Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - John Gray

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus

Understanding the differences between men and women

Men and women are totally different creatures, and yes, you’re probably thinking no duh! But yet, that’s the problem with relationships. People act and expect their partners to understand and interpret the actions as if they were able to think just like them. Men prefer to execute rational, emotionless actions, while women are touchy-feely and would rather talk about your very in-depth emotions.

Men are designed to want to fix, they see a problem and they immediately go to work. Whether it’s a bad hinge or a sprained back from a long day at work, men will always take it on as a challenge to show they’re capable to protect their women. Whilst this is macho and very necessary, it barely equips the man to tend to the full spectrum of needs a woman comes with.

You see, women are designed to nurture and build, they see a plant and they immediately want to talk to it, water it, sing to it, paint its pot, etc. After a long day at work, your woman would immediately ask how it went, she listens for every detail of your reply and proceeds to hug you in an attempt to either share in your joy or help reduce the sadness you feel. This also is great, helpful too, but it isn’t exactly what a man is built to want, not quite.

Thing is, a man will see a woman’s nurturing and guidance as an indication that he is unfit to take care of her, while a woman will perceive a man’s fix it fast method as cold and apathetic. This conundrum is what has ruined the best of relationships.

What went wrong?

Simple, the couple failed to understand one key truth: men and women are from different planets — well not literally, but there is that much of a contrast between the two.

What men value is their abilities to solve a problem and, in their heads when a woman details her stressful day, they are supposed to proffer a solution ASAP. No sir, she wants you to listen and hold her as you offer words of affirmation. Women? They hold dearest to their hearts communication and nurturing and believe if something is good then it sure can be great. So, when a man has a job paying just enough to be comfortable or drives a car that just gets him from A to B, best believe she will throw in a few comments that in her head are meant to stir him to ask for a raise or get a new car. But no, she’d be wrong too, he needs support and to feel capable of handling the situation.

Men also handle just about everything differently than women; from romance to stress, if you looked closely, you’d start to wonder how one came from the other’s rib. When men are stressed, usually about unfinished work or unsolved problems, they prefer to be quiet and forget about it until the eureka moment hits them. When they finally find a fix, that’s when they’d be relaxed, but with women, they approach stress differently and prefer to talk about it as this is just how they’re designed to deal with it.

Here’s the glitch, when a man is trying to fix a problem, he becomes distant until he solves it. In this time, the woman feels neglected and alone and the man doesn’t see it, he doesn’t see much of anything but the problem during this period. When a woman is stressed because of a problem, she prefers to talk about it, this makes her feel better, lightens the load even. But to her man, she’s burdening him the task of providing fixes for her problems and if the problems aren’t fixable, he feels even more stressed because now he’s suddenly invalidated in the relationship (in his head at least), but she wants someone who’ll just listen and nothing more.

Couples need to understand that men and women are different and they must both respect their respective partners’ differences. Until they fully understand, accept and respect the differences, it’ll keep being happily ever…erm maybe later.

Effective communication in relationships

A lot of problems that lead to breakups or divorces are usually an offshoot of poor communication between partners. Now you’re wondering: but we talk…like all the time, but that doesn’t exactly cover the entire scope of communicating. Keep reading, this chapter very much will.

Earlier, we learned how men and women want different things for well… different things, so it would be normal to say that men and women are motivated differently. Men, ​for example, are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.

For men, they’ve grown up believing that they are to live for just themselves, to impress themselves and to go any further is a risk. The solitary life is perfect for them, no family looking up to them or anything, but this mentality fades away as they grow older and they now wish to share their lives with someone. But here’s where the fear kicks in; a man is terrified of giving a portion of himself since he believes he can be assessed in whole from it. He feels if that portion fails then he has, too. This is the case with love and relationships. The woman has to step in and assure him that it is okay to make mistakes and encourage him to give more and that it will be met with zero judgment.

This is the reverse for women, who feel unworthy of love and compensate by giving so much of it in relationships. The fear of rejection doesn’t even begin to match up to the fear of unworthiness and the only defense mechanism is to keep giving until it hurts, and it does, sadly. But women are tired of always giving, they want to receive too, they are scared of receiving; what if I’m not tall enough? Or pretty enough? What if my kids scare him off? These and more ravage the minds of women who have given so much and this is where the man has to reassure them that they deserve love in its fullest by giving it to them.

Communication spans farther, from the non-verbal to the conventional verbal forms. Women talk about their problems, loudly but not very lucidly — if you ask any man, he’ll say the same. But the truth is that women don’t communicate their feelings properly in words, this is because that much detail isn’t needed unless you wish to actually do something about it. Women aren’t designed to fix problems, at least not like that. But even in the scarcity of detail, if men listened better, they’d understand. Men often listen to a woman’s complaint as a call to fix it or completely misread it and respond insensitively without really grasping the statement.

For men, the task is to listen carefully, attentively and answer only if to encourage her to feel safe enough to continue, but for women,​ it’s a bit more complex. When men are stressed, they recede into a silent state, brooding until they can undo the stress. Women, during this period, are not sure how to go about it since their default move would be to talk, but how do you talk to someone who isn’t talking back? They get frustrated and chalk it up to neglect or abandonment. But in truth, the man is speaking through the silence. The trick is how to listen, for both men and women, listening is as important and speaking.

Communication is a two-way street and it can be a very busy one too, but a clear understanding of the rules will go a long way to helping you navigate it. Some of the rules are:

• Offer and accept criticism with care, love, and caution;
• Make clear statements, don’t leave anything up for translation;
• Don’t throw blame when you share your feelings and don’t immediately conclude you’re getting blamed too;
• Always remember your partner is very different from you, treat him/her accordingly;
• Be at the ready to offer words of support and encouragement;
• Practice listening to your partner and not just hearing them talk but listen until you are able to get what it is, they’re trying to say.

Men love, Women love… differently too

Men love like rubber bands, yes. When a man is in love or a relationship, he will first pull away farther and farther until, of course, the overwhelming realization that he can’t do without his partner pulls him back to her, kinda like a rubber band when you stretch it.

This action is a result of a host of things, amongst them is that a man will feel like he is losing himself, his identity in the relationship and as such will pull away to reassess his life. He may also do this if he feels overrun with emotional, physical or mental pressure from his partner too. When women want to talk about their days, and how it affects their emotions, the man will most likely pull away and will appear cold and distant. But in truth, like a r​ubber band, he will pull back to her at a different time and be ready to listen and cater to her.

Women need to understand that when a man pulls away, He pulled away to return back even closer to her. It isn’t because of a lack of love or disinterest, men do this to “soul-search” and they will, ​of course, be back and when he does, he would come back even more emotionally attuned to her needs than before. Don’t judge or blame him or pulling away, and especially don’t run after him physically, emotionally or mentally, you will only push him farther away. And you know that a rubber band that’s been stretched out can’t come back to its original form, you would have effectively ruined your relationship.

Women love quite differently, albeit similar in analogies though, like a wave. Their feelings bloom, rise, peak and then crash to peak again. Since men already feel the happiness, or lack of it, in their partner’s lives is their responsibility, they are unsure on how to handle this varying cycle. First, the woman will be in love and it would feel like paradise. This is when the wave is peaking. Then it will all of a sudden go sour and for no reason, this is when the wave crashes. And then it goes up again to continue the cycle.

Men need to understand that when she is experiencing this change in feelings, his job isn’t to blame anyone — especially not himself but to maintain a level of love that she will respond to. The author describes the crash in the wave as being in a dark well within your own consciousness, which can be very depressing. At​ that moment, she no longer feels worthy of love or feels like giving love to anyone, this is where he must step in and by loving her in that state, pull her from the well back to the peak of the wave.

Life is a cycle, a rhythm between opposite energies, all in balance, the same goes for feelings. Just because she doesn’t feel like she did yesterday, doesn’t mean she stopped loving you, it just means she needs a little help from time to time to get back to her regular self, and as her partner, you have to play your part.

Handling emotional needs, changes, ​and arguments

Men and women need to understand that they both need different kinds of love and that their needs also differ greatly. The author speaks of t​welve kinds of love and they’re shared equally between men and women, with neither having the same as the other. The same way women have needs is the same way men have needs as well.

Men, for example, at their core desire trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement. This is their love language, if you can give a man those kinds of love, he will be more open and receptive to you and be willing to give you what you desire too. Women primarily have six kinds of love too; caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation, and reassurance. If a woman isn’t getting these, then she will feel cheated and unloved in the relationship.

Couples often complain that they give too much love and get none in return because one is giving the kinds of love that they would want in return. Women offer men their own six kinds of love and men offer theirs too, both parties will end up not being satisfied and will end up getting frustrated because they fail to recognize the one important truth: Men are different from women.

You can fulfill​ your partner’s needs without changing your core needs, you only have to understand that once you give him/her the exact kinds of love they require, then and only then will they open up to the ones you’re used to giving. Oftentimes, couples refuse to recognize the differences and it will lead to arguing and eventually a breakup/divorce. But that’s not the only reason couples argue.

Arguments aren’t some disease that you can vaccinate against in a relationship but you sure can reduce, hijack and control it. Couples can argue about just about anything but the problem with arguments and why they lead to hurt and separation is in the content of the argument. Most people concur that they hate the way their partners spoke to them during a disagreement. This is because generally in an argument, there is a temporal break in romance and anger controls people to say things they shouldn’t, things they wouldn’t normally say.

To avoid arguments, couples should employ loving and respectful communication. The key constituent of an argument is in the manner in which both parties communicates, so couples should choose their words and approach an argument with love and respect and remember that the problem is the enemy and not their partner.

Conclusion

Relationships all start off the same; blissful, sweet and filled with romance only to end abruptly regardless of the couple’s good intentions. This is usually because the couple refused to recognize their differences and accept them as a way to make the relationship work, they tried to love the way they thought was right and expected the same in return. This would, in turn, lead to strain, frustration, ​and resentment, but a lot of this can be avoided and tons of relationships can be saved if both parties identified and respected their respective differences and chose to work with and not walk away from them.

If you feel the magic of your love dying after you’ve done all that was prescribed by relationship self-help books, try writing a love letter to your partner, one for every day, detailing what you loved about them that day.