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that perplex or even anger us about our wife or girlfriend are
signals that they are feeling insecure about our love
or the relationship.
    For example, have you ever wondered why your wife:

    • asks, “Do you love me?” even though you’ve done nothing to indicate you’ve changed your mind about loving her? (In fact, you just told her you loved her this morning on the way out the door!)
    • takes your need for space or “cave” time as an indication that you’re upset with and trying to get away from her?
    • wants to talk, talk, talk about your relationship—especially at the times you
least
want to?
    • seems to turn critical or pushy for no reason you can figure?
    • gets crabby or “excessively emotional” and seems to push you away—but is unhappy or angry when you
stay
away?

    If you’re like me, you react to these seemingly unrelated behaviors with confusion and frustration. You become convinced you’ll never know what she wants, and could never please her if you did.
    But our research for
For Men Only
has persuaded me that every single one of those behaviors is related, and many are easy to resolve. Once you’re clued in, you’ll see those “drive you nuts” behaviors as red warning lights signaling a breach in your wife’s confidence about whether you really love her.

    You’ll see those “drive you nuts” behaviors as red warning lights signaling a breach in your wife’s confidence about whether you really love her.

    I know it sounds crazy to you that your wife might ever wonder whether you love her. But as it turns out, your “I do” actually
didn’t
bring permanent emotional closure and put her mind at rest about your feelings for her forever. For her, your “I do” doesn’t erase that insecurity about your love that lives under the surface in even the most happily married woman—an insecurity that, when triggered, becomes a deeply felt uncertainty: “Do you? Do you
still
…love me? Are we still okay?”
    Now, you might be thinking, “Surely this doesn’t apply to my wife! She
knows
I love her!” Yes, she probably does. But we’re not talking here about what she
knows logically
, but rather about the
feeling
that rises up when something has triggered it. Even otherwise secure, confident wives find that this latent “Does he really love me?” insecurity is relatively easily triggered—and it is this feeling that we need to take seriously.
    Having gotten so much input from women, I now believe that if men can get clarity on this hidden insecurity, we’ll experience a lot more understanding, peace, and pleasure at home.
    Let’s begin with looking closer at the mystery.
    Three Surprises (What “Never a Done Deal” Feels Like to Her)
    As the token embedded male for our surveys and focus groups, I was in for a number of big surprises on the subject of women’s relational, triggered insecurity.
             
    My First Surprise—How frequent these feelings are Whereas most guys coast along rarely thinking about the health of the relationship, for most women that is unthinkable.
    Seven out of every ten women said their relationship and how their man felt about them was anywhere from “occasionally” to nearly always on their minds. Fewer than 20 percent said that they wondered about it only when things were difficult. Just 12 percent never thought about it.

    Under what circumstances do you think about your relationship, whether it is going well, or how your husband/significant other feels about you? [Choose One Answer]

    I’m guessing that for most guys, “occasional” thoughts about the closeness of our relationship might boil down to birthdays, anniversaries, and when something goes drastically, obviously haywire. But when we asked women what they meant by “occasional” concern about how their man felt about them, I often heard that it meant several times a week, or
whenever it was triggered
(such as by what we might consider a relatively minor spat).
    We