the account balance that will let us do what tearing is necessary without destroying the relationship in the process.
THE KEY TO GETTING ADMIRATION
For men or women who want admiration, there is a simple technique for getting all the admiration you could want: be admirable. It seems almost trite to say that if you want respect, be respectable, and if you want trust, be trustworthy. These things seem so self evident when stated, but they are not the way many of us live. Many of us expect to be admired even when we don’t give others much with which to work.
Much of society has taught the folly that everyone should be admired and value for who they are, and that everyone should feel good about themselves no matter what they do or don’t do. The self-esteem movement taught a generation that everyone deserves to feel good about themselves, and that no one else has a right to judge or say any different. The result is a segment of the population that has the insane idea that they should be admired without any admirable qualities, that she should be respected without being respectable, that they should feel good about themselves and their ability without trying to accomplish anything.
These people go get jobs and expect to be paid without doing any work, often complaining that their boss “thinks he’s better than me,” or “he’s always getting on my case and telling me what to do.” In short, they have no clue. When they get fired, it’s always the stupid boss.hen they keep a job, they do as little as possible to avoid being fired. They play the race card, the sex card, anything they can do to get what they want while minimizing their own responsibilty.
Admiration is one of the currencies of relationship. Women can pay their men in admiration in the same manner men can pay their women in affection. The first step, though, is to deserve it. If a man wants his wife to give him admiration, he has to ask himself what he’s done to deserve being admired. He should ask himself if he’s done anything worthy of admiration, or if he has demonstrated character worthy of admiration. If he has any trouble at all coming up with a list, how much more difficult for someone else?
If he has, then he can simply ask. Just as a pet peeve of men is that women want things but don’t tell, it would be unreasonable to expect a woman to express admiration for a particular quality if we do not let her know that we would like it. Just as women must often ask for a particular gift to expect it, men must ask for a particular type of admiration.
If he’s mowed the lawn, he can ask is she appreciates him mowing the lawn. While it might be something easily overlooked otherwise, a loving wife can usually pick up on a cue like that. If the lawn hasn’t been mowed for three months and looked like an Amazon rain forest by the time you got to it, the admiration might not be as great, and it might be in a form resembling “it’s about time!” However, a loving spouse, recognizing the work, might give a sincere thank you.
Being impressive is one of the ways we get admiration. By being impressive, in character and accomplishment, in godliness, in effort, in action - we can earn the admiration of others. It is a means by which we really know we are doing well. Despite the rhetoric that says that we should take no praise of men, or the rhetoric that says that it doesn’t matter what others think, we all feel the need to be validated by other people, our spouses and our parents being foremost among them.
Admiration is a very real human need, and a male need in particular. It is not evidence of frail ego, as many women seem to suggest, but a currency of payment for doing well. It is the payment that encourages more of the same. It is the currency that shows how much a character trait or an action is appreciated. The greater the payment, the more willing the man is to engage in the action all the more, and the more willingly he will accept the costs with taking that action. So ladies, for everything you want him to do, show admiration.