Short answer: nothing. On Tuesday night a gauge went off in Mark’s head, the same one everybody has, and on Wednesday the kids took the hit. Before you change anything, see how that gauge works.

Of everyone on earth, your wife is the one that gauge hears loudest, so her “not tonight” can ruin the next day even when she says it sweetly. It’s supposed to react. A gauge that didn’t register a no from her would be broken.

And wanting to be wanted is normal, nothing to be embarrassed about. Ask guys your age seriously, and they’ll tell you so.

Self-esteem swings hardest wherever you’ve staked your worth. If Mark honestly handed out 100 points, they’d land about like this: 60 on whether Jen wants him, 20 on work, 15 on the kids, 5 on his body, zero on friends and his own projects. So every no from Jen hits 60 of his 100 points at once.

Your turn.

After enough no’s, a lot of guys start running surveillance: how she sighed, why she picked up her phone, why she went to bed early.

From Jen’s side: every sigh means something now, and she has to account for each one.

And there are two people in this loop.

The good news: the link runs both ways. The bad news: the effects are small, so seven days won’t fix this. What helps is a habit you keep up for weeks.

The Fiden quiz already gave you a type. Pick it here, and every part of the plan will show you your version. No quiz? Go with the one that sounds like you.

The plan takes 20 to 30 minutes a day. Each week runs Monday to Sunday and comes with a tracker, an if-then plan and a rating. In the research, the effects are small to moderate, and they add up.

What the plan can’t promise is that she’ll want you more. Here’s what it can do: help you take a no more steadily, feel stronger in your body and your life, and come across more confident next to her.

From the outside it’s nothing: one cup instead of two, a grunt. But Mark is getting even. A no takes away the feeling that you have any say in things, and you want that back now. Most guys go about it the same few ways. None of them work.

See yourself in there? Most guys do. Here’s what to do instead.

You need a habit that kicks in before the resentment does: one minute, three lines you say in your head.

Use your own words if you like. Just keep the order.

If this sounds too soft, here are two studies.

When you’re braced for a no, you’ll see one everywhere: a yawn, “not now,” the way she turned back to her laptop. So come up with three theories, at least two of them not about you. Then just ask. It takes ten seconds and can save the evening.

After a no, the pull is to keep your distance. Do the opposite: within 24 hours, make one warm move toward her that asks for nothing. And get your sense of control back the honest way, with something unrelated to sex where the result is up to you.

Just don’t let the warm move turn into an opening line. Coffee with no follow-up, a hug with no “so… maybe later?” If there’s an ask hiding behind the gesture, she’ll hear it.

If you do one thing this week, make it this. Spend 15 minutes writing about one or two things that matter to you and have nothing to do with sex: the dad you’re trying to be, keeping your word, fixing and building things, making your kids crack up. Write why it matters and when it last showed.

Do it early in the week, and again before any hard conversation. It’s not a cure, and it won’t make you irresistible. It just lowers your guard.

One more habit, for the last three minutes before bed: write down three things that went okay today and your part in each. The day ends on a list of things you did.

Your body is the only lever in this plan that doesn’t need anybody’s yes. The job: two 20-minute strength sessions, brisk walking, the same wake-up time every day, and two weeks of dry weekdays. Ava’s counting is optional.

No gym required. Mornings are best, before the day gets a vote.

Simple rule: if you could chat on the phone through round three, put another bottle in the backpack.

On top of that, walk. Go a little faster than comfortable, in whatever pieces your day allows: park at the far end of the Kroger lot, walk laps during Little League, take the long way back from school drop-off. The lady with the poles figured this out years ago.

Now, what to expect. Less than the fitness ads promise.

On day one, test yourself: push-ups in a row, and your time for a brisk one-mile walk. Write both on a sticky note for the fridge. Mark wrote 13. When 13 turns into 16, that’s a win nobody can argue with. Not even Ava.

Ava, for the record, didn’t take it personally.

Sleep is the most underrated lever this week. When you’re short on sleep, the brain’s alarm gets louder and its brakes get weaker, so everything bad looks bigger than it is.

Now, the beer in front of the TV. No lecture, just a two-week experiment: no drinks Monday through Friday, and every morning you rate two things from 1 to 10, how you slept and your mood. After two weeks, compare weekday mornings with weekend ones.

If that drink is how you unwind, give the time slot a different ritual: a hot shower, a LaCroix in the driveway.

One more thing. Britain’s National Health Service lists “drinking too much alcohol” among the temporary causes of erection problems, right next to stress and tiredness. If it keeps happening, bring it up with your doctor. It’s a routine question.

When work blows up, Mark tells Jen. When his mom says something weird, he tells Jen. His buddies got lost somewhere between the mortgage and the first kid.

That’s not on Jen. She’s a good listener. But she can’t be the one who comforts you about her own no, and it isn’t her job.

Remember the gauge from Part 1? When she says no, the needle moves. That’s its job. The trouble is, it has almost nothing else to read, so one no drops it to zero.

You can add wires. Lots of people can make you feel accepted: a buddy who’s glad you called, Ava dragging you over to see her drawing, the guys at pickup basketball who actually pass you the ball.

On Sunday night, take ten minutes and pick three things for the week, one for each new wire. Put them on the calendar right away, with a day and a time, or the week will eat them.

Go one size smaller than you want to. “Clean out the garage” is a whole summer. “Hang the shelf” is one evening. And don’t wait until you feel like it. After a no, you won’t feel like doing anything, and that’s normal.

Mark picked the shelf in the kids’ room. It had been hanging by one screw since April.

Think of it like the gym, except the rep is a friend: one call or voice memo a week. The point is a real question, the kind nobody can answer with a thumbs-up. Start with one guy who used to be easy to talk to.

You don’t have to bring up the bedroom at all. The gauge just needs somebody who’s glad to hear from you. Mark did his rep on Thursday, four minutes after the garage.

Each yes buys Mark about a day. It’s like hitting the lock button on your key fob twice just to hear the car honk: you feel better for a minute, and an hour later you want to hear it again.

For Jen, it’s one more chore. She has to keep proving something she never took back and guess what’s wrong now. Her answers get shorter, and Mark hears the short answer as a reason to ask again.

Wanting to feel wanted is normal. Part 1 covered that. The trouble is the method.

A checking question is really a request: “Calm me down.” A straight statement tells her what’s going on with you and asks for nothing. It’s scarier to say, but you don’t have to say it every night.

Pick a calm moment: not in bed, not mid-fight, not after 11 p.m. And keep expectations low. “Oh. Um… me too,” and she’s back on her phone? That’s a fine answer. Nobody promised a movie scene.

When you’re not sure of yourself, praise sounds like politeness or a mistake, and the easy move is to wave it off. There’s another move, and it takes a pen.

Actions count too. She saved you the last slice of pizza? That’s a compliment without words.

You can agree on what a no sounds like ahead of time, in daylight and far from the bedroom. The deal covers both of you: you get to say “not tonight” too.

They settled on three things. Say no warmly: “I love you,” a hug. Give the real reason in a few words. And only say “how about tomorrow” if you mean it, because an empty rain check comes back to bite.

Two weeks later, Mark needed the deal himself. He had a 6 a.m. flight to Charlotte: “Babe, I’m dead on my feet. But you’re the best. Saturday?” Jen said “deal” and fell asleep first.

Don’t read her phone, and don’t cross-examine her. A day tells you what it was: a blip or something worth talking about. If it still bugs you, say so plainly, like Mark did, and start with yourself. “That bugged me” sounds like a confession. “So who’s Kyle?” sounds like an interrogation.

Don’t expect the bars to shoot up. In the research, habits like these have small effects, but those effects add up as long as you stick with them.

Now the 100 points again. Mark started out with 60 on Jen’s desire. A month in, he’s down to 35. The points he freed up went to push-ups, Saturday walks with Dave and the shelf in the kids’ room.

When a light comes on in the car, nobody waits around for it to go off on its own. Your mood has warning lights too, and in men they often don’t look anything like sadness.

One light for a couple of evenings is just life. If several stay on, book a visit with your doctor this week. It’s a checkup, same as getting your blood pressure taken.

Snapping at people and pulling away after a no can be depression, too. Left untreated, it usually doesn’t go away on its own.

One last thing to take with you. The night she says “not tonight,” it can feel like it’s never going to let up.