“A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.”—Actress Lana Turner

Woman and men want relationships for different reasons. Women want security–and not necessarily financial security, especially these days. More often, they want emotional security. A woman needs to know her man is thinking of her, that he remembers the little things she likes and dislikes. And acts on them. Above all, she wants her man to show he is paying attention to her and her alone, not just paying. A woman hates to compete for her man’s attention with a television, a cell phone, or an iPad. Turn those off and turn her on.

But keep in mind: Women are constantly rating you. Past deeds don’t count. It’s what you’ve done for her lately that counts.

Men want to feel admired. They want their passions, talents and knowledge to be appreciated by their women. They like it when a woman asks them for advice. And men want their physical needs tended to. They want plenty of sex. And just like women, men like to be chased.

As I have said, men and women are wired differently. For one thing, with women sex starts at the brain and works its way down–slowly. For men, sex starts at the penis (often triggered by visual stimuli) and makes its way up to the brain—rapidly, although sometimes it gets stuck en route. And unlike women, men generally don’t like to spend a lot of time talking about relationships.

Also, until recently at least, girls were conditioned from an early age to be attentive and accommodating (this could be as much nature as nurture). That’s why women seem attuned to the needs of others, as if by instinct.

Not so with men. Men generally don’t knock their heads against their beer cans trying to figure out what other people want or need. And they hate the guessing games and demands that they be mind readers. They need to be told. Specifically. And it’s not because men are selfish or dim-witted. It’s because they’re wired to respond to what’s literal and direct. Once women accept that men are wired differently and stop trying to change their men into women with facial stubble, they can make progress.

Still, with these hard-wired differences in mind, if men want better relationships with women, they have to think more strategically about what they say and do. Men often get into trouble because they misread the signals that women send after certain fights, the serious kind that send her to the corner of the room in tears. After a long talk and perhaps some make-up sex, a man thinks everything is fine. He thinks the issue is resolved. She knows it’s not.

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