Men often use gifts and chores as hidden bargains for love or sex, a pattern rooted in childhood conditioning. Real gifts come from wanting to delight your partner, not from expecting something back. When you give to get, your partner feels it, and resentment builds.
Chapters
Scott asks, can you explain, quote, gift-giving mistake that is called out in your book The Dead Bedroom Fix? A common thing amongst our anxious dudes out there is to try and earn love and affection from his wife, his partner. And one way in which they earn is by doing things with the underhanded, unspoken intent of trying to get something out of the woman. So Sure, the guy, he will up his chores and do all kinds of stuff around the house, but he's always looking over at the wife going, "Huh? What do you think of that, huh? Huh? Love me now? Give me attention now? Give me a blowjob now?" Sorry. That's how a lot of some anxious-y guys, they see it as a very transactional thing. "I did this, Mommy. Do you approve? Now do you love me?" If it sounds very infantile, there's a reason. All that came from childhood. Well, one of those things is If I give you a gift, wife, now will you like me? Let me give you that dress that you always talked about. Hmm, now you like me? Let me give you this thing, that thing. And when the relationship dissolves, sure as shit, these guys say, I can't believe she broke up with me. I can't believe she cheated on me, dumped me, whatever it may be. I gave her this closet full of shit. She didn't— she was never wanting for anything. She has, you know, the BMW in the garage, the Louis Vuittons in the closet, all this other stuff. And then everybody comes back to him with, yeah, you don't, you don't have to buy her affection, dude. That's not how this works. Well, to a lot of men, that's how that works, unfortunately. And gift giving, a gift for your partner should always come from a genuine place. I give something to my wife because I know she's gonna love it. And I know she, her eyes are gonna light up. And it makes me feel good to make her feel good. And I want to show her that I love and appreciate her. That's why I get her that special little something. I don't give her the special little something so that she will give me attention that I so badly need. I don't give— especially the sexual variety— that's weird and it's childish. And if that kind of, you know, hits below the belt for some of you guys listening to this, you got to work on that.
