A husband and his wife, “received an email about the romantic differences between men and women. It asked, “How do you romance a woman?” It began, “How do you romance a woman? ” Answer: “Wine her, dine her, call her, cuddle with her, surprise her, compliment her hair, shop with her, listen to her talk, buy flowers, hold her hand, write love letters, and be willing to go to the end of the earth and back again for her.”
That sounds about right, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want that kind of treatment? The email continued, “How do you romance a man?
Answer: “Arrive naked. Bring food.” A woman’s picture of romance tends to revolve around her emotional needs and her thirst for a relationship with her husband. It’s a package deal, like going on a cruise. Your cruise ticket doesn’t just allow you to enjoy sailing on a ship through beautiful waters to exotic locations; it includes three meals a day plus all-you-can-eat midnight buffets, access to swimming pools, games, exercise facilities, entertainment, excursions to ports of call, and a host of other amenities and experiences.
While a man has emotional needs, too, as Dr. Willard Harley asserts in His Needs, Her Needs, a man’s view of romance is much more focused on a single experience: sexual affirmation. In that regard, God wired men and women very differently.
As you probably have experienced, these radical differences in approach to romance set the stage for repeated clashes in marriage—the husband pursues romance based on his sexual passion, and the wife goes after relationship. To understand these differences, we have to be educated and nurture a desire to learn about each other.
A Bible verse tells us to “put on a heart of compassion” (Colossians 3:12 NASB). If I love my husband, then I’ll want to know him, to understand him, to have empathy for him so I can love him more. It’s what we wanted in marriage: to know and be known by another in the safety of unconditional love. The Bible book of beginnings [Genesis] teaches that man and woman are made in the image of God.
Understanding how God made my husband, I can better complete him as a man. We’re “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
My husband’s maleness is as essential as my femaleness in the working out of God’s design in our marriage. When God created woman, He gave her multiple avenues for expressing the essence of her sexuality—her femaleness. Because I am a woman, I can participate in sexual intercourse with my husband. Women conceive a children and experience the miraculous process of creating a life in my body over nine months. My husband can only watch and wonder.” Quoted from www.familylife.com articles: Help for Today: Hope for Tomorrow website Christian Radio Broadcast: KKLA. A CRU Ministry.
Jeanette Grattan Parker [email protected] Superintendent/Founder Today’s Fresh Start Charter School www.todaysfreshstart.org