Tatafoears

You’ve heard it before: Men are visual; women are verbal. Men are impulsive; women like to analyze things. Men are from Mars; women are from Venus. So since husbands and wives are opposite in many ways, it makes sense that male and female hearts swell for different reasons. While you probably smile when your mate says, “I love you,” those same three words from you may not do much for him. Here, 11 gestures that show you care and why they’re more meaningful to the guy in your life.

So many times, I’ve had struggling couples in my office where the wife, for some reason, felt the need to protest her partner’s attitudes rather negative towards the marriage with the words, “But, I love you…”

More often then not, the response of the husband is some rendition of, “Prove it.”

Sadly, few of those wives have any idea what her husband is talking about — and usually just regard that comment as a slam.

Read nearly any marriage book from the last 20yrs and it’s instantly apparent why. The overwhelming majority of them basically send the message that guys need to get it together and do/be what their (obviously enlightened) spouse wants/needs.

And, they unquestionably do.

But, it’s barely considered politically correct to suggest that the above two lines cut both ways as an undifferentiated abstraction.

Much less suggest these three more concrete items…

Dolling up sends the message that you still want to look good for him, no matter how long you’ve been together. “Men’s brains are wired to respond to visual cues more than women’s brains,” says Dr. Dow. “Seeing you in that sexy dress shows him you desire him.” And a scarlet number may work best. A study by researchers at the University of Rochester in New York found that ladies in red are an aphrodisiac to men. …

Shedding stress, eating right, exercising, quitting smoking and even pampering yourself may sound like treats for you, but they’re also ways to show you love him. “This communicates, ‘I want to have a long, wonderful life with you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent you from experiencing the grief of losing someone,'” says Dr. Dow. What better motivation is there to get healthy?…

Making love for an hour is nice, but once in a while, have sex for just a few minutes, suggests Dr. Dow. Although women get that loving feeling with a rise in oxytocin (what you release during that post-coital cuddling session), men feel it with an increase in dopamine, the chemical they release during sex which stimulates the mental pleasure-and-reward center, explains Dr. Dow. “I hope that most of the time, your lovemaking is full of foreplay and romance. But other times, just have sex.”

But, as much smoke and fury as the above items (and the rest of the above-linked list) may generate, they’re still desperately true.