Next, men and women have different needs . Women need to be affirmed regularly. They need repeated expressions of love. A man might be tempted to say, “I told you I loved you when we got married. Didn’t you think I meant it?” To a woman, the words “I love you” are not just information—they are food. And women need this food on a regular basis. Women also need communication, much more than men do, and what they often want to talk about is the relationship. “How are we doing?” Women need communication like men need sex. Women also need security. God created men to take responsibility; He created women to want to be protected and made secure. One of the reasons I was strongly attracted to Bessie was that she was so independent. She was the principal of a Bible school in Japan, and through a Japanese contractor she had designed and constructed a dormitory for women. She seemed very stable and self-reliant. I said, “That’s the kind of woman I want. I do not want ...
Men and women also talk differently. We are enough alike that we can communicate with each other—sometimes. After being married to my wife Bessie for more than fifty years, I still have difficulty understanding her. When Bessie uses a pronoun, the antecedent might have been given two weeks ago. And I sit there trying to figure out what this pronoun is referring to. Bessie uses lot of pronouns, but only one verb. It’s the word do in different forms. “Will you do the baby?” I have to figure out whether this means feed the baby, change the baby’s diaper, put the baby down for a nap, or give the baby a bath—all of these are communicated by do the baby . It helps if you have extrasensory perception! Occasionally, I’ll figure and figure and figure, and then I’ll guess wrong. This is not a fault in Bessie; it is just a difference in how we communicate. Men, have you ever asked your wife, “Is anything wrong?” and she says no, so you go merrily on your way…only to find yourself living in a ...