A man and his woman had a fight. That’s right—his woman. Most men will claim there are two things of theirs which aren’t to be trifled with: their wallet and their woman. And rather fond of their money and their women, men mean it.
Thus, in man language it’s rather high praise when men say, “That’s my woman.”
However, women find the implied ownership offensive, which is rather confusing. As a matter of introduction, for example, it’s okay to say, “This is my wife.” Ownership is perfectly acceptable to women in that context—endearing, even. Yet, lead an article with, “A man and his woman had a fight,” and women get touchy and offended.
Tomato, tomahto—seems like semantics. Seems like selective offense and outrage. Seems an effort to make men unsure of what is acceptable, and to make them perpetually cautious and defensive. Seems like a power-play and a control thing. In service to that end, it seems like a tool, like a weapon, and that women are going to be oft offended.
And to that, there can be but one response: who cares if women are offended.
It’s a statement, not a question. And it isn’t a malicious, disrespectful statement, either. Rather, it’s an exasperated response to an oppressive modern reality, which is: women are offended by everything.
Of course, women disagree with this assertion. Although, I have had the conversations with them in regards to it. What happened? They were offended by the suggestion they were offended by everything.
I’m not kidding.
To men who doubt the veracity of this conclusion, I would say: try being honest—read: critical—about anything female. See what happens.
At my keyboard and thereby insulated from female wrath, I’ll offer some forbidden honesty.
Ready?
Here goes: women actually relish being “his” woman. In fact, being called “his” by Mr. Right gives women a warm and gooey center. Don’t believe me?
Tisk, tisk.
Women get a charge from hand-holding and cuddling Mr. Right, do they not? Indeed they do. Feeling desired and sheltered, it’s because women are assured they are “his” woman.
Women always gripe at their men for looking at other women, too. Why? Because they are “his” woman! Not her! Not that trollop with the hair extensions, six-pack-abs, and fake breasts.
“I’m supposed to be your woman, jerk! Approve of me! Care about me! Love me! Ogle me, dammit! Am I not good enough?”
Initiate Chin-puckering and tears.
“But honey, I wasn’t looking at her.”
“Don’t.” Sniff, sniff. “Just, don’t.”
And then women sulk for three days.
So as I say, women like being called “his” woman. Indeed, they want to be “his” woman, and “his” woman only. They’re rather emotional about it, actually. Yet, they’re offended by the ownership implication in, “A man and his woman had a fight.”
So, what gives?
What gives is, women are offended by virtually everything men say, even when they’re not offended. Actually, women are offended even when extremely pleased with what men say, and even when filled with a warm and gooey center.
So I repeat: who cares if women are offended. At a certain level of saturation, it’s like switching deck chairs on the Titanic—it no longer matters.
“Just get comfortable and sip your scotch, Rose. We’re going down.”
When everything is offensive to women, it isn’t as though men are going to say anything that won’t be deemed offensive. Unless, of course, men say exactly what women want to hear, in which case men are oppressed, and basically slaves—relational slaves.
And relational or otherwise, what kind of existence is that?
Answer: one where men do what they’re told, and what they’re expected to do, or they live a life of contentious misery.
In other words, men learn to speak the language, or else.
So, now that we’re clear on the term “his”—and incidentally, there’s another thing: clarification. For all the offense, how many times do men have to explain themselves to women, and interpret what they mean?
It’s beyond routine.
And why are men always clarifying things for women? More like, why are men always defending and justifying themselves?
Because women don’t understand man language, and are offended by virtually everything men say.
I say it often, and write it more often. And yes, it is redundantly annoying.
Even so, here goes again:
… and women wonder why men won’t be honest with them, and why relationship communication breaks down.
I never know how many women see the light for this redundant advice—which is absolutely true, incidentally, and thus wise. If women see how their behavior causes a problem. If they take the advice and make themselves less defensive and accusatory and critical, and begin enjoying better communication and relationships, they never say.
Actually, I suspect women read my essays on relationship matters and totally comprehend their sins and culpability. Yet, they sit-back in silence hoping their men don’t read my essays, too, and in hopes they don’t have to change anything.
As one woman said about my book New Rules: Relationships Logic for the Darkside, “I definitely want my sons to read it, but it’s off-limits to my husband. I don’t want him to know all of my manipulation tactics.”
She laughed, but she was serious.
Interestingly, she really loves her sons, and doesn’t want them abused by some young, conniving broad. But her man? Why, he deserves the abuse.
Control—it’s rather intoxicating, and difficult to surrender.
And incidentally, men aren’t terrified to be honest with women, either.
Ready for more redundant annoyance? Great. Here goes:
Men won’t be honest with women because they don’t want to invite the ever-impending drama. As in, the sort associated with the demeaning nature of gender ownership via the term “his”:
“You don’t own me! No man owns me! Shoot—come up in her’ talkin’ bout ‘My woman.’ Boy, please.”
And later it’s: “Why can’t you just be honest with me?!”
Initiate Chin-puckering and tears.
“But honey …”
“Don’t.” Sniff, sniff. “Just, don’t.”
And then women sulk for three days.
And if men were honest, they would say, “I don’t want to be honest because, every time I am, you get defensive and angry, and we end up in an argument.”
And of course, the honest admission invites, what?
Defensiveness. Anger. An argument, and dreaded drama.
See how simple this is? Man language is pretty basic, and rather easy to interpret, too.
It just requires a little interest in the language.
Women grin and giggle at their feminine kookery as if it’s funny and cute, as if it’s the delight of womanness that men get to enjoy, and as if it isn’t a relational problem. And that’s because it isn’t a problem—to women. The kookery is how it works. Women get to keep their boot on men’s collective necks by accusing them all the time, and by being defensive and sharp, and that’s the arrangement.
And men don’t have to like the arrangement; they just have to get used to it.
Because, that’s the arrangement.
At least, that’s the arrangement until the relationship slowly but surely rots to the point men despise women, and leave for other, less contentious women—if only temporarily less contentious. Then it becomes a different arrangement, one not so funny, cute, or favorable.
And men having laid claim to another woman in a new arrangement, the despised suddenly want to be “his” woman again!
Initiate Chin-puckering and tears.
“But I was his girl. What does she have that I don’t?”—sniff, sniff.
Well, him.
Now. If you’re keeping score, particularly if you’re a man, you’re not only thinking, Wow. This is totally insane. You may also sense a theme, an underlying point.
Indeed! There is an underlying point—obscure and not easily discernible though it is.
Relationships have an arrangement—in fact, are preset with the arrangement. By extension, they have a native tongue, a specific language that is to be spoken, and one superior to all others. And it is these facts which return us to the opening line, and to the point of all this.
So, a man and his woman had a fight—it’s the beginning of an illustration I use repeatedly for its efficacy in proving a specific point. This particular woman claimed that her man did not care about her, that he did not love her—at least not up to her definitive standards, or to her perceptions of love.
This was the accusation which led to the fight.
The man protested, declared the charge untrue and totally absurd, which it was. Of course, his woman disagreed. And after a protracted argument, the pair went to bed angry.
Throughout the night it snowed heavily. The next morning the man arose early, saw the snow, and set to its removal. He spent an hour in single digit temperatures removing snow, specifically from his woman’s car, which he also, as a courtesy, warmed-up.
Wearied by the drama, he had decided to swallow his anger, to put forth an olive branch, and to essentially re-profess his love via a charitable deed—pains he had undertaken numerous times previously, incidentally, yet clearly to no lasting and convincing avail.
Leaving for work, his woman emerges. Shouldered briefcase, dressed impeccably, clutching her travel-mug coffee—she breezed defiantly down the freshly shoveled sidewalk, and past her red-cheeked, snotty-nosed groundskeeper. Loading herself into a warm, snow-freed and awaiting car, she fired it up and sped down the driveway, never having said a single word or acknowledged a single thing.
Now. People talk about the language of love. There is a problem, however—an unrecognized truth: there’s more than one language.
This particular woman, for example, has certain definitions and standards for love that weren’t being observed and met by her man. This is the language of love she understands and speaks.
Her man, on the other hand, doesn’t speak this language. In fact, he speaks another, totally different language, one he understands and speaks.
So for purposes of illustration, we have two people in the land of love speaking foreign languages. And here’s the point: despite two viable, sincere but totally different languages being spoken in Love Land, which party is continually held accountable for not understanding and speaking the other’s language?
Answer: not women. Never women.
To put the point simply: women set the rules for love and relational behavior via their definitions and standards. And men have the option of either observing those definitions and meeting those standards, or being the party always failing the relationship.
In other words, women are Love Land’s natives. Thus, their love language is paramount and sacrosanct, and is the native tongue to be spoken. And men can either learn the language to best serve the relationship, or face rebuke.
When are women asked to better understand men? To learn the love language men speak? Furthermore, when do women ever try to understand and learn?
Women aren’t asked to better understand men. They don’t try to learn the love language men speak, and they aren’t interested in learning and better understanding it, either. The relationship’s controlling authority, their love language paramount, sacrosanct, and the native tongue to be spoken, women don’t have to be concerned with another language. Their job is to enforce the rules, one of which is men learning the female love language.
For example, women get their panties in an emotional twist for one reason or another, and the universal reaction is: “You don’t care about me! You don’t love me!”
Of course, this is sometimes implied rather than stated directly. Yet, the message is the same: men don’t understand the love language women speak, and are thus failing the relationship. Hence, men need to learn the language and follow the rules.
Are women ever failing the relationship for not understanding men’s love language?
No. Only men fail.
And how do men respond to their failure?
Why, they set to learning the language, and to rectifying every complaint born of not understanding and of misinterpreting the native tongue. And in learning the language, men learn how to avoid the complaints, which is accomplished by keeping their mouths shut and catering to the language, which is oppression and slavery, ultimately.
Are women ever rectifying every complaint born of not understanding and of misinterpreting men’s love language? Are women keeping their mouths shut and, like oppressed slaves, catering to the language?
No. And just try suggesting such a thing, gentlemen.
Relationships have a native tongue, and there is but one language spoken within.
And the love language men speak and understand?—
Like, rising early to perform charitable work. Like, swallowing anger and pride to end strife and drama, and to restore peace. Like, braving single digit temperatures for an hour to remove snow. Like, making a woman’s trip to work a little warmer and more pleasant. Like, trying to be honest and taking a verbal beating for it. Like, defending and justifying every critical, if improvement-purposed comment. Like, tolerating incessant and insane emotional kookery. Like, staying in a relationship month after month, and year after year, despite the constant defense and justifying, and despite the incessant and insane emotional kookery.
What about these gestures? And the many like them that constitute the love language men speak?
Why, who needs to learn a language nobody speaks?
And besides, it’s not the native tongue in relationships.
My wife and I have an ongoing disagreement about cheating—ongoing in that we don’t agree. Actually, it’s not really “ongoing.” Since we know we disagree, we just don’t have the conversation. So it’s an underlying “ongoing” disagreement, and we just never venture below the hard-deck.
Nevertheless, whenever the subject of a sexual affair comes up, this is how the conversation used to proceed:
Me: “Why did he cheat?—that’s the question. Cause and effect. Women always blame men, but I want to know what role his wife played.”
My wife: “He made the choice to betray her trust. He decided that.”
“Okay. Why?” I repeat.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. What if she was controlling the sex, like most women do? Saying “No” all the time. Constantly rebuffing his advances. Doling out sex when she wants, when she feels like it, when he’s been a good boy—”
“Doesn’t matter. He made the decision!”
“Okay, so: have sex dictated to you for the rest of your life, and like it, and rarely get to enjoy it. Or, have sex with another woman who really wants to bang you. Those are the options? I’m sorry, those don’t seem like very good options.”
Women are actually saying to men, “I’m only going to have sex when I want and when I say in this relationship, and you’re going to live with it for the rest of your life, and like it. And I dare you to have sex with another woman! And if you do, you’re going to be at fault.”
Although women don’t put it in these terms, this is indeed what they’re saying. And it’s so grossly unfair, so arrogant and demanding, you wonder how women themselves could possibly believe it to be an equitable arrangement. Yet, considering it becomes the arrangement, they clearly believe it’s equitable.
Nevertheless, it’s silent at this point in our conversation—the air filled with, Gosh, when you put it like that … “That” being the ridiculous options women don’t realize they are presenting to men.
It’s the same point reached routinely in relationship disputes—the point at which men make a compelling argument, and women face changing their perspective, beliefs, position, ways, and habits. And it’s also the point at which, rather than change their perspective, beliefs, position, ways, and habits—which they should welcome, incidentally, given the change they routinely demand of men—women decide on silence, or to blow a matter up into a hell on earth, so that nobody addresses or remembers the original matter.
The fact is, however, these options aren’t fair to men. It isn’t fair that women are sexually lazy, and that they aren’t involved and motivated like they should be. And if women are treating men this way, then they play a part in their man’s affair, and need to accept their role.
Furthermore, had women accepted their role long before the affair, when the arguments over sex were taking place, which they most assuredly were, the affair likely wouldn’t have occurred.
And therein lies the point.
Their language the relationship’s native tongue, and ever to be spoken, women never feel compelled to understand or speak any other language but their own. This being the arrangement, women constantly take men to task for not understanding the language, and for not speaking it fluently. And ultimately, the female language becomes the only language that is correct.
In terms of security, which is what women crave most, this is an extremely seductive arrangement. Having your language catered to and ultimately getting your way is not only appealing. It becomes an easy habit to fall into.
Only, it isn’t fair to men. And relationally speaking, it isn’t healthy.
Women can’t argue that men aren’t learning the female language. Fixing every female complaint, grievances resulting from men not understanding the language, men are forced into religious and routine linguistic study. Men may or may not be great students, and they may be slow learners, but they are definitely studying—and learning.
And women?
Not so much. Perhaps, not at all.
Women don’t have to learn—that’s the point. And in the era of gender competition, they resent having to do anything for men. The resentment runs a little hotter for some than others, but to varying degrees it runs, nonetheless. And learning to understand men? Learning to speak their language?
Uh, no. That’s not the arrangement.
So, women get used to bludgeoning men into speaking their language, and into thinking the correct way. And eventually, there becomes no other language but the native tongue, and no other way but the “correct” way.
The good news is most women aren’t doing this intentionally. The circumstances just sort of, evolve. They evolve because controlling things makes women feel secure, and because getting their way is appealing and comfortable. And also because, spending all of their time in servitude to the native tongue, men allow their love language to become irrelevant.
It is to say, there isn’t a secret sinister plot being executed in most relationships. To put it simply, men and women just don’t realize they are falling into inequitable and destructive habits.
Ignorant to the reality though men and women may be, the fact is this language issue is the primary reason relationships decay.
Now, if only that point could be communicated in a recognizable language.
©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved
John Mark Warren 