Originally Posted by
LittleFox
I have a rather uncommon question to you.
What is important that a woman appreciates in you?
How you like to be seen? What impression you like to leave? Do you like compliments about your look as well?
I had thinking about this recently and even more confusing it was when my boyfriend told me that he would like to feel more wanted from me and that I would make him feel more attractive in my eyes. It was confusing because I appreciate other things such as willpower and emotional stability, which I think are the most important qualities.
Do you believe yourself to be generally cold and/or emotionally unavailable? Why do you suppose he doesn't feel as wanted by you as he would like to be?
Don't get too caught up in your own values and what you appreciate in another person when trying to understand other people. Dale Carnegie had a great analogy on this "I may love strawberries and cream but I certainly wouldn't put it on a hook in order to catch a fish". You can't think in terms of what's important to you if you are trying to understand someone else.
If you want him to feel more appreciated by you then you need to express your appreciation for him in a way that he will understand. Is he naturally a touchy feely type? If so then maybe he needs more physical contact from you be it of the casual sort, of the playful sort, of the affectionate sort, of the intimate/sexual sort, or better yet all of the above. Does he dislike being alone? Then maybe he would feel more appreciated by you if you made more time to spend with him. Is he particularly sensitive to your tone of voice - as in he becomes elated when you compliment him and takes it particularly hard or becomes cold when you're not quite so flattering with him? Then maybe he needs verbal reinforcement to feel appreciated - being told that you love him, being paid compliments, being verbally encouraged, etc.
A lot of people fall into the trap of always expressing their love or appreciation one way while their spouse/bf/gf/whatever would understand it better another way, then they are confused when hit with "I don't feel like you appreciate me as much as I want to be appreciated". That's because the communication is broken somewhere along the way.
Hope this was helpful. Asking for advice on this is a good sign. A lot of people when hit with any such implication that they don't feel appreciated enough by you would simply blow off their concerns or at best try to solve the issue but without going through the trouble of finding a way to effectively communicate. In your case, your bf expressed a concern to you and here you are trying to find the best way to improve the dynamic of your relationship based specifically on the feedback he gave you. If everyone handled their relationships like that it would solve a lot of problems in the world so I give you a lot of respect for that.
Edit: I will also second Wakeup's recommendation on The 5 Love Languages, it's basically an entire book's worth of what I've been explaining to you in this post and will provide you with far more in depth information than anything any of us could post here. To this day it stands alone as the only not-full-of-shit relationship book I've read.
Last edited by dickriculous; 02-02-14 at 12:23 PM.
They see indoctrination and they call it "morality", "professionalism", or "maturity" depending on the context.