Open letter to Christian women

Dear Christian woman, If you've ever been to a seminar or read a book to learn what Christian men want in a woman, you've probably heard that women seek romance and intimacy and men seek respect.

On behalf of the man in your life, I would like to tell you how important respect is to us.

From the comedies about The Honeymooners in the 50s to The King of Queens today, we men have been depicted as buffoons. This may make TV shows fun, but in real life it hurts. We can do silly or immature things, but we are not clowns, and although we cannot show our feelings very often, we have true feelings.

What Christian Men Want in a Woman: Respect from you means everything to us. We are struggling. We are trying to meet your high expectations for us, but it is not easy. When you compare us to your friends' husbands or boyfriends to highlight our shortcomings, it makes us feel unappreciated. We can't be someone else. We are only trying, with God's help, to live up to our own potential.

We don't always get the respect we deserve in our work. When the boss wants too much from us, he treats us with disrespect. Sometimes it's not obvious, but we still get the message. We men identify so strongly with our work that a difficult day can make us feel angry.

When we try to explain it to you, don't minimize it by telling us that we take it too personally. One of the reasons we don't share our feelings with you very often is that when we do that, you may laugh at us or tell us that we are foolish. We don't treat you this way when you're angry. How about showing the Golden Rule towards us?

You want us to trust you, yet you tell us something that your friend told you about her husband. He shouldn't have told you in the first place. When you reunite with your friends or sisters, don't betray our trust. When other women make fun of the eccentricities of husbands or male friends, please don't join us. We want you to be loyal to us. We want you to build us. We want you to respect us.

We know that women mature faster than men and we are jealous of them. When we act immature - and we do it often enough - please don't scold us and please don't laugh at us. Nothing damages a man's self-confidence more quickly than laughter. If you treat us with kindness and understanding, we will learn from your example.

We are doing the best we can. When we men confront Jesus and see how close we are, he makes us feel very discouraged. We would like to be more patient, generous and compassionate, but we have not yet reached it and our progress seems painfully slow.

For some of us, we can't even live up to our father. Maybe we can't even live up to your father, but we don't need you to remember it. Trust me, we are all too aware of our flaws.

We want a loving and fulfilling relationship like you, but often we don't know how to deal with it. We also know that men don't
they are as sensitive as women, so if you could guide us gently, it will help.

Many times we are unsure of what you want. Our culture tells us that men should be rich and successful, but for many of us, life has not worked out this way and there are many days when we feel like a failure. We need your loving reassurance that those things are not your priorities. We need you to tell us that it is our heart that you want more, not a house full of material things.

More than anything else, we want you to be our best friend. We need to know that when we tell you something private, you won't repeat it. We need you to sense our moods and forgive us. We need you to laugh with us and really enjoy our time together.

If there is one thing we have learned from Jesus, it is that mutual kindness is crucial for a good relationship. We want you to be proud of us. We desperately want you to admire us and look at us. We are striving to be the man you want us to be.

Here's what respect means to us. Can you give us this? If you can, we will love you more than you ever imagined.

signed,

The man in your life.

by Paolo Tescione