Transcripts

Martin Friedman :
What I think women want is, they want their man to be 100% involved and energetic and focused on the relationship and the marriage...

Martin Friedman author of the book Straight Talk For Men About Marriage.

What men view their role is, is they want the marriage to be like a refrigerator. You know, you go out and buy a refrigerator and you plug it in and you expect it to just run year after year and you forget about it.

That arrangement may have worked in the past but Martin believes for a marriage to be successful today, men have to bring a lot more to the table than that.

The real key is that we first have to decide that we want to be married and that it's valuable to us. When I talk to men about marriage, most men just feel powerless about it. They feel like they don't know about relationships so they just leave it to the women.

So specifically, what should a husband do to bring more to the marriage?

I think a place to start is to say, "What is the purpose for marriage in my life, what do I want out of this?" And that begins getting you in a position of a little more power in the situation and to say, "ya know I want to create a great marriage and here is the marriage I want to create." It's funny, very few men do that in a way that they do with their careers where they have a plan and they know where they're going. With their marriages a lot of men fall asleep at the wheel.

Tomorrow, what women need to do in marriage. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.