By Mirabelle Summers
Author of Get A Great Guy Guide
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Understanding Men’s 10 Biggest Fears
Have you ever watched a playground of children playing?
It’s a familiar scene: the boys are running around, shrieking with laughter and shouting, while the girls are sitting quietly in a group discussing the complex social rules of their new game.
Boys and girls play differently, and they carry those communication differences into adulthood.
It’s almost a rule of thumb that, with any gathering of women, there will be lots of talking and sharing going on.
Women love to talk about the things they care about, and they’re not afraid of opening up about their fears.
Men, on the other hand, are comfortable hanging out together in silence. You can be sure that a male gathering won’t involve all that much sharing of deep thoughts and feelings; instead, it tends to be about one-upmanship and physical competition.
I get emails from a lot of women who are frustrated with the communication in their relationship. They want to know what’s going on inside their man’s head.
They want their man to open up and share his feelings. Their man, on the other hand, is perfectly happy with his “strong and silent” image, and he wants to keep it that way!
I still remember the time I asked a boyfriend to tell me about any fears he had about us being able to cope with a long-distance relationship.
Instead of opening up, he got upset. “Fears?” he said. “Why would you think I’d have any fears? We love each other, it will work, and that’s THAT.”
But what’s REALLY going on inside a man’s head when he says something like that? Was it really true that he had no fears … or was it just that he wasn’t willing to admit it?
That’s why I knew I had to research the topic for the fourth and final week of our Month of Male Mysteries Revealed.
What are men REALLY afraid of? What worries are going through their heads that they’re not telling us?
If your man refuses to open up to you about his deepest fears, then you’re not alone. Many men believe that it is unmanly to talk about feelings.
They were raised to believe that a man doesn’t fuss much over what he’s feeling; rather, he just gets on with it.
That’s why I had to go to men themselves for the answer. David Zinczenko is editor-in-chief of “Men’s Health” magazine, and he interviewed 5,000 men about what they wished women understood about them.
The result was his book “Men, Love & Sex: The Complete User’s Guide for Women,” a fascinating look into the male mind, and the source from which I compiled this list of ten of the top male fears in a relationship.
My research paints a portrait of men very different from the calm, cool, and collected gods that they’d like us to see them as.
Instead, men worry just as much as we do, and their fears give us an invaluable insight into the male mind.
In no particular order:
10. Men worry that they’re not being “man” enough.
9. Men worry about not “measuring up” in the workplace and in the bedroom.
8. Men worry that you’ll compare them to your exes and find them lacking.
7. Men worry that they don’t look good enough to keep you from straying.
6. Men worry that you’ll gain weight … a LOT of weight.
5. Men worry that they won’t be able to make you feel better when you’re upset.
4. Men worry that they’re not going to have sex with anyone else for the rest of their lives.
3. Men worry about not being good fathers.
2. Men worry about hurting you – even if it involves breaking up with you.
But what was the greatest male fear of all? That’s our Male Mystery #1…
MALE MYSTERY #1:
“A man’s greatest fear is not being able to make you happy.”
Surprised? I sure was.
We know from Male Mystery #1 that men care WAY too much about what you think, but do men actually spend that much time worrying if they’ve made us happy? Come on! Aren’t men supposed to be selfish adolescents more interested in sports and sex than in being a good partner?
Clearly, there’s a deeper mystery at work.
The key to understanding this male mystery is to look at how men understand what it means to “be a man.”
To be a man is not only to be a “strong, silent type.” To be a man is also to be a “protector” and a “provider.”
Although most men will admit that they enjoy having a woman take care of them and would even become house husbands if given half a chance, there’s still a part of them deep in their psyche that sees their proper role as head of the household or the breadwinner in the family.
Yes, gender roles are more fluid now, but the idea of “man as provider” has been around for a long, long time, and will be around for an even longer time to come.
There’s no way that your man could NOT have been influenced by the model of the nuclear family, in which the wife was the mother and homemaker while the husband was the primary breadwinner.
As a result, your man feels good when he can provide for you. Whether it’s something as simple as bringing home a pizza or as major as putting down a deposit on a house, providing makes him feel like he’s truly a man.
John Gray, author of “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,” explains that men feel best as givers and women feel best as receivers.
As long as a man is able to give and the woman able to receive his gift, both will be fulfilled in the relationship.
But that’s the hitch…
Women today have been told that they shouldn’t rely on a man to make them happy. They’ve been told that they shouldn’t accept gifts from a man unless they can give a gift of equal value back. Modern women have been encouraged to be financially independent and provide for themselves…
…All of which leaves men without a role to play in a woman’s life.
Think about it: what can a man do for you any better than your best female friend – aside from sex, of course? (Studies have shown that women place their friendship with their best friend on a level equal to that of their lover.)
But men want to be more than the booty call in a woman’s life. A man wants to know that not only is she happy with him, but that the THINGS HE DOES make her happy. He wants to feel that there are things that he can do for her that NO ONE ELSE can.
And that’s the secret to winning a man’s heart. Let him know how happy he makes you. Let him play a role in your life. Appreciate each and everything he does for you, even if he blushes and brushes off your compliments with an “Aw, shucks.”
Men LOVE to be appreciated for the things they do. They love feeling like they have a special role in a woman’s life. They love being the one that a woman comes to when she needs the help that only HE can provide.
But not all women know how to receive a man’s gift with grace. Many of us feel uncomfortable when a man goes over-the-top in doing something nice for us, as we prefer being on the giving end ourselves. We’re so used to doing everything ourselves that we leave him feeling like a guest in our lives.
As women, we must learn how to invite a man into our lives and make room for his unique contributions.
We must learn to receive the gifts that he has to offer us with gratitude and appreciation rather than neediness or demands. Show a man just how happy he makes you, and you’ll make HIM the happiest man alive.
That’s it for our Month of Male Mysteries Revealed! Now you know four secrets into the male psyche that he’d be too embarrassed to tell you himself.
1. Men care way too much what you think.
2. Men crave everything a woman has that he doesn’t.
3. Men aren’t always up for sex.
4. A man’s greatest fear is not being able to make you happy.
P.S. I want to leave you with one final male fear that I found incredibly interesting:
“Men are always secretly afraid they’ve done something wrong.”
Does that sound like your man? Make sure to tell him when he’s done something RIGHT, and he’ll be yours forever!
If you want genuine men and not just any man, let us challenge your beliefs about love and attraction, and show you the way to become a seduction success story, check this out…
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So why are men still thinking like this? Because no-one in the male world (?) is able/willing to produce a similar ‘How To Get Women’ course of study. Male gurus say it is because men think a certain way and tragically our female biology means we are the ones who can care/nurture/discuss etc, but that is no excuse. Women traditionally do these things on a good day but can head companies, have a mortgage, work for NASA, e3tc, etc. So if we can cross biological boundaries…why can’t they? So women think in a certain way, yet we can learn and change. We are in danger here of repeating history – allowing men to be lazy and un-self-aware and then puzzled by us, while we work out how to speak THEIR language and so on. It must be fair, it must be half n half and it must be a learning curve for the entire species, not half of it.
I am not prepared to do any work and think on behalf of a male until the male world meets us halfway and stops using biology as an excuse for them to do nothing, but then uses the same excuse to sit back and let women – once again – kill themselves to work them out. We have to stop doing all the work to understand these easily frightened, so delicate creatures and insist on a bit of effort from them too. All male help is geared towards all male thinking so while we spend money and work our asses off, what are they doing except waiting to receive the goodies we bring about how we ‘get’ them?
By all means learn to grow and change but not if it is one-sided.
Thank you .. I will make good use of this information . Wish me luck 😉 xxx
Thank you so much
Out of all the so-called experts in this arena, you are the one who makes the MOST sense! Thanks for your many insights!
Hi, I’m Bernie from West Africa,thank U for the wonderful secrets revealed.u make life easier for us all the time.lol
Fantastic information…what an eye opener. I straight away text my man and told him how happy he had made me by coming to a comedy show with me…its the simple things us women sometimes overlook. Great stuff, thank you, thank you, thank you
Thank you Dear Mirabelle,I always enjoy your blogs and e mails. You are a real friend. God Bless You.
Hi Andy, it’s not so much as feeding a guy’s ego as it is treating him as an equal in the relationship and understanding his inner world. Women have their own set of hopes, dreams and fears; a caring husband or boyfriend would be just as on top of their partner’s top worries and know how to ease their mind. As a wife or girlfriend, women can reciprocate by being aware of the things that keep their guy up at night and be just as supportive (as we would be expect our man to be). We’re all human and feel fear – that doesn’t make us delicate or weak.
I understand this, but I think my ex was different, he didn’t want to be the provider, he was happy to let me do everything, my marriage was like the “ant and the grasshopper” I did all the work and he did all the playing, because I loved him I let him get away with these things and he left me for another woman. I think that some men don’t want to be the provider they just want to be mothered.
I’m sorry. I’m with Andy on this issue. While I agree on the basic message, situations like Lorna’s are intolerable. Lorna, you need to deal with your own self-respect issues first. Then if you choose to accommodate a man’s fears, you will not be risking your own happiness in the process. I’m 60, so I’m not responding to your post as a woman who is inexperienced in relationships – good and bad – but, to my way of thinking you’re not helping your man, you’re enabling him. If the roles were reversed would you blame the world for dealing you a lousy deck and then sit back on your butt and manipulate the people, who love you, into taking care of you? He lost his status as a lawyer? And you feel sorry for him? I can only imagine what he pulled to get kicked to the curb. He lost his confidence to find work? Are you actually falling for that line? He doesn’t want to work. He’s too lazy. You can’t just demand self-respect. that’s something earned. He probably was an alcoholic long before you met him and you’re the goose the laid the golden egg. And you jumped into this relationship before you took a breath. Do yourself a big favor and dump this guy. Start loving yourself. You are not defined by what you provide a man. Once you love yourself, and more importantly your own company, then you will be in the best place to meet and to be sincerely loved by a man who will share your life as an equal partner. You not his mother. Just food for thought
Well as a change of pace, I’m a guy. Andy and Katie, all I can say is “good luck”. For any of us to (guy or gal) to sit back and say “I’m not changing until they do” is pretty much a formula for disaster. The more each of us understand the other the better. But you know what? I can’t “demand” that my woman leans about me just as she can’t make that back to me. I can only control me and I will learn as best I can about my woman so I understand her as best I can. And I can attest that all these fears are indeed fact. The last one is the one. All the other 9 are (more or less) variations on the fact that we as men are afraid that we wouldn’t be able to make our woman happy. And Honestly Andy and Katie, you never will be, so a guy with you will always feel the very last thing noted “I’ve done something wrong and she’s going to be mad at me.” Your attitude of “you come half way” feels to me as a guy that there is always something wrong in what I did. I know this because that is exactly what happened in my marriage. I constantly felt under gun, I couldn’t make her happy and even if I did for a moment, the other shoe would drop. In the end she decided to leave me which made me conclude at the time that this feeling was right. Since then I’ve done a lot of work on, ME. I understand ME better, I understand relationships better I understand what I can do better. I took the time to work it out for ME. And I’m looking for a woman who is doing that for herself too. You want a man who has done the work to have a better relationship, well do the same for yourself. Do it with no expectation that you will every even have a relationship, just do it for you and then you will be infinitely attractive to men who have done the same.
I think I love this piece, I am in a long distance relationship and we don’t get to talk so often because he is a very busy person. So anytime we got to talk I make sure I enjoy every bit of it. No complaints. We just talk about everything. Now that I know his biggest desire is see me feel happy, I am going to make sure I express those positive feelings. thanks so much for this piece.
Thank you Its good to know exactly what men are thinking and feeling, and your tips and advice are good.
It’s so hard a guy i know he calls me to giv e him head but all of a sudden we don’t connect. I don’t know why he still txt me.
Here, here Ric. Well said. Great article too. Growth and the desire to better ourselves is, and should always be, for ourselves. To be open to receiving the best WE have to be OUR best. It is called creating and we are the authors of that which we create! And, like Ric, until we offer our best we can never expect to receive the best. And when two bests come together, they CREATE a beautiful and rewarding union for themselves and all those whose lives they touch. Try it. Personal growth is far removed from victimisation, blame and demand. To look within is sometimes the hardest thing to do. I applaud you Ric for sharing your growth experience and for demonstrating the key to growth, healing and happiness. Best of luck in finding your beautiful equal. And to those ladies who seem to feel threatened or who like to keep tabs – creating your OWN happiness is liberating and powerful.
It is very interesting to read some of the comments pertaining to men’s biggest fears. The women worry about being able to understand men. They do not see why we men are concerned about one-up-ness. What is this need for proving that one person is better and smarter than the other; similarly, I read the age old discussion about women being smarter than men in the comments.
When this self imposed idea of female superiority stop? Why do women think they are better than men? Some things women can do better than men; others things men are better at. This is the problem with generalizations. They usually are overblow and wrong.
For instance, I usually walk or ride the bicycle whenever I am out and going somewhere. So many times I have come to being hit by automobile drivers, and in every instance, it has been a woman behind the wheel and she had been distracted by something in each case. So tell me! Can women multi task? Perhaps they are not better at it.
The article itself is excellent. It strikes right there in our relationship as well. My partner is a great man and I love him very much. Recently, I found that something was bothering him though. He became distant and moody for some reason I did not know.
So I asked him one day what was the matter. He told me after a few moments of hesitation, possibly to see if I might become offended when he told me how he felt. Then he told me: “I am afraid I can not make you happy anymore. I do this and that, and you always test me and criticize me. I find it disturbing and hateful. Why don’t you say you love me anymore?”
He then told me that we are no longer intimate and we hardly have sex anymore. It is true! I have become quite judgemental and much too critical. I also told him something that I found hard to tell him and that he found quite surprising. I told him that I didn’t like sex and that I have it to please him.
thanx for the advice it is gud to know
Excellent, your comments above.
But how about “health” over psychology.
How many “PLAYERS” are worried about sexually
transmitted diseases (SIDs) – and if not, they ought to be !
Ric.. well said.. best I’ve read out of ALL the relationship experts lately.. And why all this mystery about men? what is this some kind of crazy game where women better know ALL these things about their men or My God the relationship is doomed?? when did these rules get written and why any rules?? Just communicate.. Be yourself.. love yourself first..Better yourself.. and you will attract to yourself what you want.. not what you need.. because you don’t ever NEED someone.. fall in love with you first and know who YOU are.. before hand:)
thank you so much, all is true, that is absolutely right, i will try every trick i learn from this article to make my relationship work,God bless.
julia.
Thank u sooo much
Ric,
I really appreciate what you have said. You are a wise man. I do not know where you are and how old you are. I am in the self growth and educated stage. If you like to connect with me? Please let me know. I will check this site again.
Thank you Dear Mirabelle,I really like your blogs and e mails because I think the same way. I live in a country in Middle East where people are so traditional. NO BOYFRIENDS are allowed. Every thing that we can do is to apply what we learn after marriage. A lot of people in my city don’t have the same view as I do. They don’t know English and don’t read. Their thoughts are too limited and it is so difficult to find your soul mate. I am 33 years old now. I would really like to find my dream man at my city but I almost think it’s impossible.
Very big Like to your website. Wish you good luck and successful life.
Happiness is such an individual thing: what makes one woman happy would probably make another miserable. If a man has taken the trouble to find out what makes his woman happy, then it’s only right that she take the trouble to tell him how happy she is – how happy he makes her 🙂
Men are humans and all humans have fears. I know that they fear not being able to take care of the woman they are with. Men love and/or want to take care of women because they are “taught” that they is what they are supposed to do. They are totally fearful of not being able to satisfy us sexually, again because they are taught that they are the ones that do that. We are supposed to make it good enough for them to come, cum!!
The fears of being accepted in all the ways. I am so grateful that you did this research and interviewed men so that they could feel okay about voicing fears. With communication between us, perhaps some of these fears can be released and men and women can move on together without these quiet fears that play out so loudly. The abuse of women is actually fears; not feasr of women, but fear of not having “control” of their relationship. The fear of not having “power” over the woman. So, as Personal Life Consultant, I see clients, both men and women who voice major fears that affect The Six Components that all humans beings must deal with. They are the physical, creative, social, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Within these six components are all of the issues any human being can have. Continue the conversations, it is clarity that can help and support the release of fears!
Hi,I hear what your saying.but I’m with Andy here too.. Other gurus say..step back and let your man step up to the plate. I think that’s the way to go. Bottom line,men don’t like independent woman..so be like nothing bothers you..not so pedantic and keep your light under a bushal.. I only wish I could carry out my own advice.. I’m too smart for my own good..and like most modern,independent women..want my man to know it too.!.
Thank you, Ric and Lennie! Well said.
I was one of those women who said things like Andy and Katie for many years and wondered why I always got dumped. Now, I know. Over the past 6 or 7 years, I’ve worked on myself. And lo and behold! I found the love of my life. I understand his perspective -I don’t always agree with it- and because of that, he feels like I can and do truly support him.(I do.) He believes that he can make me happy…and he can and does. It’s the little things. For example: He sets up the coffee maker for me everyday…all I have to do is hit the “brew” button. It’s a small thing and kinda silly to some that I make a big deal out of it, but I really like that he thinks of me first thing every morning and I want him to continue to! So he gets a thank you and a smile every morning. Good start to the day for us both, I say!
i think the more a man loves a woman the more he fears of not being able to protect that woman, make her happy or the most important to lose her.
am learning… thank yu Mirabelle
(Studies have shown that women place their friendship with their best friend on a level equal to that of their lover.)…I think she will be placed far above ” her man ” …are men even relevant to women these days with all this ” I don’t need no man !! ” & A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bike ” . Women have a strong own gender solidarity , that is absent in me , so fulfill each others emotional needs , plus women ( on average ) do not have the libido that testosterone curses men with , most women would be very happy with total celibacy.
It is great to see something from women that is not the usual attack on men , but men are now irrelevant to women , every solo woman I know is single by choice ( it’s easy for a woman to land a man ) , plus my female work colleagues in partnerships are always negative towards ” her man ” behind his back , I doubt women even like us men that much , are we really such monstrosities ??
“Men are always secretly afraid they’ve done something wrong.” …well we do get blamed for all the ills of the world too !!
I just want to put it out there that my man makes me happy 🙂
Yes absolutely. In fact some of the points are so true to my experience thank you so much pray for our everlasting relationship for me and MYEVERLASTINGSUMIT and wish us all the best for OUR FUTURE TOGETHER AHEAD!!!
Sadly, my guy doesn’t seem to fit this at all! I sometimes just feel like an afterthought!
These secret fears of men are their vulnerabilities and they are some of the things that make men lovable. Without them it would be harder to love a man no matter how great he is. I guess women have their vulnerable side too and I know how hard that can be to admit: therefore, the same with men. Knowing about this can make it easier to appreciate and accept it when a man is making himself vulnerable for you or the relationship you have with him.