Every day, I hear from women who are frustrated with their love lives. They’re smart, successful, and have so much to offer – yet they struggle to understand the men they’re with.
Why won’t he commit? Why does he need so much space? What’s really going on in his head?
I’ve been a relationship coach for over 2 decades, and I’ve heard these questions countless times.
When I first started coaching, I was surprised by how much women misunderstood about men’s emotional experiences. It wasn’t that women weren’t trying. They just didn’t have the right roadmap.
That’s why I’m writing this article. Most relationship advice is so focused on solving an immediate problem that there isn’t much great content about how to understand men.
The thing is, when you understand men better, you avoid having almost all relationship problems in the first place.
Trust me, once you see these patterns, you’ll never look at your relationships the same way again.
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1. Men and women have a different emotional experience of life.
To truly understand a man, you need to grasp that a man’s emotional experience of life is different from a woman’s.
So here’s the first major thing to understand:
A man’s life is viewed through a lens of wins and losses, victories and defeats, progress and setbacks.
His emotions are always measuring: Am I moving towards what’s most meaningful and important to me, or away from it? Am I making progress or falling behind?
Let me put it like this: If you had to choose between a life where you could only have one of these things – ultimate winning but no love, or ultimate love but no winning in any significant area – which would you pick?
Most women would choose the life of ultimate love, but most men would choose the life of ultimate winning.
That’s not to say that men don’t want love or connection in their life, but it shows you just how important this theme of winning is to them.
Emotionally speaking, it’s everything to him. It’s the primary emotional driver in his life. I call this a man’s winning drive.
To understand men, you need to understand the effect his winning drive has on him. It has two sides: either he feels like he’s winning or he feels like he’s losing. And this feeling of winning or losing doesn’t just apply to big, obvious things like getting a job promotion, passing a big exam, or winning a race. It applies to everything in his life.
When a man is in the energy of winning, he’s happy, confident, and strong. And when a man is in the energy of losing, he feels weak, ashamed, dejected, and maybe even depressed or heartbroken if it’s really bad.
When you understand this about a man, you can look at his emotions and behavior through this lens too. Most women don’t know to do this, and so his behavior makes no sense to them.
But when you know to look at his emotions, moods, and behavior through this lens, everything clicks into place.
Not only that, but you can actually hear what he’s saying in the way he means it. You can decode his “man speak,” so to speak, and that’s the key to having understanding in your relationship and understanding men in general.
MORE: Ask a Guy: How Do Men Show Their Love?

2. Men need space in the relationship sometimes.
Giving a man space is part of a healthy relationship.
When you give a man space, you allow him to have his emotional process.
When a man is frustrated with his life, he often wants to retreat and figure things out. It’s like going into his man cave.
This is a standard feature of male psychology.
Giving him space is good for your relationship. One major reason men withdraw when feeling this way is because they know they’re irritable and at their worst. They don’t want to accidentally lash out at you or others.
By taking space, they can work out their issues and re-emerge when they’re feeling better and ready to connect.
By giving him space, you’re being a great partner.
He’ll love you more for it. And that’s great.
You literally don’t have to do anything but understand that giving him space is good for the relationship.
Knowing this makes it easier to give him space because you see it’s making the relationship better and making him appreciate you more.
But to give him space, you need to be secure inside.
If you’re driven by fears and insecurities—worrying that you’re losing him or that he doesn’t care about you—it’s hard to give him space.
Your mind will drive you crazy with fears, and you’ll want to go to him for reassurance to neutralize those fears.
You need to have a happy, fulfilling life of your own that you love.
If you love your life and aren’t driven by fear, it’s very easy to give him space. Focus on creating a life you enjoy, so you can give him the space he needs without feeling anxious or insecure.
MORE: Ask a Guy: When a Guy Doesn’t Text Back

3. In order to love you, he needs to be able to respect you.
Understanding what you need in a relationship and being willing to walk away if it’s unworkable is crucial.
The problem is, many women are unwilling to lose the guy. They’re unwilling to leave.
Because they’re unwilling to lose him, they end up chasing him.
No matter what he does or how unworkable his behavior is, she keeps coming back for more. She bends over backward to bridge the gap and make it work.
She keeps saying yes to what she doesn’t want. And he continues to drift further into an unworkable direction while she stretches herself thin, trying to keep it together.
Here’s the big point: If you’re unwilling to say no (because you’re unwilling to lose him), you’ll end up accepting anything. If you say yes to what you don’t want, you block the possibility of what you do want from even appearing.
Getting what you want might not happen. But at least you’ll know for sure it wasn’t going to.
If you say yes to what you don’t want, you’re guaranteeing you won’t get what you want.
If you say no to what you don’t want, you open the possibility of getting what you want.
It all roots back to realizing if you’re unwilling to lose the guy, you’ll end up chasing him and saying yes to what you don’t want.
When you’re unwilling to walk away from an unworkable relationship, there are no stakes for his behavior.
This means he can do anything, and you’ll stick around. There’s no threat of losing you.
It doesn’t mean he wants to mistreat you, but if he does, there are no consequences.
Without stakes, he doesn’t need to put in effort to keep you.
If you’ll accept anything from him, he can’t really respect you. How could he?
By accepting anything, you’re showing that you don’t even respect yourself.
In order for him to love you, he needs to be able to respect you. And in order for him to respect you, you must have self-respect and live it, even when it’s tough to say no to what’s happening in the moment.
If you sacrifice your self-respect, you lose him anyway. Only it’s a far more painful path for you.

4. In order to get to love with a man, you must have intimacy.
Intimacy is another required ingredient for having a truly great relationship that will last forever. To have intimacy, you must have unfiltered communication within your relationship.
Everyone has to wear a mask to get by in this world.
I’m not saying that people are fake. I am saying that everyone has rough edges and parts of themselves that make sense not to put on public display in everyday life.
We all have things that we know are best kept private or at least only shared with our closest people. But if you want a deep emotional connection and intimacy in your relationship, the price is unfiltered communication.
And having unfiltered communication means that both people can communicate without having to wear a mask with each other.
Everyone under their mask has rough edges. Everyone is a little messy, a little awkward, imperfect, and maybe a bit rough at times. Having intimacy means being willing to face and receive another person’s rough edges.
And that’s really the secret to intimacy. It’s a willingness. Are you willing to receive another person’s rough edges and imperfections? Are you truly willing?
And, on your side, are you willing to lower your mask and reveal how you really feel? Are you willing to be how you truly are? Are you willing for him to see your rough edges and imperfections?
If a person is showing you their ugly side, are you able to gracefully ride that out? I’m not saying that it’s pleasant, but it’s something all of us can be good at, and it’s the price of having deep connection, honesty, and intimacy in your relationship. In my opinion, that’s a price easily worth paying.
To be clear, when I’m saying unfiltered, I’m not talking about being tactless, cruel or inconsiderate. Nor am I talking about being a doormat, accepting poor treatment.
I’m talking about “being real.”
Do you have a best friend who really knows you? Think about that relationship. You’re real with them and speak your mind. That doesn’t mean you’re cruel, inconsiderate or unpleasant with them.
You’re just real with them and they’re real with you.
Why? Because ultimately you know they’re on your side and that you’re on theirs. You can say stuff they might not agree with and you know, in the end, they’ll still accept you and love you. You speak unfiltered with them because you have that intimacy in your dynamic.
That’s what I’m talking about when I say “speaking unfiltered.” Granted, if you don’t know someone well yet, you wouldn’t divulge deep personal secrets.
But you can still have the energy of speaking unfiltered (and thus intimacy) almost immediately. It comes down to two things:
- Being willing to be real (and willing to receive their unfiltered talk).
- Them feeling that you’re on their side (and you feeling that they’re on yours).

5. Women “inspire” love in a man.
To deeply connect with a man, you need to understand what’s most meaningful and important to him. This is what’s closest to his heart. Knowing this reveals where his heart truly lies.
When I ask women, “What is most important to him? What would he consider a great life? What would he do if all his problems were solved and money wasn’t an issue?” many don’t know.
They’re worried about losing him but struggle to identify what makes his life meaningful and awesome.
This is crucial—because what’s most important to him is closest to his heart. If you don’t know what that is, you don’t know his heart.
But don’t worry. You can start learning about his heart today. If you want his commitment and devotion, you need that deep emotional connection.
Ask him about his dreams, his passions, and what he envisions for a perfect life. Show genuine interest and listen. This will help you connect with his heart and build a stronger bond.
Knowing what’s most meaningful and important to a man is crucial.
It’s not just about knowing these things, but recognizing what it looks like when he’s experiencing that “winning” feeling.
For example, if a man is a lawyer, it doesn’t necessarily mean being a lawyer is what’s most important to him.
In his heart, the most meaningful moments might be when he’s playing guitar. His perfect life might be playing guitar all day, hanging out with friends, and sharing stories.
If you only see him as a lawyer, you’ll miss what truly connects with his heart.
So, if you want to deeply connect with him, you need to understand where his heart really lies.

Be a detective about what’s most meaningful to him. You don’t want to be too formal or rigid about this. Casually ask him questions and subtly move into these conversations.
Ask him things like, “If you had all your problems solved and money was no issue, what would you like to be doing with your life? How would you like to spend your days? What would be an awesome day? What would be an awesome way to spend your life?”
Other good questions are, “Is there anything you do where you just go into flow and everything is effortless? Like you’re one with it?”
As he talks about it, you’ll get a sense of that.
You will instinctively pick up on the flavor of what he’s like when he’s in that winning state.
And then you’ll be able to detect it when it’s showing up in his behavior, in his voice or in something that’s playing out.
Once you have this understanding, you can “inspire love” in him by seeing him as the winning version of himself that he wants to be.
When you see him this way and hold that vision, never wavering, he starts to pick up on a special energy from you.
He starts to feel that you understand him in a deep way and that somehow you are able to speak to something in him that brings out his best.
When you see him as that winner, it guides and shapes the way that you talk to him in subtle but profound ways. He picks up on that, and over time, he starts to feel like you bring out the best in him.
Now where it really matters, where it’s a real game changer, is when he’s stumbling and yet even still, you see him as the winner, even when he feels like he’s failing and losing.
Your unwavering vision of him as that “ideal winning version of himself” puts him in touch with exactly the energy he wants to get back into.
And when he connects with you, he feels a profound sense of inspiration.
In essence, that is what I mean when I say inspiration. By connecting with you, he connects to the best feeling in himself, and it brings out his best.
See men don’t fall in love the same way that women do. You could say women “inspire” love in a man.
And what I described to you is exactly what that means and what it looks like, in essence. It’s what “pushes a man’s love button,” so to speak.
Now I hope what I’ve said so far has helped you understand men better. But there is something you need to be aware of:
In any relationship, there’s one pivotal moment that determines if your relationship lasts or if you end up heartbroken and alone. At some point, a man will pull away and he might start losing interest. He isn’t as responsive or as excited by you.
You’re afraid that you might be losing him. Do you know how to respond? If not, you could make things even worse and wind up fully pushing him away, so be sure to read this now: If He’s Pulling Away, Do This...
The next relationship-deciding question a man will ask himself is: Do I want to commit to this woman for the long term? The answer will determine everything.
Do you know what makes a man see a woman as girlfriend material? Do you know what inspires a man to commit? If not, you need to read this next The #1 Things Men Desire in a Woman
Hope it helps,
eric charles
Take The Quiz: Does He Really Love You?
In summary…
Here’s the 5 Things Every Woman Should Know About Men
- The Winning Drive: Men emotionally measure life through victories and setbacks—it’s not just about big wins, but whether they feel they’re progressing toward what matters most. Understand this lens, and his behavior suddenly makes sense.
- Space is Non-Negotiable: Men need retreat time (think “man cave mode”) to process frustration. Giving him space isn’t rejection—it’s letting him reset so he can show up better for the relationship.
- Respect is the Price of Admission: If you’re unwilling to walk away from unworkable behavior, you teach him there are no stakes. Self-respect isn’t selfish—it’s the foundation for his genuine love and respect.
- Intimacy = Unfiltered Realness: Remove the masks. True connection means letting him see your rough edges and gracefully receiving his—it’s easy when he feels you’re clearly on their side.
- Inspire Love by Seeing His Best Self: Connect with what lights him up—his deepest passions and purpose. Reflect back the version of him that’s his ideal vision of himself, even (especially!) when he’s struggling. That’s how you “push his love button.”
