Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man

On that very day, I learned one of the most important lessons my father could have ever taught me: happy wife, happy life. We men have been conditioned to conduct ourselves as if we run things, but the smart man knows it’s really the woman of the house who sets the tone of the relationship and what goes on in the home. Sure, we know that most women don’t have a problem bragging to their friends, “This is my man, he’s the head of the household.” Most of you will even take our last name and defer to us on some decisions. The idea is that if you do these things, on balance, you’ll get most of what your heart desires. A woman will give a man an honorific as long as he puts her on a pedestal and gives her what she wants. No woman is going to sign up to call a man the head of the household if he’s not acting like one-which encompasses making her feel honored, protected, and respected-and giving her, as I like to say, most of what she needs and a lot of what she wants. But guess what? The same is true for men-if anything, even more so.

We understand, respect, and live by the art of the deal. Everything for us is an exchange; I’ll give you something if you give me something back. We’ve been cutting deals since we were little boys. “I like that black marble with the orange eye in it,” a friend would say. “I’ll trade you this green marble with the yellow spots, plus throw in a Hank Aaron baseball card if you give it to me, deal?” Go into any lunchroom in any school, USA, and you’ll hear all kinds of deals being struck: “You got Pringles? Say man, I’ll give you two dollars and a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup for those Pringles.” The same thing is happening on the playground after school: “I bet you I can shoot twenty baskets faster than you. I’ll even spot you five points. If I win, you have to give me two packs of Hubba Bubba when I see you tomorrow. Ready?”

Striking a deal is standard for us-it fits into our scheme of logic: you give something, you get something in return. That’s the way it goes down for us at work, it’s the way we deal with our siblings and cousins and other family members who consistently tap us for help, and it’s certainly a part of our relationships with our friends. I’m not saying we’re a selfish lot, by any stretch: I think the basic tenet of manhood-particularly for husbands, fathers, and men in committed relationships-is to give without expecting something in return; we provide for and protect our families in ways both big and small because we instinctively know that this is what an honorable man is supposed to do. And we know, too, that often those things will have to be done without expectation of getting anything in return. But I’ll raise my hand high up in the air and cop to this one simple truth: a man is more likely to do things he doesn’t want to do if he’s going to get something out of it.

Just as you can use appreciation to motivate a man to do even more for you and your family (as explained in Chapter 10, “Show Your Appreciation”), you can accomplish the same by recognizing and implementing the principles of deal making in your relationship. It’s very simple: if you want something from your man, offer up something in return. (And no, I’m not talking solely about sex, though you could get most men to wash the dishes, make all the beds, detangle your daughter’s hair, and clean the refrigerator out weekly if they think they’ll get the cookie in return.) Forget asking why you have to wheel and deal to get your husband to do things that women do without prompting. No matter how upset you get about it, no matter how many times you ask for an explanation, it’s the way most of us are hardwired. This is the way men operate. Your job is to exploit this for your own advantage-to figure out how to win within those confines. Trust me on this one: understanding how to negotiate with your man will bring you untold joy. Just ask my wife, Marjorie-the master of the art of the deal in the Harvey household.

Marjorie and I are the parents of seven; she came to our relationship with three of her own and added them to my four. That’s a houseful, no matter how you slice it, no matter how big your heart is, no matter how much time you have on your hands. Being a parent-a good parent-in that situation is daunting sometimes. When I get home, I don’t want to deal with all the household drama, especially within ten minutes of setting foot in the front door. In my mind, I’m screaming, “I get that we need to speak about his grades, which are going in the wrong direction, and I understand that the little one wants to go to a friend’s house for a sleepover and we don’t trust the judgment of the girl’s parents, and I know that the other one wants his friend to come over, which means I’m going to have to have a half-hour conversation with his father, whom I don’t like. But I don’t want to deal with this. I want to sit down, have a cigar, and zone out!” Yet as overwhelmed as I sometimes feel raising these kids, my wife has an even tougher go of it because she’s the caretaker-in-chief of the Harvey household. For every hour I spend out on the road working, she’s making the decisions and calling the shots for everything that goes down in our home. And so if I think caring for the kids is a daunting task, I can barely wrap my head around what it must be like for her, particularly when I’m not around.

Knowing this, however, doesn’t necessarily move me to action when it comes to dealing with the particulars of child rearing. What gets me on the case is Marjorie’s negotiating skills-her special ability to negotiate. She has nary a problem breaking it down: “Babe, if you spend a little time with the kids while I go shopping, I won’t have a problem with you going golfing tomorrow.”

Suddenly, I’m there to do whatever it is she needs, weighing in on every conversation, disciplining every kid.

It’s an exchange. I do something I don’t necessarily want to do, she gets the input and resources she needs, and I get a reward in return. She asks, I fulfill the request, we’re both happy. Here’s another example of how Marjorie works the art of the deal: I don’t like musicals. I mean, I can’t stand them. People are up on the stage yabbing about something I care nothing about and then all of a sudden they bust out into singing and dancing? Nope. This is not my idea of a good time.

Now, most of the time, Marjorie will gather up a few of her girlfriends and they’ll go enjoy a musical together and then go out for dinner and do what they do when they’re fellowshipping as friends. But on occasion, my wife will request that I attend a play or two with her, even though she knows I’d rather lie in a dentist’s chair and have root canals performed simultaneously on all thirty-two of my teeth. And I will go because Marjorie practices the art of the deal: she will coax me into a suit and into the theater and later for a sushi dinner by promising me that she’ll make it worth my while when we get back home. Let me tell you, I hear that offer and I can make it through anything. I can sit through forty songs in a five-hour play if my wife plants in my mind the image of her saying, “Taa daa!” when we get back to our bedroom later that night. I don’t hear any music, and I can’t tell you a single, solitary thing anyone up on that stage is saying; all I’m focused on is the treat Marjorie will have waiting for me back at the house.

And when she shows me-not only with the cookie but with genuine expressions of gratitude-that she’s appreciative of my efforts to enjoy her passions, I know I have equity in the bank to enjoy my own hobbies and what little free time I have. If she gives me a moment to disappear into my office to catch a television show or flip through a magazine or just sit and be quiet, I make a point to free up time for Marjorie so that she can go get her nails done or get her hair fixed or go out for drinks with her girlfriends.

In other words, we’ve used a series of conversations and exchanges to strike deals that make our marriage run more smoothly. I promise you, talking it out and agreeing to make a series of exchanges to get what you want works like a charm but only if you’re willing to have a civil conversation with your partner letting him know exactly what it is that you want. You can’t expect him to intuit what you need, to come in the door and calculate before he’s unknotted his tie that you’ve been in the house with the kids all afternoon, washed two loads of laundry, enrolled Junior in soccer and Missy in ballet, and that you could use, no, you absolutely need some me-time. Have a conversation with your man, tell him what you’re willing to give him in exchange for what you need, strike the deal, and then enjoy the fruits of your labor. The same can be said of two people who come together for more personal, social partnerships. Say, for instance, you and one of your girlfriends decide to throw a little get-together for some of your other friends. Your girlfriend may be better at cooking and organizing the appetizers; you may be the expert at pairing wines with food and mixing up specialty drinks. To have a successful party, each of you has to talk about the kind of party you want to have and whom you’re inviting, and then the two of you have to agree on what you’ll contribute in order for your little get-together to be a success. Now, your girl may not necessarily want to cook all that food by herself, particularly if she’s going to have to do it after a long, hard day’s work. And you may not want to necessarily spend the entire party standing behind the bar, mixing drinks for a bunch of your drunken friends. But you’ll both strike that deal-you’ll provide the drinks if she hooks up the food-because you know that ultimately, your work will contribute to everyone having a fantastic time.

Every time you take your kids to the store, you strike a deal: “If you’re quiet and behave while we’re in the grocery store, I’ll buy you a pack of gum when we get to the checkout.” When you’re at work, you strike deals: “If you gather up the statistics from last year’s report, I’ll plug in the numbers and do the calculations and together, we can present the new report to our manager.” When you’re on your college campus, with the goal of one day walking across that stage, you strike deals: “I’ll help you research your paper and come up with a sound thesis if you help