The Big Diehl

This is written to all women. This is helpful for wives and husbands — but also with moms and sons. I don’t have a wife, but I can’t tell you how many “run-ins” with my mom could have been prevented had we used these ideas. These are generalizations that Mark Gungor made (most are sarcastic – but make great points!). I’ll say that again: these are generalizations.

How To Get A Man to Do What You Want:

Tell him what you want. Duh. Men don’t have ESP. You have to tell them! This seems like a “duh” — but it does not go without saying. Don’t forget to tell a guy what you want!

Ask him more than once. Yes – you do need to ask more than once. Of course women need to ask more than once – men don’t want to do stuff. Men can see dirty dishes, dirty laundry, and full trash bags — WE JUST DON’T CARE! Women that ask once and then have hissy fits about lazy men are ruining relationships — just ask again! That’s all the simpler it is. This can often be misconstrued as nagging. Asking multiple times doesn’t turn into nagging until you add “attitude.” Multiple asking WITH attitude is called nagging. Also, women need to understand that if they ask a man to do something while he is in one of his “boxes” he probably won’t hear you. He’s not ignoring you – his brain doesn’t work like yours. The man’s brain can only focus on one thing at a time – and he does it more deeply than a woman (typically). If he’s thinking about something else when you ask him, he probably won’t hear a thing. Just ask him again.

Ask him the right way. A man (yes, even young men — teen guys) wants to be respected. The worst thing you could do is to insult him with disrespect, “What?! Can’t you pick up the laundry?!” That disrespects him — and you’ll never get what you want that way. It would be his nature to not do it just to prove that he’s in charge and deserves respect. (Yea, guys are that stupid).

Train him with positive reinforcement. Appreciate the pathetic things he does! Women tend to only appreciate the UNEXPECTED kindness — like flowers. Appreciate the pathetic things — like putting away the dishes (he’s doing it to try to impress you with even that!). That’s training him with positive reinforcement, just like you would an ape. (Did I just equate men with apes?)

Barter With Him. Try this . . . “If you want to __________, go clean the garage.” Yes, guys are that stupid and lazy. Barter with us. But you may say, “Oh but that’s not unconditional love. I want to love him unconditionally.” Unconditional love requires a conditional relationship!

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I heard Mark Gungor speak a few weeks ago. He’s the man behind The FlagPage Test, pastors a large church in Green Bay, and leads “Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage.” I wrote down several things that he said that I thought were awesome and wanted to put on my blog.

“We tell them [young adults] to not have sex until they’re married. And then we tell them to wait a long time before getting married. Psh! Well THERE’S a winning combination! It’s a wonder we can be so stupid and still breathe.” (It was said sarcastically, but what a point he made!)

Married women often complain about how her husband cannot meet all of her emotional needs. Mark says that that’s ridiculous. When experts ask women to describe the perfect man – they describe another woman! The woman might say, “Well I want a man to be gentle, caring, sensitive, and will talk with me about how he feels.” That’s a description of a woman! Of course a man cannot meet all of her emotional needs – he’s a man! Ladies – if you want all your emotional needs met – go get a girlfriend.

Mark said, “I insult men every week at my church and they love it. I’ve got men coming to my church in droves because I’ll challenge them and tell them they’re wimps if they won’t follow God. I challenge them to be a man.” Sidebar: I kept this concept in mind, and last week I had the opportunity to witness to a man and he told me that he thought that if he just believed a little of everything and didn’t make a solid decision, then he’d be okay. I looked this stranger square in the eyes and said, “Well, that’s a wussy thing to believe. You’re a wuss. Be a man and make a decision. ” . . . Challenge a man like a man and he’ll respond like a man. He was in church the following Sunday.

Women’s brains are the information superhighway. Every thought is connected to everything else. Vacation – Dinner – The Neighbors – Church – Grocery Shopping . . . they’re all connected and conversations work in that same way. Men’s brains are organized in boxes. Each thought is separated in many different boxes — and the boxes NEVER touch. If you want to change topics with a man – you have to wait for him to shut the first box and open up the second. That’s why men are lousy multi-taskers. Men have the unique ability to TOTALLY focus on a single thing – that’s the reason men are the leaders in nearly every industry – even those industries that are typically dominated by women (hair styling, cooking, clothing designing, education). But what women need to realize is that all men have one box that is called the “Nothing” Box. Men can sit there and literally think about nothing. Women cannot. If a women tries to think about nothing, she sits there and thinks about how she’s not thinking about anything. So if a woman asks a man, “What are you thinking about?” and he says, “Nothing.” Don’t feel like he’s trying to hide something from you — he was actually thinking about NOTHING. He was in his “nothing” box.

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