Steve Harvey: Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man

This is all to say that sometimes you have to get a man’s attention to make him recognize your worth. Maybe going about it the way my friend’s wife did is a bit extreme, but there are ways to help him attach value to what you bring to the relationship. One of the easiest ways to make that happen is to write down your “to-do” list with checks next to all the things you’ve done during the course of the day, and then leave it somewhere where he can see it-on the kitchen table, in the bathroom next to his toothbrush, on his nightstand, next to the remote. This will be a nice subtle way of reminding him to respect your game.

If that doesn’t get his attention, invite him to a sit-down and politely remind him of your value. Ask him if he saw your list, and if he thinks you’re doing a good job. If he’s not a fool, he will wake up and say, “Wow, yeah, what you do around the house is priceless.” Tell him, “You know, I just want to thank you for what you do for this family; we make a fantastic team, right?” I assure you that he will turn around and thank you for a job well done too.

Sometimes you just have to get a man’s attention-pull his coattails a little. We don’t mean any harm, I promise you.

Iknow plenty of you are reading this with your finger in the back of your throat, trying to make yourselves gag over what I’m telling women they need to do to make a man comfortable in a challenging financial relationship. But I feel the need to remind you: you have a certain set of skills that we do not possess, and you only serve yourself and your relationship with men better when you call on those skills and put them to use. Use your nurturing and communications skills-if you can use that skill set to get what you need and want out of others, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t put them to use with the person you love most, your mate. With good planning and a bit of luck, he’ll eventually be back up on his feet and out of the fog-ego in check and grateful you hung in there and helped him through the storm. The two of you will be stronger and better for it.

How to Get What You Want Out of a Man

My mother and father were married for sixty-four years.

There is a simple explanation for the longevity of their marriage.

My dad, Slick Harvey, recognized that he was not in charge and acted accordingly. This kept a smile on my mother’s face, my father reasonably happy, and the marriage intact. Dad instinctively knew that in order to do what he wanted to do, he’d have to give my mother room to do what she wanted to do, say what she wanted to say, go where she wanted to go, and be who she wanted to be. He did this by practicing, subtly and masterfully, the art of negotiation-the art of the deal.

Take the time my mom announced she wanted to go pick up groceries at Southland Shopping Center, the new outlet of stores across town. She’d read about the opening in the paper and had just finished studying the grocery store circular when she decided she just had to have a carton of the Eagle brand eggs they were selling for thirty-nine cents per dozen at that particular chain. She didn’t have to say it but one time, and my father was pulling on his shoes, coat, and hat and grabbing his keys. Her faithful chauffeur, he would drive her to church on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, as well as take her to the hairdresser when she needed to get her hair done and downtown when she saw a dress she wanted to buy or needed to get us kids some clothes for school. And now, my mother was adding the Southland Shopping Center to her list of shopping haunts.

What my brother and I didn’t understand, at the tender ages of nineteen and eight, respectively, was why in the world my father wasn’t asking what seemed the most obvious of questions: Why would anybody want to drive all the way across town to buy a dozen eggs at thirty-nine cents a dozen when the grocery store right up the street was selling the same carton of Eagle brand eggs for only twenty cents more? It just didn’t make sense to us, though it was my brother who made the very foolish mistake of expressing his thoughts on the subject.

“I want to go to Southland because they have the eggs I want,” my mother responded.

“But that’s a good fifteen minutes out of the way, and you can get eggs for a reasonable price right down the street,” he argued, with me behind him, nodding my head in agreement.

“I don’t want those eggs down the street-I want the eggs over there at Southland,” she insisted, pulling on her coat and walking toward the door. She was ready to go, and clearly was in no mood for arguing.

Now huffing in disbelief, he looked at my father and kept applying the pressure. “Wait, so let me get this straight: you’re going to burn up all that gas running her across town? And spend two hours messing around in that store when you can get the same food down the street for a little bit more money? What kind of sense does that make?”

Finally, my father cut him off. “You through?” he asked, slowly.

My brother quickly shut his mouth and opened his ears.

“I could run her down to the store and let her get the fifty-nine-cent eggs, but that ain’t what your mama wants. She wants to go over there to Southland, and so I’m going to take her to Southland. And if you don’t shut the hell up, you’re going to take her instead of me.”

My father waited for my mother to get herself out the door and settled in the car before he continued. “You don’t know nothing about women,” he said, the bass in his voice taking over. “This isn’t about logic, boy. It’s what your mama wants. What will it hurt me to give her what she wants? I’m trying to go down there to the gas station and play pinochle, so if I want to do that, I’m going to run your mother around all day today, take her everywhere she wants to go so I can go where I want to go tonight.”

The art of the deal.

On that very day, I learned one of the most important lessons my father could have ever taught me: happy wife, happy life. We men have been conditioned to conduct ourselves as if we run things, but the smart man knows it’s really the woman of the house who sets the tone of the relationship and what goes on in the home. Sure, we know that most women don’t have a problem bragging to their friends, “This is my man, he’s the head of the household.” Most of you will even take our last name and defer to us on some decisions. The idea is that if you do these things, on balance, you’ll get most of what your heart desires. A woman will give a man an honorific as long as he puts her on a pedestal and gives her what she wants. No woman is going to sign up to call a man the head of the household if he’s not acting like one-which encompasses making her feel honored, protected, and respected-and giving her, as I like to say, most of what she needs and a lot of what she wants. But guess what? The same is true for men-if anything, even more so.

We understand, respect, and live by the art of the deal. Everything for us is an exchange; I’ll give you something if you give me something back. We’ve been cutting deals since we were little boys. “I like that black marble with the orange eye in it,” a friend would say. “I’ll trade you this green marble with the yellow spots, plus throw in a Hank Aaron baseball card if you give it to me, deal?” Go into any lunchroom in any school, USA, and you’ll hear all kinds of deals being struck: “You got Pringles? Say man, I’ll give you two dollars and a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup for those Pringles.” The same thing is happening on the playground after school: “I bet you I can shoot twenty baskets faster than you. I’ll even spot you five points. If I win, you have to give me two packs of Hubba Bubba when I see you tomorrow. Ready?”