At my job, I'm learning how to work in a new section on my department. My trainer, a married middle aged man, was telling me that he had a door that needed to be fixed at his house, but that his wife wouldn't let him do it. He had looked it up on the internet, gotten the tools to do it, and was just about to start fixing it when she walked in and told him to stop and said she just wanted to call someone to fix it. He told me that had wanted to try fixing things around the house for years, but she never let him, and so he figured he must not be good enough to do it. He tried laughing it off like it was a joke, but it obviously wasn't. The level of sadness and shame in this man's eyes and voice when he was telling me this... It was palpable.

I felt the need to tell him that he should try fixing it anyway, and surprise her with it when she gets home. Maybe that wasn't the right thing for me to do, but when I said that, he instantly lit up. I just couldn't handle seeing him so sad, and he was a lot happier the rest of the day.

We as women tend to think stuff like that doesn't matter, but it does. Men love to help us and to feel capable. Let them.