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What Women Want Men to Know
by Barbara De Angelis
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Hyperion (2002-08)
ISBN: 0786889942
EAN: 9780786889945
Dewey Decimal #: 613
Binding/Media: Mass Market Paperback - 496 pages
SKU: P0041-BDA-R
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: First MM Edition, 2001. 1st printing. Clean copy with some edgewear & rubbing.
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Customer Reviews
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5 Star Rating from my boyfriend.. Smile...
Rating  (5)
Date: 2009-06-24
My boyfriend and I are in our 40's... we were v close to a breakup... I had come to see that he could talk the talk, but was progressively dropping the ball on walking the walk. Long story.. but, he did not want to break up. He decided to get into counseling (on his own) and his counselor agreed that reading books on relationships would be a healthy choice. We hit the library and walked out with a tall stack of books for men, women and couples. The funny thing about this book is that he picked it out, just as we decided to leave the library... I was thinking "OMG.. we don't need any more books!!!"
We began reading together.. in bed... over the phone.. whenever a great passage would come up. He was really taken w this book. So, I began thumbing thru it and I just didn't identify with a lot of the descriptions and situations. I suppose I just feel like I'm different from many women because I was raised with brothers only-- and I also didn't think that my boyfriend would get much out of this book. However, we recently purchased it from Amazon (still waiting for it to arrive) after he finished it. He said he wanted to be able to reference it and refresh his memory from time to time. He said the "3 things that women need" really helped him to understand how important it is for women to feel safe. I had to agree w that. I ALWAYS want to feel safe... whether it is where I live... where I park my car or within my relationship. So-- I thought-- score one point for Beverly. The next thing he talked about was filling the "love bank" and now he's always talking about how important it is to keep "my" love bank filled... (it feels so silly saying this)... The Caveman references made me bristle-- I just didn't like it or relate... but, he said it spoke to him... helped him to understand a woman's cellular need to feel "safe"!
The bottom line is this.. when he read the negative reviews from men, he started shaking his head. He said that he prob would have felt the same way, if he would not have approached the book with an open heart and a desire to "make right" our relationship. He said the book taught him some things he never understood about women. This I know... he has been a better partner to me... I credit the reading he's been doing. He is currently reading the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Gottman-- he bought it-- even though he felt it was geared more for "married" couples/ I just started the Five Love Languages by Chapman.. it captures your attention from the get go!
One last thought... my co-workers watched my boyfriend reading it when he would come see me for my lunch breaks... they've all noted a change in him. One co-worker asked me for the name of the book. I'd say that speaks for itself.
Men... I know it is sometimes tough to read a book that is focused on what YOU should do, (I feel the same way.. smiles) instead of what "she" needs to do... but, if you have a good woman (or want a good relationship), it is worth trying to focus on what you, personally, have power over... and that is always and only ourselves. Perhaps, your partner will respond in kind... and do what I'm doing.. reading book alongside my partner. He has inspired me to do so. Maybe there isn't a book out there that can transform "your" life... but, it is sometimes the small things that do, indeed, have power... even one passage, or one chapter may give you some wisdom that can help to alter your life.
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Doesn't explain anything...
Rating  (1)
Date: 2009-06-18
1 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
In a patronizing tone, the author explains to us men (the book really feels like it was targeted to women) that women engage in annoying, childish, foolish behaviors because of LOVE. That's the explanation.
We men will never understand it because
"men are not as motivated by love as women are," according to the author. Men are focused on hobbies, careers, and mechanical things, more than love.
I can see why any woman needing a ego lift would love this book and rate it 5 stars.
The other problem with this book is it assumes men can't communicate as well as women, when the reverse is true. Most women hint around at what they want from a man, indirectly, thinking, "If he really loved me, he would know that this is so important to me without my telling him," nonsense.
A woman complains that a man is a poor communicator when she finds out that he can't read her mind.
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This book is both good and bad
Rating  (4)
Date: 2009-01-02
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is good with respect to learning a lot of useful information about the psychology of women, but it is also bad because it implies that 99% of the crazy, awful things women do is right and that men should just indulge every stupid thing they want so that they won't act even crazier. Does that mean that if someone wants to eat ice cream and play video games all day every day and be lazy, that they should be indulged in doing this? Hell no! Some impulses are bad and should be kept under control so that you can have a better life and not make trouble for other people either. I have personally gotten control over my own bad impulses and past problems with hard work on improving myself. So women should spend more time working on STOPPING doing crazy, messed up things rather than inflicting men with their abusive, neurotic, selfish, controlling, needy behavior.
There are many self-centered women who only see their own point of view and refuse to recognize other people's rights and points of view, and the author is one of these awful women. She thinks she did nothing wrong in planning an entire vacation trip without consulting her boyfriend whatsoever and she was shocked when he got mad about it. Men have just as much right as women to choose what they want to do on a vacation and also to make choices and exercise their preferences in every other part of their life. Many women are jerks for wanting to ignore and deny the rights of men to do what they want to do. And many men are stupid for putting up with it!!! They need to learn how to improve their skills at getting new girlfriends and to dismiss the ones that are too troublesome. There are lots of fish in the sea and if you catch one that is high maintenance, throw it back and catch some more. And I think men should quit marrying women because it gives women far too much power to abuse a man's rights and to make him miserable. Men have nothing to gain from marriage and a tremendous amount to lose.
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I wish I had had this book as a teenager
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-07-29
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book helped me understand why I lost my last girlfriend, and I wish someone had given it to me when I was a teenager. That would have made my life a lot easier! I now understand a lot of things that was a mystery to me just a few weeks ago. It is well written and some parts are quite funny. I didn't have to use my dictionary once - even though English is not my native language. The book is not based on science, but the author's analysis fits my own experiences very well. One important topic is missing in this book, and that is female perspective on dating/seduction, but I guess there are other books about that. I would recommend this book.
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This book is troubling to me. A better/balanced book is
Rating (1)
Date: 2008-07-15
5 out of 13 customers found this reveiw helpful
From the book:
"Women are always interested in making things [relationship] better". (better for HER!)
"When a woman suggests a way to change or improve things in your relationship, she's not complaining or criticizing you - she's expressing her commitment to make the relationship the best it can be."
"Wanting to make things better is not the same as never being satisfied with anything. If you ask your employee to redo a report, it doesn't mean you are never satisfied with anyone's work, does it?"
Men have a natural fear and resistance to "control". The reaction is either "fight" or "flight". Men have an honour code not to fight women, so what is left is "flight", so the man will leave the room, leave the house, or leave the relationship. This triggers in the woman a natural fear and resistance to "abandonment". The reaction is usually more "control" in order to "make the relationship better". In the process of a woman "making the relationship better" she is stomping all over her man, making his life WORSE - and consequently makes the RELATIONSHIP worse, not better.
Statements like these are troubling to me because they exaggerate the point to such an extent that of course we would have to agree with the author. Her use of "NEVER being satisfied with ANYTHING" or "NEVER satisfied with ANYONE'S work". It's disingenuous and a deliberate attempt to let women off the hook by using NEVER, ANYTHING, ANYONE'S, etc. For a relationship author to use these words is just plain silly. Never say NEVER. If you ask your employee to redo a report, and then when he does, ask him to redo his cubicle, and then he does, and then ask him to redo his drawers, and then he does, and then ask him to redo his computer, and then he does, and then ask him to redo his report again because it wasn't perfect, and then he does and then ask him to redo his cubicle because it wasn't facing the right way, and then he does, and then ask him to redo his... bla bla bla... then is that considered controlling? Ok, well... that's what wives do. They are never satisfied with a redo, or a re-redo, or a re-re-redo etc.... it goes on for ever.
If you read the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were given paradise in the Garden of Eden. They had everything. It's interesting that the serpent chose Eve to deceive, not Adam. Eve had paradise, but she wanted MORE. It was her insatiability that put her over the edge. After eating, she found that it was "good" so she tried to improve her husband by offering it to him. Ultimately Adam was condemned because he "listened to his wife and ate". Interesting... part of what God faulted Adam for was "listening to his wife". The point of the story is: Eve had paradise, but she was not satisfied, and Adam heeded her suggestion for making them happier, even when it went against God's law.
Word to the wives: Be careful that you don't become an Eve.
Word to the husbands: Be careful of your wife's suggestions/corrections/guidance if it isn't of God.
For a balanced and even approach to this topic I would recommend.
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