For Couples Only by Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn (Book Review)

Titles: For Women Only and For Men Only
Author: Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn
Publisher: Multnomah
Genre: Christian Living/Practical Life







First up is For Women Only - I will be reviewing this book -

First sentence: As newlyweds, my husband and I lived in Manhattan and like all New Yorkers we walked everywhere.

Shaunti Feldhahn was doing research for a book when she began to stumble across the same answers from a wide variety of men. This led her to conduct a formal survey of 400 men ranging in age from25-71 and their answers are the basis of this book.

She shows us seven revelations that are pretty similar across all men, showing first our surface understanding and then what it really means in practice:

“Men need respect” ➺ Men would rather feel unloved than inadequate and disrespected.

“Men are insecure” ➺ Despite their “in control” exterior, men often feel like impostors and are insecure that their inadequacies will be discovered.

“Men are providers” ➺ Even if you personally made enough income to support the family’s lifestyle, it would make no difference to the mental burden he feels to provide.

“Men want more sex” ➺ Your sexual desire for your husband profoundly affects his sense of well-being and confidence in all areas of his life.

“Men are visual” ➺ Even happily married men struggle with being pulled toward live and recollected images of other women.

“Men are unromantic clods” ➺ Actually, most men enjoy romance (sometimes in different ways) and want to be romantic—but hesitate because they doubt they can succeed.

“Men care about appearance” ➺ You don’t need to be a size 3, but your man does need to see you making the effort to take care of yourself—and he will take on significant cost or inconvenience in order to support you.

Each chapter covers a revelation and digs into it deeper from a man's point of view. She tells us why it is important to men and what we (women) can do to help or understand our man.

I read this book last year after a speaker at one of our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meetings referenced it. I could not believe how it mirrored so many of my husband's actions. It also made me realize that what was important to me, was not what was important to him - or how I interpreted or responded to a situation differed greatly from his perspective. The first chapter is titled "Lightbulb On!" and it definitely went on for me!

Next up is For Men Only - This book was reviewed by my husband.

First sentence: Like some guys I know, you might be tempted to skip this introduction and jump right to the sex chapter.

With the success of the book For Women Only, Jeff and Shaunti felt they needed to address the other side of the coin - so For Men Only was born.

For Men only deals with six revelations of women - below are the men's surface understanding and what it means in practice:

Women need to feel loved. Even if your relationship is great, your mate likely has a fundamental insecurity about your love—and when that insecurity is triggered, she may respond in ways that confuse or dismay you until she feels reassured.

Women are emotional. Women deal with multiple thoughts and emotions from their past and present all the time, at the same time—and these can’t be easily dismissed.

Women want security— in other words, financial security. Your woman needs emotional security and closeness with you so much that she will endure financial insecurity to get it.

She doesn’t want you to fix it; she just wants you to listen. When she is sharing an emotional problem, her feelings and her desire to be heard are much more important than the problem itself.

She doesn’t want much sex; she must not want me. Physically, women tend to crave sex less often than men do—and it is usually not related to your desirability.

She wants to look attractive. Inside your smart, secure wife lives a little girl who deeply needs to know that you find her beautiful—and that you only have eyes for her.

My husband did not like this book at all. It had a hard time keeping his attention. He felt that the only reason it was written, was because they needed to counter the For Women Only book. He also stated though, that because he and I talked alot, that the things he read in this book were not really revelations for him. (So guess that means that I can get my point across huh?!)