Tag Archives: differences between men and women

Women Need to FEEL ADORED! (tips for Men for Valentine’s Day +)

How to win with women
The dreaded day is here again. You’ve tried to make her happy all year, and you know that if you don’t get it right, she’ll be upset.

It’s infuriating, that you spend 364 days doing great things, and friggin’ Valentines Day, a made up holiday, is what you will be judged by!

The first problem is that there’s nothing in a woman’s nature to get her to be clear about what she needs until she’s upset without it.

The second problem is that she thinks you’re supposed to “know” what she wants because she’s hinted about it. She thinks you’re a mind-reader.

(This goes with Valentine’s Day and every other day of the year!)

So here’s what to do:

  1. If she hasn’t been clear about what would make her the happiest for Valentines’ Day, ask her. “Honey, what would make you the happiest for Valentine’s day?”
  2. If she answers, “surprise me.” Don’t fall for it! Say, “As much as I’d like to read your mind, I still haven’t figured out how, so would you think of 3 places you’d like to go, and/or 3 gifts you would enjoy and where to buy them, (photos help) and let me choose.”
  3. You can tell her your budget, be realistic, but not stingy. Remember this is supposed to feel good to both of you. If it breaks the bank and you feel resentful, that won’t work.
  4. Go with what she tells you she wants. It’s okay to embellish it. The more thought you put into it, the more she’ll appreciate it.
  5. It will go a long way, if you make a point to compliment her before you go out. Women need validation from their partner when they take the time to dress up for them. Of course, this is good every time you go out. 🙂 The result will be a happier woman and more fun because she’ll be more relaxed with you.
I know it’s a hurdle, but when done right, you’ll both feel GREAT and enjoy the time together.
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

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Maybe No One is Misbehaving

Have you ever thought your partner was wrong for being the way they are and then gotten angry because they won’t take your advice and they can’t be who you want them to be?

Maybe no one is misbehaving

I was working with a couple recently, and they weren’t seeing eye to eye about work. Elaine is working on a huge time consuming project that she loves, is taking care of her aging mother, and works as a life coach.

She spends a lot of time doing all kinds of things that she loves while her sweetheart has a job that he doesn’t particularly like.

Sam looks at her and sees her doing multiple things and wants to take care of her and help her to focus on one thing. So, he was saying things like, “Stop doing that,” or “Just focus on your project.”

But to her, just focusing on her project would be like death. She cares for her mother, she loves her coaching AND she loves the project she’s working on.

Elaine looks at Sam and sees him in a job that he hates. She hears him express his unhappiness about what he’s doing. She cares about him so she gives him the advice to do something that he loves, because that’s what she, as a woman, would put her attention on.

It’s all about life enhancement for women. So she encourages him to do something that will enhance his life. However, her input gets brushed aside because what he’s doing provides for himself and his son. He can’t see himself leaving his job until his 15 year old son is grown.

On the surface, it looked like they’re helping each other. But because they didn’t understand how the other one operated in the world, they were unintentionally hurting each other.

If this type of conversation gets a foothold in your relationship, it can mean breakup or years of frustration.

When we worked together, Sam began to understand that his sweetheart loved what she was doing, and the best way to support her was to make sure she was getting some quality down time to nurture herself so she could do what she loved.

Elaine got that the best way to support him was to plant seeds for him that would help him leave his job and move onto something more fulfilling when his son was 18.

Understanding how your partner operates in the world not only averts relationship disaster, it creates the foundation for a life of relationship bliss.

If you want to learn more about the instinctual differences between men and women and how to avoid letting them run your relationship amok, schedule a 30-minute appointment with me to discuss your unique situation and goals and what you can start doing right away to achieve them.

Click here to schedule now.

I’m here for you. I’m on your side. 🙂

To Love!

Schedule 30 Minutes Now

Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

How Instinct Breeds Conflict

Did you know that most of our life is run on our default instinctual responses to the world? We like to think that we’ve evolved beyond our instincts, that were not like other animals, but that’s just not true.

Masculine Single Focus

When we respond to our world without thinking about what we’re doing, it’s either an ingrained response, or instinct running the show. What this means for your relationship is that quite often, in fact most of the time, we are operating from our instinctual mode.

And the instinctual mode of males and females of any species are different. Did you ever watch Wild Kingdom? Our instinct is hard-wired into us. And whether we want to believe it or not, our hard-wiring plays a role.

When my husband is watching football, which he loves, or doing any project for that matter, he’s in single-focused mode. A man in single-focus mode will not always respond with kindness if you interrupt him. And that’s putting it mildly. So what do you do if you want to connect with your partner? You have a quick question, or something really important to you? You either interrupt, and end up in a fight, or you ignore him because you feel like he doesn’t respect or care about you, and your feelings are hurt.

And then when the game’s over, or he is finished with whatever he was doing, he comes over to talk to you and you’re crabby. You give him the cold shoulder, because of “the fact” that he’s ignored you. You wonder why he could think that he could just come over as if nothing had happened. You might even tell him your feelings are hurt, but then he sulks and backs away. The beginning of another disconnected evening.

Did you know that about 80 to 90% of relationship problems can be solved by understanding the instinctual differences between men and women? Men and women are so different that we be better off if we actually spoke different languages, because then we wouldn’t think we were communicating. The way we operate in the world is different.

This applies to how we raise our children, what makes us feel safe, how often we have sex, and how we spend our money. Really, there are more ways that we’re out of sync, than in sync.

For me, knowing this, helps me from getting upset when Art’s in single-focus mode. It allows me to choose my response, because I know that he is not ignoring me. So while I may have a momentary upset, I can regroup, and choose what I want to focus on, which is his single-focused attention on me, when he’s done with the game.

That’s why understanding instinctual differences helps you navigate them, so that you can consciously rise above and co-create the relationship that you truly want.

This week, ask yourself when you’re upset with your partner’s behavior, “could this be instinct?” Instead of getting upset, choose to be curious. Allow your partner the space to be single-focused and watch what happens next!

To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist
If you want to learn more about the instinctual differences between men and women and how to avoid letting them run your relationship amok, I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo who are committed to creating Conscious Partnership.
Click Here to Learn More and Signup!

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When it’s not a Commitment Issue

Commitment might not be the problemIf you’ve ever ended a relationship thinking men are flakes – or that you just can’t please her no matter what you try – I’ve got some great news for you:

It’s not what you think! Believe it or not, men truly yearn to commit, and women love to be happy!

We think words like Commitment mean the same to everyone. Not only is that not true, not understanding how commitment works for the masculine and feminine modes, creates huge problems in relationships.

Remember that Men and Women both have masculine and feminine modes within them. Each person will bring their dominant modes into their relationship and each mode has a different relationship to commitment.

For the masculine mode, it’s about being all in, and once the switch in his heart has been turned, he’s in for life.

For the feminine mode, it’s about committing based on context. If the context changes, the commitment changes.

Can you see how this might be a problem?

Here’s a startling statistic: TWO THIRDS of divorces are initiated by women. Crazy, right! Men are usually seen as the non-committal ones… This might shock you, but generally that’s not true.

Here’s a scenario.

Man and woman meet. They are crazy hot for each other. It’s “love at first sight.” They are sure they’ve met “the one” so they dive into a relationship. They have an attraction of a level 10. (I’ll be talking about that next week).

The problem is that because it feels so good and they have so much passion, they tend to make the assumption that they are on the same page about their relationship goals.

They’ve missed the step in dating about getting really clear about what each other’s requirements are in order to be happy when tying themselves to the other person.

Unfortunately, it’s typical for women to not express themselves clearly about what they need, especially when the attraction level is high. They make assumptions that their partner will figure out what they need based on hints and suggestions.

And if a woman’s too direct, she feels awkward, so it’s often the awkwardness that turns a man off.

So you have lack of clarity and misunderstandings and, quite often, there were things she needed in the beginning of the relationship that she didn’t express in a way that her man could get it right from the start.

She assumed that he got her hints, and expected her partner to change, and when he doesn’t, she finally leaves.

The sad thing is that men want to make us happy, and because we don’t give them quality information about what we need until we’re upset without it, they don’t see how they can win with us by committing.

What this means is that women need to be more clear about their needs. Sure some men will walk away, but the right one will stay, because when your man knows how he can make you happy (happiness is your job ladies), he’ll want to commit, and he’ll commit for life.

If you want to learn more about what you can do to get on the same page with your partner, I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo who are committed to creating Conscious Partnership.

Click Here to Learn More and Signup!
To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

 

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How to ask “How was your day?” successfully every time

Maybe you’ve heard that on average men use 5,000 words per day and women use 25,000. But did you know that this simple statistic can wreak havoc in your relationship if you don’t know where your partner is coming from when you ask them something as seemingly harmless as: How was your day?!

Successful Communication Between Men and Women

This is because men and women use words to achieve different goals.

Men use words to express what they think and what they think matters!

They’ve usually put a lot of thought into what they think about things, and so they need far fewer words to express the point.

For men: the point matters and they listen for the point.

Women use words to forge connection!

They spend a lot of time gathering details about the world, and they share all of those details for the purpose connecting with people on an emotional level. The more they talk, the deeper they connect, and women need that connection to sustain themselves.

For women: there is no comparable “point” because just sharing is the point.

TIPS FOR MEN:

When you ask your woman how her day was, she hears that she matters. That you care. Because your caring is priceless to her, I would encourage you to ask her about her day every day!

When she answers, make sure to listen like there’s nothing to fix because YOU GET YOUR POINTS BY LISTENING!

When she’s done talking, ask her any question you’ve saved up, or ask her if there’s something specific she wants you to remember (because maybe that was an awful lot of stuff!).

Just listening without interrupting provides her with the space she needs to share herself and feel more connected to you in your relationship.

TIPS FOR WOMEN:

Remember that your man is ALWAYS single focused, so you’ve got to get his attention before diving into a conversation. You could start by saying something like, “Hey Honey…” and wait until you have his attention.

Then ask him, “What do you want me to know about your day?” If your man gives you a one word answer about how his day was, BELIEVE HIM! There’s nothing in a man’s nature to make him share the details, and questioning feels like prying to him.

When you want to connect, think about something specific you want your man’s input on, ask him what he thinks, and wait.

As crazy as it might sound: Imagine plastering pink duct tape over your mouth for a minimum of 30 seconds! Do not interrupt. Do not re-phrase the question. Resist the urge to think that he didn’t hear you the first time!

YOU GET POINTS FOR WAITING!

Waiting provides him with the space to actually think about what he thinks long enough to formulate his point and answer your question in a way that’s meaningful to him! Waiting shows him that what he has to say matters to you as much as it does to him.

Waiting will help to forge the connection that you yearn to create!

If you’ve been having problems connecting with your partner and building the relationship that you want, I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo ready to turn their dating and relating experiences around right now!
Click Here to Learn More and Signup!
To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

 

Demystifying Men and Women’s Feelings

Everyone feels sensations in their bodies that they translate into emotions. Although the words “feeling” and “emotion” are often used interchangeably, they are not quite the same thing.

Emotions

Feelings are the physiological sensations in our bodies that we translate into emotional labels like anger, love, joy and a multitude of others. (The word “feeling” means a lot more than that, but for the purposes of this article we’re talking about feelings and emotions.)

What two people feel sensationally in their body won’t necessarily be described or even experienced in the same way. For instance, it is the same physiological sensation in the body that some people call fear, and others call excitement.

What you label your experience has a lot to do with how you perceive your experience, which has to do with your beliefs, values, history, and your “story.” It’s a matter of interpretation.

Men and women both have feelings and emotions, but it often doesn’t seem that way. That’s because men and women have very different ways of dealing with the emotions they experience.

Gals, have you ever asked your man how he was feeling and had him tell you he was “fine,” and you knew that wasn’t the case?

  • You sensed that something was going on, but you didn’t know what.
  • You saw him fuming and knew he was holding something back?
  • He didn’t want to talk about it?
  • The more you asked what was going on, the more aggravated he got?

Women are biologically wired to sense what is going on in their environment because it keeps them safe. There was a study done recently about women and eavesdropping. It was practically impossible for a woman not to hear what was going on around her. Knowing what’s going on with the people in her life and in her environment helps her to assess potential challenges and dangers.

For a woman, an upset or angry man is a potential danger, so she tries to assess the situation by asking questions. Women try to figure out what someone is going to do based on what they are feeling, because that’s the way it works for women.

Women tend to act on their feelings because they trust them implicitly.

Guys, women always want to know what you’re feeling about something because women feel something, and then they act on that feeling.

On the other hand…

Men don’t trust feelings because they generally don’t act on them. In fact, men who do are often ridiculed.

An extreme example of this is a man in a battle, he may be afraid, but he’s going to do what he thinks he should do, not what he feels.

To be seen as a coward is a fate worse than death. It would mean he would lose the respect that is vital to his manhood.

So when a woman is expressing her feelings, he may try to be empathetic, but most often, he’s really looking for the point as a way of helping her solve the problem.

  • Sometimes she’s just venting about a problem at work.
  • Sometimes she’s angry about something that her friend did.

Guys, there have been times when you’ve tried to help and gotten reprimanded. Right?

  • Sometimes she’s trying to get you to do something or change something.
  • Sometimes she’s hurt by something you did or didn’t do.
  • Sometimes she’s angry with you.

And if she’s upset with you, you’ll often see yourself as the cause of her pain. If it happens often enough, you’ll see yourself as failing at making her happy.

Gals, men will leave if they can’t make you happy. They see making you happy as their job.

I told my husband that it wasn’t his job to make me happy the other day, and he told me, “it works out better if I see making you happy as my job.”

It causes him to focus on doing things that I like and that make me happy, and he gets to be my hero, and then we’re both happy.

Now let’s look at how men experience feelings and what they do with them. They do feel, and they feel very deeply.

The way it generally works for men is that they feel something, and then think about what they are going to do with that feeling, and then they act on it.

Often what they do is totally contrary to what a woman would do given the same feelings.

The operative word is “think.” Men tend to think about what is logical to do in the face of the information at hand.

They think about whether or not it will help to talk something through.

If he doesn’t see an upside to talking something out, or sharing his feelings, he won’t.

Especially if he is afraid of something like not being able to provide for his family, he’ll keep it to himself.

In fact, for a man to share his feelings he has to feel incredibly safe with the person he’s speaking to. Men do not just act on a feeling the way a woman does.

Men don’t trust feelings.

  • If he thinks you’ll be upset with him for what he’s feeling, he won’t share it.
  • If he thinks you’ll think less of him, he won’t share it.
  • If he thinks he you will overreact and do something like leave him out of anger, he won’t share it.
  • If he thinks it might hurt his cause or foil his plan, he won’t share it.

Can you see how this dynamic might lead to immense challenges in your relationship?

For both men and women, it means the world to be accepted for who they are, but they go about it differently.

She reveals her feelings and he conceals his feelings.

The more she tries to pry it out of him, the more he clams up. The more upset a woman is, the more she tries to express herself.

When you have two people unable to share what they are experiencing, they begin to feel isolated in their relationship and their sense of connection deteriorates.

The way around this is to understand the the vast differences between men and women and learn to navigate those differences. The result is less time spent upset, frustrated and hurt and more time loving.

If you and your partner are having challenges connecting, it might be time for a Relationship Breakthrough Session. You’ll get focused one-on-one time with me and an opportunity to see what you can do to reconnect with your partner. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.
To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

Safety and Getting Your Needs Met

When men and women get into partnership, things like safety can create tension and break relationships up when they aren’t addressed.

Men and Women Experience Safety Differently

One of my clients, I’ll call Sheila, recently became engaged to a man, I’ll call Brett. They adore each other. Sheila had been single for the most part of 30 years before she met Brett. She also has a daughter. Before she moved in with Brett, she’d lived with a female housemate. They kept the house buttoned up like a fortress, and any visitor was to call before coming over.

Sheila’s now moved in with Brett. They are busy merging their lives together. He has always kept an open-door policy, and she’s been trying to change that because of the unbearable anxiety she feels with the doors unlocked, and the habit of locking everything. They’ve had quite a few heated arguments about it.

When we spoke about the situation, she began by expressing her anger and frustration with Brett’s allowing people to come and go without calling first, as had been her policy when she’d lived alone. She felt like Brett didn’t care about how she felt. She was right; it hadn’t even occurred to him why she might feel afraid.

During her coaching session, she began to understand why Brett wasn’t concerned at all about the house and the safety.

He’s a big man and had never in his life experienced a physical threat. Not only that, because he sees himself as her protector, he knew he was protecting her. Something she didn’t understand by his casualness in addressing her concerns. He’s say things like, “it’s fine, just let it go,” and “you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Unfortunately, this was only making her feel more anxious and uncared for.

Women experience real and imagined threats to their physical safety almost every day.

From a man’s loud voice when he’s angry that triggers her instinctual fears, to choosing the safest parking space when parking their car. Most women take it as par for the course to pay attention to these things, however it’s something that most men will never truly understand because of how they experience the world.

Together we came up with a plan for her talking with him about what she needed in order to feel safe. It was through understanding their differences that she was able to explain to him why she was afraid. He was able to conceptually understand where she was coming from, although he will never truly get her experience.

With this understanding, they were able to have a civil conversation and put a protocol in place that allows her to feel safe and him to still have his friends and family feel comfortable coming over.

If you and your partner are struggling to find harmony in your relationship, schedule a 30-minute appointment with me to discuss your unique situation and goals and what you can start doing right away to achieve them.

Click here to schedule now.

I’m here for you. I’m on your side. 🙂

To Love!

Schedule 30 Minutes Now

Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

Criticism Kills Relationships ~ So get rid of it now!

Have you ever wished you could “get more flies with honey” instead of choking on so much vinegar?

Criticism Kills Relationships

Before you laugh me off, consider this: criticism is the first of John Gottman’s famous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

It predicts divorce with more than 90% accuracy!

Criticism is an easy form of ego defense: we’ve all done it; we’ve all received it. Underneath it all, we criticize when we feel devalued by behaviors and attitudes that we don’t understand.

While failing to understand where your partner is coming from creates problems, failing to understand how the masculine and feminine respond to criticism differently creates lingering hurts that build up over time to destroy the love you share.

It doesn’t have to be this way when you understand what you’re dealing with!

At it’s core, criticism is judgment and the Masculine Provider/Protector judges.

He’s FANTASTIC at continually evaluating his environment for strengths and weaknesses because this is what makes him EFFECTIVE, successful, and damned good at his job!

The Feminine Supporter-Adapter, on the other hand, has a very deep and strong aversion to judgement because it directly affects her feelings, and she values her feelings the way she values her life!

When she feels judged, there’s no love, and her Internal Critic can trigger a Rage Response: it’s ugly, has no reason, she hates it passionately, but there’s a voice inside of every woman that continually knit-picks and tells her she’s wrong, she could have done it this way, she should have done it that way, and there’s always someone else better than her…

There’s no upside to siding with this ‘Ideal Woman’ from the outside!

Maybe it would be better to call her the Ideal Critic, in point of fact.

This is VERY IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE because the Feminine responds to criticism by adapting her behavior. This is who she is! What she does! Adapting to her environment is what makes the Feminine timeless and EFFECTIVE!

For a woman criticized once, there will be no twice, because she will change to get a better response. Thus, she instinctively uses criticism to solicit change in others.

But the Masculine will not adapt. It’s not his job. He won’t even think about it because he does not naturally read between the lines to interpret that change is needed.

WOMEN: No amount of criticism will ever change your man!

It will just make him retract, withdraw, resent and avoid you. You need to speak directly about what change you want and what it will provide for you.

MEN: Women experience criticism like physical violence and you will never find a common ground for “reasoning” in their response.

Obviously, judgment is not wrong, but it is important to understand where and when it’s appropriate.

So whether you’re a woman or man, single or coupled, the NEXT TIME A MOMENT TO CRITICIZE SOMEONE YOU LOVE rears its ugly head, I invite you to be curious instead.

Assume they have a good reason for doing what they do and say “I’m curious, what had you do ________ that way?” or “You must have a good reason for doing what you did, would you be willing to tell me about your reason?”

You’ll get a lot farther through understanding instead of assuming.

If Criticism has moved you to crisis, there’s hope and help! I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo ready to turn their dating and relating experiences around right now!

Click Here to Learn More and Signup!

To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

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Caution: Safety Can Matter More than Love!

Have you ever given much thought to what makes your partner feel safe? Noticed how men feel physically safe? And women experience real and imagined threats to their physical safety almost every day?

Safety FirstWhen men and women get into partnership, misunderstandings about Safety can create tension and break up relationships because men and women often experience safety in opposition.

Men have a much stronger sense of confidence in themselves and their ability to keep themselves safe because they tend to be bigger and stronger than women. Because of this confidence, men almost always feel safe moving through the world.

Women, on the other hand, continually evaluate their environment for potential threats and avoid them. From jumping at the loud voice of a man when he’s angry, to choosing the safest parking space, women move through the world with caution.

FOR THE MASCULINE: Anything that threatens his ability to keep the people in his life safe makes him feel unsafe.

FOR THE FEMININE: Anything that prevents her from “seeing” her environment represents danger. In fact, she actually needs to know what’s going on inside a man’s head to feel safe because instinct won’t let her take safety for granted.

The best way to understand this crazy dynamic is to imagine the masculine as a warrior. “His” job is to protect the people he has committed himself to protect. In order to do this, he won’t reveal his weaknesses or his strengths to ANYONE if he can help it OR unless he feels he is completely safe with them.

If he told the enemy who his family was, they would no longer be safe. If he told the enemy what the plan was, his squadron wouldn’t be safe. If he expressed his vulnerabilities, he wouldn’t be safe.

That’s right. For a man to share what’s deepest inside him, HE MUST FEEL SAFE.

Can you see how these instinctual differences might lead to conflict? When men need to know that women are safe to be vulnerable with? And women need men to be vulnerable in order to feel safe?!

Irritation, frustration and anger are unsafe.

The tone of a woman’s voice, the furrowing of her brow, and the sheer intensity with which she “expresses” her lack-of-safety-driven-feelings-about-things causes him to feel unsafe.

When he feels unsafe, he won’t talk, and his silence feeds her fear for her own safety and thus the cycle amplifies itself into a downward spiral of misunderstanding.

Many relationships have ended because of this dynamic. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Take some time to explore what makes you feel safe and share it with your partner (or the person you’re dating)!

Talk about what creates the experience of safety for you, and what feeling safe makes possible for you!

When you understand what you need, and share authentically with your partner, your connection will be strengthened.

To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist
If you want to learn more about the instinctual differences between men and women and how to avoid letting them run your relationship amok, I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo who are committed to creating Conscious Partnership.
Click Here to Learn More and Signup!

Have you ever felt snubbed by your partner’s advice?

Did you know that one of the biggest ways to get yourself into relationship trouble is to expect that you and your partner are the same?

Differences between Men and Women

For the last 40 or so years, as women have forged the right to work equally among men in the world, we’ve been trying to see each other as the same.

Having equality is essential, but “equality” is not the same as “sameness,” and this confusion does damage to how we relate to each other, especially in the relationship realm.

The truth is that biologically, we’re not the same. Men and women are hardwired differently. We have different motives and behaviors based on the way masculine and feminine modes of being play out in our life roles and interactions with one another.

Generally speaking, the Masculine Mode is single focused, time bound, and about producing for and protecting the people in their commitment circle.

Feminine Mode, on the other hand, focuses on many things simultaneously, is eternal, and works to support, nurture and enhance the lives of the people around her.

While both offer great contributions to each other, they misread each other most of the time and give advice based on their own perspective. This leads to frustration in relationships when the Masculine doesn’t do things the way the Feminine would do them, and vice versa.

It gets even worse when we are unable to see where our partner is coming from and make them wrong for being the way they are, then we get angry because they can’t be who we want them to be when we’re just trying to help.

Have you ever experienced that? I have.

I was working with a couple recently, and they weren’t seeing eye to eye about work. She is working on a huge time consuming project that she loves, is taking care of her aging mother, and works as a life coach. She spends a lot of time doing all kinds of things that she loves while her sweetheart has a job that he doesn’t particularly like.

He looks at her and sees her doing multiple things and wants to take care of her and help her to focus on one thing. So, he was saying things like, “Stop doing that,” or “Just focus on your project.” But to her, just focusing on her project would be like death. She cares for her mother, she loves her coaching AND she loves the project she’s working on.

She looks at him and sees him in a job that he hates. She hears him express his unhappiness about what he’s doing. She cares about him so she gives him the advice to do something that he loves, because that’s what she, as a woman, would put her attention on. It’s all about life enhancement for women. So she encourages him to do something that will enhance his life. However, her input gets brushed aside because what he’s doing provides for himself and his son. He can’t see himself leaving his job until his 15 year old son is grown.

On the surface it looked like they’re helping each other. But because they didn’t understand how the other one operated in the world, they were unintentionally hurting each other. If this type of conversation gets a foothold in your relationship, it can mean breakup or years of frustration.

When we worked together, he began to understand that his sweetheart loved what she was doing, and the best way to support her was to make sure she was getting some quality down time to nurture herself so she could do what she loved. She got that the best way to support him was to plant seeds for him that would help him leave his job and move onto something more fulfilling when his son was 18.

Understanding how your partner operates in the world not only averts relationship disaster, it creates the foundation for a life of relationship bliss.

If you want to learn more about the instinctual differences between men and women and how to avoid letting them run your relationship amok, I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo who are committed to creating Conscious Partnership.
Click Here to Learn More and Signup!
To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

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