Customer Reviews

What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew about Men

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book was helpful to my marriage as we men and women see things from such different perspectives. Part 1 deals with many of the obstacles we face as men in today's society. Part 2 sheds light into the difficulty men have in relationships and how to overcome some of those barriers.

Overall this book was tremendously insightful and refreshing.

Pat Morley has again written a concise, insightful book to help us live our everyday lives in exceptional ways. I plan to let my husband read this book in a couple of months-- he'll want to thank Pat Morley for putting a man's thoughts and needs into words.

"What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew About Men" brings a deeper understanding to issues men face on a daily basis. Patrick M. Morley takes an especially honest look at the lives of men. He shows how the influence of their father affects how they treat the woman in their life. He explains how men must deal with lust and anger and focuses in on topics like "Why Men are Preoccupied with Work." Some of the other chapters include:

What is it that Your Husband Wants?
What's Troubling Your Husband?
The Six Persistent Temptations
Companionship - What a Husband Needs from His Wife
Physical Intimacy - What Else a Man Needs from His Wife
Resolving Conflict
Perspective - Why Your Husband May Not Be as Bad as You Think

For the most part this book doesn't have a lot of practical suggestions. It is more a revelation of what men are thinking and feeling. There are a few good ideas like establishing a budget. Wives are encouraged not to add additional pressure to their husband's lives by trying to maintain a big lifestyle. There are a few ideas for better communication. The chapter on losing weight to be physically attractive may or may not appeal to women reading this book. Men also gain weight as they age but this topic is not really discussed.

At the end of each chapter there is a "thought for husbands" which seems more useful if the entire chapter has been read. While this book seems designed for women, I think the author also had husbands in mind and the book may be better when read together. While some men may feel this book stereotypes men it seems the author wrote this book after conducting two years of extensive research, which included personal interviews and surveys.

After reading quite a few books on men this book dealt more with spiritual concerns and introduced me to some ideas I had not considered before. This book is mostly designed for Christian women seeking to encourage their husbands to be godly men.

~The Rebecca Review

Recently I listened to author and speaker Patrick Morley give a talk to a group of men about a man's search for significance. As part of his talk, Morley briefly discussed the life of the American billionaire Howard Hughes. As Morley recounted from his own visit to Hughes' apartment in the Bahamas, Hughes died a sad and lonely man- a self-made billionaire who had lost all sense of dignity and respect. Hughes had an intense desire to be significant. But in his search for significance, he had lost his direction.

In his book What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew About Men, Morley writes of the craving that every man has to be significant. Every man, be he a sales manager, a CFO, a public speaker or otherwise, needs to feel that his life has counted for something. But as Morley indicates, finding significance should be about establishing the right balance between responsibilities at work and at home.

All too often men get caught in the pursuit of worldly significance- what Morley calls the `Rat Race'- in which they seek happiness in their own success and affluence. Tragically they later find that such a search is devoid of the very significance they are running after.

Today men feel the pressures of maintaining time, managing debt and finding fulfilment in their work. Men live in a time of margin-less existence where there appear to be no limits to what men can squeeze into their lives. The end result is of course exhaustion. Men become overly preoccupied with their work obsessing over the impending deal they are about to strike or worrying how best to impress their colleagues at work, sometimes sacrificing time with their families. Work is of course a biblical ideal- in Genesis God commanded all of humanity to care and tend to the creation. And yet, when work becomes man's only focus, it becomes destructive. As Morley expounds, with the pressures of daily life married men become tempted to not only withdraw emotionally from their wives but to engage in sinful behaviour, lusting over women, whining about their woes and seeking out idols that distract them from a Christ-centred life.

Marriage should of course be a `division of labour' and men should seek to incorporate their spouses in every important decision as well as identifying any of their own patterns of behaviour that negatively affect their marriage. When it comes to intimacy, men have to understand that women require more that just the physical aspects of sex. Wives need an emotional love in which sexual intimacy is just one component- "for wives sexual desire is a by-product of many small kindnesses done throughout the week.......deep wells of intimate conversation, and sharing with her beloved husband" (p. 135).

Men need to learn to communicate better, talking to their wives intimately not just during courtship and the honeymoon that follows but also through the harder years of family building and retirement. Women in turn need to seek out a compromise, understanding both their husband's moods and daily patterns.

For men, their wives are their life-long soul-mates. It is therefore reasonable for men to expect their wives to keep up both their physical and inner beauty. But at the same time men should be responsible for nurturing and caring for their wives so that they can maintain that beauty. Part of that responsibility involves sharing the work load in the house and helping with the children.

Morley's discussion on the influence of fathers on their children is perhaps the most captivating aspect of his book. As Morley notes, men are profoundly affected by the experiences that they had with their parents, particularly their fathers, as they were growing up. Boys need their fathers to be proud of them and the way a boy's father treats his mother will deeply affect the way that he in turn later treats his own wife. Fathers have a duty to teach their sons about life values, common sense, work ethics and spirituality. But perhaps most importantly fathers have a duty to give their sons a sense of worth instilling pride and a feeling of achievement in their sons' accomplishments.

Morley does a phenomenal job in providing women with a detailed insight into the way their husbands are wired. His ability to articulate his arguments is further strengthened by numerous examples from men he has personally spoken to over the years through his ministry. The end result is a book that is definitely worth more than just a cursory glance.

References

Significance: The Search for Meaning and Purpose, Bible study given by Patrick Morley on the 22nd June, 2007. See [...].

As I said I just started reading it. I hope that it will help me out.

This wonderful little book gives women insight into the way men think and why they act. Their thought lives are definitely not like ours!
Please read if you are in a relationship.

I was happy at first that my wife had bought this book. At first, I thought it would be good for her to understand me. Then, I asked her if I could read it, and was strongly irritated at the generalizations and labeling that were used. The fault in this book lies in the way the author drew a box around his picture of men, and made it seem as though all men are that way. I was most strongly irritated at his chapter on temptation. In fact, according to him, I would either be a homosexual or a liar, since I have not ever looked at another woman with sexual thoughts. I have, indeed, struggled with same sex desires, but being a homosexual is living the lifestyle. This was definitely not the book for my wife and I, who were desperately trying to understand each other. I am a man who is definitely outside this author's idea of what men are like. I am deeply sensitive, creative, romantic, and do not fall into his categorization. I wish I could find an author who realizes that men are changing. We are not the same men that were here 50 years ago. We are becoming more open and more sensitive. Unfortunately, many men think that they have to be the way this book says we are, because the author makes them think that it's the norm. I give the author one star for good intentions.

I would prefer to give this book no stars. It is an outdated, sexist look at the generalizations of men that no longer apply in today's society. I am amazed that this book is a 1998 publication. It would make better since if it was published in 1950. I am 25 years old and wanted to find out why my husband is so different from me in certain aspects. This book was useless, all it did was offend me, disgust me and lead to arguments with my husband. It made me feel that I made a bad decision in being heterosexual because I liked nothing about men and their ways. My husband read through the book and talked to me about the inaccuracies and made me feel good about men and him again. I would not suggest this book to anyone under 50, especially if they are desperately seeking to understand their husband and are dealing with minor marital problems. This book will only make things worse. Among the many irritating statements made, my favorite offensive/sexist statement is: Men's arms are built to swing an ax, while women's are built to cradle babies. Give me a break! Someone needs to write a book on this subject that is relative to this day and age. Women and men do struggle with their differences and it would be so helpful to have an accurate manual to go to for suggestions. This is not such a manual.