The New Eve (21 page)

A man is paying you a big compliment when he invites you to dream with him. He is saying, “I trust you with my heart.”

3. A man needs a recreational companion.
In his excellent book
His Needs, Her Needs
, Willard Harley comments that for a man, “spending recreational time with his wife is second only to sex.”
³

So what does that mean? It means that the couple that plays together
stays
together. Like the retiring medical doctor and his wife I mentioned in chapter 8 who bought Harleys together, a man feels a deeper level of intimacy and friendship with his wife when she engages him in his recreational passions. Now relax, ladies, I'm not suggesting you have to go paint-balling, cliff climbing, or stalk and shoot deer in the mountains to satisfy this need, but there are ways to connect. For starters you can educate yourself on his favorite sport. Watch it on TV. Take a class on it—they are out there. Or do what my wife did. When we first married, Sherard was about as quick to grab the sports page as I was the fashion section, which was
never.
But before long she realized how important sports were to me. The next thing I knew, she was beating me to the sports page. It was a smart move on her part. Best of all, my wife has become an avid, educated sports fan, and we're both loving every minute of it … together!

4. A man needs physical responsiveness.
A while back someone handed me a copy of a woman's magazine that had conducted a survey listing men's and women's favorite leisure activities. It reported that the number-one leisure activity for men is sex. No surprise there. No man needs a magazine survey to tell him that. But I broke out in a cold sweat when I read that the number one leisure activity for women was
reading!
Sex was buried way down the list next to sewing. Go figure.

Men are physical creatures. Extremely physical, as you know. And depending on who you are as a woman—single or married—you must approach this male need very carefully.

If you are single, you must draw physical boundaries with your man. In this sexually promiscuous world, that is hard to do. It may even seem prudish. Early Christians probably felt the same way because immorality was everywhere in the Roman Empire. Contemporary Roman commentators described adultery as a common, everyday behavior. “Pure women,” sang Ovid, “are only those who have not been asked.”
⁴

For a New Eve, the core callings of God, not the moral conditions of a particular culture at a particular time, are what shape her choices. That's why a single New Eve draws physical boundaries with a man.

I have had singles press me on how tight these boundaries should be. Some cite Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 7:1 in which he said, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” Is that the boundary for Christian singles? Not even to touch one another?

I don't think so.

Paul's words were a response to some previous questions the Corinthians had written him, asking how they should conduct themselves in their sexually free city, where the temple of Aphrodite, the love goddess, towered two thousand feet above them from a nearby mountaintop. Given the context, it's clear that Paul's statement “not to touch” a woman is not a blanket prohibition against all forms of physical contact, including hugging, holding hands, and the like. Rather, he clearly had in mind a more serious touching. He is talking about sex. He used
touch
in 1 Corinthians 7 as a euphemism for
sex
much like the word
lie
is used for it elsewhere in the Bible. The NIV Bible rightly clarifies this in a footnote: “It is not good for a man to have sexual relations with a woman.”

For a single woman who has a growing relationship with a man, certain kinds of physical contact can be appropriate. But any contact that tempts her or her man to yield to sexual
relations is absolutely inappropriate.
Always.
That is where the boundary line must be drawn. And honestly, that boundary line can rarely go beyond occasional hugs, holding hands, and some light kissing. Beyond that lies trouble. And the wise single draws those lines long before any physical contact begins with a man.

For the married New Eve, sexual restraint is not the issue. Sexual fulfillment
is.
You must meet the sexual needs of your husband. Those needs are not just physical but emotional too. After addressing singles in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul then spoke to married women and said that a wife must fulfill her (sexual) duty to her husband (v. 3).

The word
duty
may sound a bit strong here, but Paul used it to make sure a wife embraces sexual fulfillment with her husband as that important. Willard Harley wrote, “When a man chooses a wife, he promises to remain faithful to her for life. He makes this commitment because he trusts her to be as sexually interested in him as he is in her… . Unfortunately in many marriages, the man finds putting his trust in this woman has turned into one of the biggest mistakes of his life. He has agreed to limit his sexual experience to a wife who is unwilling to meet that vital need.”
⁵
Why is that? I believe it's because many wives have not seriously considered their husbands' sexual fulfillment as their duty. The Bible says it is.

What is it that sexually fulfills a husband the most? Are you ready for this? It's
your
satisfaction that satisfies him the most. When your husband knows he has performed in a way that succeeds with you and gives you pleasure, life could not be better. This is a huge emotional longing behind your husband's sexual drive.

Many wives would never guess this. They assume what a husband wants most is to please himself. Nothing could be further
from the truth! I've asked thousands of husbands what gives them the greatest sexual pleasure in their marriages. Almost universally, they tell me their deepest fulfillment is not in what they get, but in how well they pleasure their wives. It's that performance-that-counts thing again.

So sexual fulfillment for a husband is directly related to his wife's enjoyment. A husband loves it when he knows his wife really enjoys his lovemaking by the way she responds to him and compliments him. When that happens, a man feels like a
man.
A real man. It's the wise wife who makes sure her husband has no doubt about his manhood when he leaves her bedside. This is the duty a New Eve freely embraces.

Admiration and respect, support for work and dreams, recreational companionship, and physical responsiveness—these are the four top male needs every woman should master if she is to live with a man in an understanding way.

What are you looking for in a man? Every woman has her checklist. Some lists are detailed with a host of highly defined specifics; others are merely general outlines. Whatever your list looks like, here are three questions you must check off before making any serious commitment to a man.

1. What was his home life like growing up?
That script is probably the script he'll bring with him into your marriage, so the more you know about his upbringing, the better. He'll refer to it unconsciously and automatically when he makes gut reactions or responds to pressure. So quiz him about his childhood. Was it good? Difficult? Troubled? What are his most dominant childhood memories? What about his relationships with his parents and siblings? Healthy or broken? Who impacted him the most? Mom? Dad? In what ways? Are there open sores with them that
remain unhealed? What was his parents' marriage like? What did he learn from it?

You see, a man's past may be a source of great strength and blessing to your relationship. Good things early in life can go a long way toward ensuring the same later in life. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. A troubled past may foretell future trouble. The family suitcase a man brings with him may unexpectedly explode in your relationship, leaving you sorting through all kinds of hurt, confusion, strange behaviors, and unfinished business. Or he may keep all the pain there sealed up tight, leaving him mysterious, moody, angry, or demanding.

Unfortunately, you can't make him unpack that suitcase. It has to be
his
initiative,
his
commitment. But before marriage you should do a lot of probing. And if he's not interested in going there, odds are you'll be in for a rocky relationship at some point later on. But don't make it later on
as in marriage.
Know your man's past before you commit to marry him.

2. Is he a Christian?
Scripture clearly forbids a Christian woman from being unequally yoked (that is, married) to a non-Christian (2 Cor. 6:14). Those who ignore this directive and eat this forbidden fruit will eventually taste the curse of this spiritual compromise. I have had hundreds of married women say the same thing to me: “If only he were a Christian …” In their voices is a tone of painful longing.

In his book
The Clash of Civilizations
, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington predicted in 1996 that the major cause of global conflicts in the future would be religious differences. He based that conclusion on his observation that religion is the heart of every major culture. Religion, he said, is the immovable right-and-wrong viewpoint people passionately cling to and want others to embrace, even if force is sometimes required.
September 11 proved Huntington right. The greatest global tensions in our world occur when the religious belief systems of different cultures are forced to rub against one another. And what's true of cultures is true of people merged by marriage. When people of two different religions marry (even if the religion of one is secular or atheistic), trouble will soon arise along the lines where their conflicting religious views meet. It's inevitable. And just as radical Islam now seeks to terrorize the West for its beliefs, you can be sure that conflicting religious beliefs will terrorize your marriage. That's why the Bible warns you not to be unequally yoked.

3. What has his past performance been like?
Why this question? Because past performance is your best eye into your man's future performance. We use this same principle when hiring staff at our church. Barring something drastic, the past usually repeats itself. What has been will be again. It's the eye to how you hire; it's also the eye to how you marry.

So if you're single and dating, look closely at your guy's past performance with you and with other women. Has he been moral or immoral? Has he cared for you, or have you taken care of him? Has he been wild and crazy or steady and predictable? What he has been, he will be again. Can't share his heart and feelings before marriage? Don't kid yourself. That won't change after marriage. Poor work habits before marriage? Same after you're married. Bad finances? Same again. You'll be wresting the checkbook from him and trying to manage the finances before your bank account bottoms out.

Now I'm not saying he
cannot
change. I'm only saying don't count on it. A wedding ring will not morph him into some newly minted white knight. And you won't change him either. Only he can change himself. His past is your best eye into the future.

1. Never commit to a man based on what he
could
be.
Make sure he
is
what you want, or else you will spend the rest of your life trying to change him to what he should be, and you won't enjoy that any more than he will.

2. Never have sex with a man before marriage.
Sex before marriage is not an advance for women's liberation; it's a man's liberation from responsibility and a woman's downfall. When you have sex with a man before marriage, you release him from his call to a greater commitment to you. You douse his noble, masculine instincts by inflaming his baser passions. If you could see half of what I've seen in counseling, you'd see that sexual liberation is open war against the life most women really want with a man.

3. Never submit to anything immoral or illegal with a man.
Don't sign prenuptial agreements either. Marriage is an all-or-nothing deal. And at no point in marriage should you sign legal papers your husband puts in front of you that you don't fully understand. Get the facts before you sign.

4. Never stay silent about abuse.
Seek outside help if there is physical or emotional violence in your marriage or dating relationship. If you're married, remember that marriage is a community project, not a contract of silence. It might be hard to open up to others because you're afraid of what you might lose. But if you've got an abusive relationship, what you're holding on to will never get better in secret. Start by opening up to a trusted friend, family member, pastor, or counselor. Let this person give you perspective and then coach you on what to do next. If you are feeling abused, do this now!

5. Never nag.
There are better ways to address problems in your relationship such as a direct, face-to-face dialogue about
what is bothering you. If that fails, seek outside help. But don't nag. Nagging is jeerleading, not cheerleading, and it never improves a man. It only hurts him. As I mentioned earlier, one of the worst things a man can experience is looking daily into the “mirror” he loves and seeing his faults and shortcomings relentlessly being played back to him.

In my pastoral experience I've found that many unhappy marriages are actually pretty good overall. The problem is, husbands and wives tend to get locked in on each other's negatives. They lose sight of all the positive things about their significant other. As someone once told me, “You can blot out the sun with your thumb if you bring it close enough to your eye.” You can also blot out a good marriage if you focus only on the things your husband is not. For this reason Scripture encourages women not to nag (Prov. 21:9, 19).

6. Never embarrass your man in public.
Proverbs 12:4 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.” Nothing can anger a man more than being criticized by his wife or girlfriend in front of his peers. Even something as simple as rolling your eyes to mock his words or behavior before others can devastate him. The reason? It shouts, “This guy doesn't have it together.” He may not react visibly to this sort of thing in the moment, but inside he begins to harbor secret anger against you for this public shaming. And that anger will often come out later in a different time and context.