7 Ways to Be Her Hero

Doug Fields has a great new book in which he targets advice for men about stepping up and becoming the man their partner can love and respect. It's called 7 Ways To Be Her Hero: The One Your Wife Has Been Waiting For (W Publishing Group 2014). While Doug has a background in ministry and church leadership, he's an entertaining and approachable writer and speaker whose book has universal truths no matter your background.

Fields encourages each person to develop some depth, as well as slowing down to get out of living life like a NASCAR race. There is more to life than speed. Quality relationships take time, effort and intention. Anyone can fall in love, all it takes is a pulse. It's keeping the connection that is admirable and requires that people dig deeper into understanding themselves and the other person.

So what does Fields recommend that men do to become their partner's hero?

1. Edit. Don't say everything you think. Avoid defensiveness and criticism.

2. Choose your words carefully. Use them to support, encourage and build up your partner. Be sincere and specific. Notice what is loving and right in the other person. Let them know when and how they positively impact your life. Fields recalls Gary Chapman's five love languages, encouraging men to find out whether their partner prefers:

• Words of affirmation
• Quality time
• Receiving gifts
• Acts of service
• Physical touch

When you identify your partner's preferred language, use it.

3. Become a world-class listener. Ask questions to deepen your understanding. Make eye contact. Don't multi-task. This creates emotional intimacy. Try to grow beyond sharing clichés, facts and opinions into the deeper levels of sharing feelings and needs.

4. Go big with small things. Be generous emotionally by noticing her preferences and needs. Pay attention and do small actions that will please her. Doug shares great examples in his book of moving past selfishness to being sensitive to making your partner's day easier or better.

5. Increase non-sexual touch, like holding hands, hugging and kissing hello or goodbye, sitting by her on the couch, or touching her gently when you pass her. It's been said that when it comes to sexuality, men can be like microwave ovens and women are more like crock pots. Gentle, non-sexual, non-demanding, affectionate touch is something that most women want more of.

6. Putting the pride aside. Great guys can apologize and admit mistakes. Humility and confidence are a winning combination.

7. Care for her heart. Help her heal from childhood wounds and past relationship pain through your devotion and steadfastness. Point out her strengths and the things you love about her. Fill her tank. Help her to feel safe by being trustworthy and honest. Inspire her respect by being impeccable with your word.

Doug Fields' insights come partly from many years of facilitating and leading men's groups, speaking with women, and his own marriage. 7 Ways to Be Her Hero is a quick, easy read and has lots of relatable vignettes. It's a gem of a book that just might make a big difference in your own life, or the life of the man you love. Emotional intimacy in relationships is built one day at a time, and this book can give you practical tools to do it.

Stop Expecting Mind-Reading

When we are young and idealize falling in love, many of us imagined a perfect partner who reads our mind and intuits our needs and wants. Later, the mature person of any age begins to realize that if you are going to have any success in relationships with other people, that's really NOT a healthy or realistic expectation to have. We need to grow up emotionally and make an internal shift on this point.

In emotionally healthy adult relationships, each person needs to be able to reflect and sort out what they are feeling, and what they want to request of the other people in their life. Nobody is ever going to read your mind telepathically and deliver your unstated needs to you by UPS. It doesn't work like that. The sooner you can learn to reduce your expectations of others in this area, the happier you can become. You need to voice your own needs, as well as listen to those of the people who matter to you.

Even the right sensitive, caring partner is not feeling exactly what you are feeling, or understanding the nuances of what you need unless you express it. Sometimes in couples counseling, I find one partner with distorted or "magical" thinking about this, and holding onto childhood fantasies that their perfect partner will know them without any effort on their part. Sorry, but I can pretty much guarantee you that isn't going to happen.

I sometimes find it helpful to think about it being our individual job to identify what we are feeling, and teach others how we want to be loved. We are each different, and you may have a very different love language from your partners'. Neither of you is wrong, but as you accept and learn about the differences between you and your partner----in terms of childhood experiences, unmet needs, unique feelings, and expressed desires---you can actually grow much closer.

As it turns out, assumptions are dangerous in relationships are quite dangerous. For example, here are a few bad ones:

1.      I don't have to tell my partner what I need. They should know. ( A set-up for much disappointment.)

2.      I know everything about my partner. (Watch out! This one could come back to bite you. An attitude of openness and curiosity is actually much more helpful. People change all their lives, hopefully, as we keep living, learning, and evolving.)

3.      My happiness is totally dependent on somebody else making me happy. (Wait! Where's your responsibility for bringing some happiness and sharing it with your partner?)

4.      My partner should always be the one to court me, or reach out to me. (Actually, everyone likes to feel that your partner initiates time and positive contact with you. This shouldn't be one directional.)

Let's put that myth to rest that an ideal, mythical partner will read your mind, understand your feelings without any effort on your part, and meet all your needs. The good news is that you will be a better person and a better role model for your children if you are a grown-up who takes grown-up sized responsibility for sorting out your own upset feelings and asserting yourself in a healthy, appropriate way. That's the grown-up adaptation of that childhood wish, well resolved.