Get your minds out of the gutter! Lol. This is like the question of the century though. Men don’t seem to understand women and even women don’t seem to understand women. What is a man to do to understand how to satisfy a woman on the long haul. What I’m about to tell you is probably going to add a spark to your relationship… You can thank me later.It hit me when I was in Mexico years ago while I was on some personal business... Merida, Mexico to be exact.  Beautiful little town, great people and fantastic original local cuisine. In Merida, one of the best places for local cuisine was said to be the Chaya Maya restaurant and so off I went.

I enter and I’m greeted with the sound of chicken sizzling on the fajita grill and tacos being made. Maduro (Spanish for sweet plantain /dodo) was in abundance and I’m ready to chow down. As I sat alone at my table, I couldn’t help but notice a couple in the room. The woman looked so in love. She loved his embrace and she barely allowed any space between them. It looked like I was in a Spanish soap opera. They were kissing like it was going out of style and spitting out sweet nothings in Spanish as the sizzling chicken, steak and onions added the soundtrack from the nearby open kitchen.

I’m sure they have sex like wild animals but ask any woman who has had her fair share of it and she’ll probably tell you it’s not the answer to satisfaction in a relationship.

The environment was prime for the question to pop into my mind: How will he sustain her love over time? How will he truly satisfy this woman?

My fajitas came on the skillet. Black beans on the side right next to the rice. The smell was so good I instantly produced almost as much saliva as I did when I went to my favorite buka (hole in the wall restaurant) in Abuja, Nigeria. The question remained. How will this man sustain the love of this woman? Then two things hit me.

First: No man can satisfy a woman simply by what HEDOESFORHER. He fulfills her by allowing, motivating, and supporting her to be everything that SHE has the potential and capacity to be. In other words, he fulfills her when (because she is with him) SHEDOESFORHERSELF.

That may mean he sometimes has to support and push her…to the point where she begins to wonder why he believes in her even more than she believes in herself….to the point where he pushes her out of her comfort zones and “limits”.

See, that’s ok because when she begins to succeed, when she begins to positively impact and affect the lives of others and pursue her passions, she then truly begins to grow from having satisfaction in her “relationship”, to the realm of getting satisfaction out of “LIFE”. At that point, her man stops being the sole source of her satisfaction. Some of the pressure is off him to define her sense of self. The pressure is off him when he has a bad day and he isn’t the knight in shining armor for a day or two -hopefully not for much longer :o). When that happens, she has enough butterflies out of LIFE to patiently “carry” the relationship for a little while when he is not physically or emotionally available, or when she is looking for sources of affirmation…until he gets his groove back.

The problem we men have, is that we are afraid to build up and invest in our ladies. Society has trained us that part of what defines us as men… is our ability to do better than our wives so we can “provide” for them.  The problem is that society is failing to teach us that the definition of “provision “has changed. Let’s use Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a basis. He tells us that our needs as humans start at the bottom with our physiological needs.

Let’s use Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a basis. He tells us that our needs as humans start at the bottom with our physiological needs of food, water, shelter etc; moving up to belongingness and the need for intimate relationships; to self-esteem and the need to feel accomplished; and finally to self-actualization and the desire to achieve one’s full potential.

So as it relates to our women, it’s no longer a matter of being able to satisfy her physiological basic needs of food shelter, clothing and so on. Oh no. Many women today can provide that for themselves better than we men could. The focus is now her self-actualization needs. Needs that revolve around the fulfillment of her potential, passions, sense of legacy, and etc. That’s not to say that the physiological and safety needs are no longer important…it’s that they are really a means to the destination of her sense of fulfillment as a person.

Secondly:It’s not the big things that we do “once in a while” that keep a relationship going. It’s the little things that we do “ALL the time” that do.

Valentine’s day. The Anniversaries. Birthdays. Graduation. Achievement Celebration.  The list goes on and on for the events we scramble to make memorable to prove our love. We spend our last dime on big gifts, teddy bears, jewelry, perfumes, dresses, fancy dinners and all that stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but that stuff doesn’t sustain woman’s love. It’s not the big things that we do sometimes…once in a while that matter, but it’s those little (seemingly little) things we do a lot of, that sustain relationships. That weekly foot rub, the notes by the bed, the random call in the middle of the day to check up on her, reading her mind before she says a word, knowing ALL her sizes and randomly buying that dress, shoe or lingerie, showing up unannounced at work with a handmade gift, that side of her face you like to kiss whenever you say goodbye, finding a song she would like and sending it to her as a dedication… It’s the little things that you do a lot of that keeps her heart in your hands for a long time.So there you have it. Yes, it can take a lot to satisfy a woman....but start here and you will be irreplaceable. You will be in a league of your own and perhaps most importantly, you will build a storage of credits for yourself that can carry you through the times when you are not all that great.

Do these things and she won’t be able to get you out of her mind. She will be like the “homing pigeon” that finds its way home from long distances back to its own nest and its own mate. Do these things and she will always return home to you no matter how far or how high she flies or how much she achieves. You can thank me later. So what do you think?