694. Attitude of Gratitude — Part 5

This summary completes the series about grateful actions that can lead to mutual happiness.

Wife directly demonstrates her gratitude for husband, which makes her happy with him.

♦       That’s it. Her happiness-seeking ‘job’ is simple and easy.

♦       Unless, that is, she can’t show gratitude. She may have chosen or turned him into Mr. Wrong. Or she may suffer low self-esteem or high self-centeredness and expect more from him than she can ever give.

Husband indirectly demonstrates his gratitude for wife, but success depends upon her confirmation.

• He shows his gratitude for her by producing, providing, protecting, and problem solving for her and the kids.
• Success comes from her respect and dependency, which makes him grateful for who he is and what he does, and this opens the door for his happiness.

You may conclude this, and it’s true. The best evidence of her gratitude is to reward him with respect and recognition for his efforts on her behalf.

One final reminder: A few negative words can poison good intentions and nullify positive actions. Consequently, words, discussions, and opinions either confirm his contributions or mutual unhappiness follows. (Full disclosure is vastly overrated.)    

690. Attitude of Gratitude — Part 1

Ladies, this could be the most meaningful series in the blog, if you can master it. It does, however, require study and perhaps restudy.  

 A mutual attitude of gratitude jumpstarts mutual happiness, but it doesn’t come easily. The sexes display gratefulness differently. However, she’s the relationship expert and controlling partner for cultivating it!

So many women miss this natural outcome: Consistently treat your man unlovingly, and whatever love you had dies faster than his departure.

 Truism: Feelings follow actions. We can’t feel one way and act another for very long. For example, we can’t love a person and act unlovingly for very long or vice versa. Our daily choices invariably determine how we feel, and gratefulness energizes the female nature.  

• Her actions that show gratefulness generate gratitude within her. Since the female nature embodies a deep sense of caring, serving others generates gratitude for the people served. Becoming more grateful encourages her to be more direct and action-oriented in service to others.
• Husband expects to be primary recipient, but his mind and heart work differently. He reciprocates indirectly with his job and work.
• He expresses his gratitude for her through daily actions of  producing, providing, protecting, and problem-solving for her. That’s who he is, that’s how and what he does, and that’s enough in his mind. He indirectly shows his gratitude for her.
• He daily proves himself worthy. His actions speak, and words are unnecessary. It’s up to her to stir him to expressing words she longs to hear but that he seldom volunteers. It calls for relationship expertise.
• His job and work generate gratitude within him, but gratitude for himself more than anyone else. It’s the outcome of male nature identifying so closely with job and work.

There’s also a paradox: The root of mutual gratefulness calls for her to be more direct, because he indirectly displays gratefulness. More tomorrow.

657. Keepers for Keepers — Assortment 20

• Some women believe in little, so they tend to believe whatever a man says. This makes them soft-headed. [19]
• Having unmarried sex with a man bonds her, but not him. This keeps her from objectively evaluating him as potential Mr. Right. [17]
• Providing sex easily, she acts as the seller before conquest. It’s her as buyer before the altar, and seller afterward that leads to marital permanence. [12]
• Males crown their natural aggression and dominance with violence, unless women tame, civilize, and domesticate them. [18]
• A woman thrives on her man’s devoted attentions, because it confirms her value and importance to him. [4]
• Nagging and criticizing a man don’t teach him to lather affection on her, because both alienate him. [18]
• First things first: A woman needs to obey her female nature to become extraordinary so a man will marry her for keeps. [17]
• Respect to, gratefulness for, and dedication pledged to and kept with one man inspires masculine fidelity, but it doesn’t guarantee it. [7]

626 — Hello, Ladies. “Guy Jr.” here.

Firstly, thanks to Pops for providing me the opportunity to contribute.  I’m not sure how often I will be able, but hopefully those times will be useful to his efforts — and perhaps even to some of you.

Secondly, I congratulate my Dad for his labor of love that is WWNH.  He has dedicated the majority of his retired life to what each of you see here.  Before I was accidentally prescient enough to recommend blogging to him, he spent the better part of 10 years writing different versions of what he thought might become a published book, and perhaps another of his great achievements.

In fact, a few years back, Sean Hannity from FOX News Channel came to SMU in Dallas for a speaking event.  I hatched a plan where I would slip Dad’s latest outline in a manila envelope to Sean during autographs.  Maybe he could help in some way.  I did.  DOA.

We’ve often chuckled over the past couple of years about how better it’s been that he never achieved the “finality” of a book.  You see, this blog, each of you, and the inherent interactivity afforded by blogging on WWNH have provided him a much greater reward than the fame or fortune (neither of which he needs nor desires) that a book ever could.

I have also seen the difference that WWNH has made in many of your collective highnesses’ lives.  That’s where the real rewards lay, not only for you, but also in the lives of Guy and his most beloved, Principessa Gracie.

Lastly, if you are or have been an active participant in the WWNH dialogue, you’ve probably made Guy’s day at some point, or many times over.  If you are more of a lurker, I encourage you to get off the sidelines.  The rewards of the collective knowledge and experiences of this community are unbelievable, but even more so for all when YOU contribute.

I’ve decided to.

Guy Jr.

559. He’s Wary to Marry — Section 4

Men see and hear too much of this to show much eagerness for marriage:

♦       She teaches or guides daughters about safe sex, expects them to experiment, and ignores the importance that deferred gratification adds to the maturing process. Fathers harbor contrary feelings.

♦       She just cannot be grateful for her husband doing what he’s best equipped and prepared to do—producing, providing, protecting, problem solving.

♦       She orients her thinking and feelings around harsh and loud and total self-centeredness, opposite to the female nature.

♦       She stresses her faithfulness to feminist ideology and political objectives.

♦       She tears down manliness and masculinity to uplift herself or get what she wants.

♦       She thinks about herself more than him and works with other women and what they should and can do.

♦       She offers unmarried sex after little more than chit-chat, and then after marriage complains about lack of foreplay.

439. KEEPERS FOR KEEPERS—Assortment 12

Dear Daughter: More nuggets for review.

♦ The earlier in life the better to teach males about romance. This makes teen girls critical in the development of romantic men. [8]

♦ Shapeless and excessively covered boobs shift manly focus to other women. [12]

♦ Romantic love, mostly based on infatuation and lust, does not require a man’s respect. Moreover, romantic love fades after a year or two. [7]

♦ Morality serves women, but men don’t need it. Mothers and other females must see that boys and men live within the moral expectations of women, or male dominance gets out of hand. [18]

♦ Men with a wounded spirit work harder to recover and do better. Women with a wounded spirit seek someone to nurse away their hurt. [4]

♦ Men desire females that other men have not had. With him, it’s beating out all those other guys. [7]

♦ Love to a man means showing respect and gratefulness for who he is and what he does, and that’s what he expects from a woman. [4]

♦ Love to a woman means showing attention and affection, and that’s what she expects of a man. [4]

♦ If she duplicates masculine-style sexual freedom, it makes her the subordinate player in a man’s game. [12]

♦ Hunter-conquerors highly value difficult targets. This makes hardtoget work. [8]

♦ Feminism demeans masculinity to get what women want. Femininity uplifts and honors manliness to get what women need. [1]

437. What daughters never hear — Section 12

Hello, Your Highness,

You’re a pretty typical woman, so finding happiness weighs heavily on your mind. It probably bothers you that you ain’t there yet.

Did you ever think you might already have it? Or at least some of it, because it comes in doses more than a blanket thrown over you. Do you know how to find out? Measure it? Evaluate yourself on some kind of happiness scale?

Abraham Lincoln said a man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be. Not so with women. Women are as happy as they can find and appreciate things for which they are grateful. Gratitude transmutes into happiness in her heart, when she clearly identifies, expresses, and reinforces her gratefulness in her mind.

It’s that simple. But note the part about expressing her gratefulness if only to herself. If she can’t recognize and reinforce that she is grateful, happiness will likely dodge her.

Many women seem caught in this trap: They seek happiness by trying all manner of relationship maneuvers having nothing to do with gratitude. In fact, they often work contrary to their own happiness by focusing on faults and problems that lead only to ingratitude.

How many women do you know that don’t seem grateful for their husbands? Husband’s job? Friends and family? Their own job? Acquaintances and peers? Their kids for themselves rather than accomplishments? Their church? Their community? Kid’s accomplishments? Opportunity and know-how to raise kids into mature adults? The value system that guides their conscience?

In everything be grateful. If one plows deep in their psyche and finds gratefulness that outweighs and outgrows all else, then happiness will likely find them.

NOTE: Thanks to Dennis Prager, talk radio host, for simplifying and clarifying the relationship of gratefulness and happiness.

433. Response to Viewer — Item 1

Jessica prompted this post when she asked: “Other than gratitude…how does a woman show respect for a man?” Many posts address respect after marriage, so this is mostly for singles.

I had two short and one lengthy reaction. First, men don’t seek respect as women know it. They seek whatever confirms their self-respect. The difference is big.

Second, one doesn’t think about ‘showing respect’ for a man. One has it or not, and it shows in their attitude, which flows out of their heart.

My third response is more complex. Women can generate respect for men or a man in many ways. To do so, they should: 

♥ Respect men by doing what feminists condemn, so women might try the opposite of what feminists preach. (For example, see Dark Side of Feminism posts in CONTENTS page.)

♥ Exploit their natural female preference for indirectness and abandon whatever they may have picked up of the male preference for directness. Men prefer to figure things out compared to having them presented on a platter. However, indirectness requires patience and fails under ‘right now’ pressures.

♥ Recognize his dominance as dependable. It’s his nature, however much he reveals, and women can’t change it. By exploiting his dominance, a woman shows respect. If his dominance offends or appears unacceptable, then dump him.

♥ Identify domains in their relationship that the man claims as his responsibility. Don’t interfere there. Accept his leadership in those domains, and identify the domains left for her sterling leadership. Clarify responsibilities to eliminate confusion and conflict. (Women are the relationship expert and best qualified to accomplish this latter task. Honor his various roles, and it adds to his self-respect. He earned it.)

♥ Rely on him as important before marriage and vital afterward. He sees his role as producer, provider, protector, and problem solver. Her endorsements show respect. 

♥ Act independent and free of him before marriage. The harder a male works to capture a female, the more his self-respect grows with each step of progress.

♥ Act dependent on and beholden to him after marriage. Monogamous devotion and dependency on him shows respect. He no longer expects to have to earn it, because he earned the max before he married her. After marriage, her gratefulness for who he is and what he does is the indirect reflection of respect that he expects.   

♥ Compete with him before marriage but cooperate afterward. This role reversal is critical to catching and keeping a man. By her affirming and filling both roles, she broadcasts respect for him.

♥ Rely not on gratitude. It has limited effects, because men don’t need it like women do. Too eager expressions of gratefulness appear phony, and women try too hard and do this much of the time.

♥ Acknowledge this: She will know how to respect a man, after she learns how to keep one.

If she thinks about showing respect, she probably does wrong. She’s trying too hard. Showing respect reflects automatically from her attitude—that is, from her heart—and not from her mind.