Tag Archives: differences between men and women

Do you ever feel like you’re hitting a brick wall talking to your partner?

Prevent miscommunication

If you’re like most men and women, this happens quite often. From a woman wanting to talk about her feelings and never getting to the point, to a man speaking in bullet points when she wants details.

The truth is that men and women are so different that we’d be better off if we ACTUALLY spoke different languages, because then, they wouldn’t think they were communicating.

We miscommunicate about: money, planning, children, who’s in charge of what, our needs, what’s important to us, how we like attention and affection. And that’s if you already are in a relationship.

The dating world is especially challenging. If you’re trying to connect with someone new and don’t know how because you don’t understand how men and women communicate differently, you’ll be in trouble, and probably spend a lot of time being single.

The world has changed, but our instinctual differences in how we communicate have not. To get to Partnership, you have to understand the differences between the masculine and feminine ways of communicating.

Did you know women tend to use about 25,000 words a day while men average 5,000? And as my father says, “Yeah, and that’s all you need!” I’d bet that most men experience the deluge of words a woman speaks as way too much.

Women (the feminine mode) tend to go on and on and on because the details help them to figure out how they can support the people in their lives. Men (the masculine mode) typically don’t care about the details because he just needs to know what needs to be provided.

Picture this scenario: A man and woman are talking. She’s asking questions to get to know him. He’s answering in one word answers. She’s feeling like he doesn’t want to connect and he feels like he’s being interrogated.

This does not bode well for connecting, now does it?

This week I want you to think of yourself as an explorer in another country learning to communicate with the natives (opposite sex). Be curious. Be open. Ask questions about how the person experiences life and their views of the world. Practice listening!

Do this even if you’ve been married for 75 years!

 

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Relationship Success Depends on Making Clean Deals (Video Interview)

On the most basic level, people make assumptions about how their partner operates in the world, and it’s quite often wrong – especially between men and women.

In my interview with Max Van Praag, Private Matters.tv – Episode 40 – “Relationship Success Depends on Making Clean Deals.”, we discuss what it takes for couples to make what I call “clean deals” with each other – deals that are at the foundation of thriving partnerships because they ensure that both parties are on the same page with one another from the beginning so that misunderstandings, hurt and resentments don’t develop and build into a crisis along the way.

What Makes a Man Feel Safe

Did you know that men rarely feel physically unsafe? It’s true. Unless they have a gun to their head, they most often feel pretty comfortable in the world.

Men and Safety

What makes a man feel unsafe has to do with his ability to provide and protect the people in their commitment circle.

Anything that threatens his ability to do what he needs to do to keep the people in his life safe makes him feel unsafe.

Men can only protect others effectively if they feel safe first. Period.

Imagine this, you have a sense that he’s not telling you something. The more you ask, the more he tries to get away from the “interrogation.” The more intense you get because your gut tells you he’s holding something back.

Each moment he doesn’t tell you what’s going on, the more convinced you are that he’s hiding something. Usually this story ends with an unhappy ending.

Does that story sound familiar? You’re not alone.

Here’s the thing, there is nothing in a man’s instinctual nature to get him to reveal anything, and any time he does, it’s because he sees an upside to revealing. He has to know there’s a benefit to revealing what’s in his soul.

The best way to understand this dynamic is to imagine a warrior going off to war. 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. You are the key to that.

Your man needs to know that you are safe to be vulnerable with. Your irritation, frustration and even anger are unsafe to him. The tone of our voice, the furrowing of our brow, and the intensity that you experience when you feel unsafe cause him to feel unsafe too.

The more you need transparency, the more he clams up. Many relationships have ended because of this dynamic. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

It is possible to learn how to be safe for a man to reveal his deepest emotions. It is possible to be his confidant. It is possible to become safe enough for him to open his soul to you, but you must learn how to be safe.

To Love!
Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

If you have been experiencing challenges in your relationship, I offer Relationship Breakthrough Sessions for Singles, Couples or Partners Flying Solo committed to creating lifelong partnership.

Click Here to Learn More and Signup!

What Makes Men and Women Feel Safe is as Different as Night and Day

We know that men and women react to situations differently, but do you know why?

Safety Means Different Things

One of the core reasons is that they each experience the world differently. Men have a much stronger connection to the physical than women do, and women have a much stronger connection to the relational and spiritual than men do (I’ll cover this in next week’s article).

Men tend to be bigger and stronger than women. Because of this, they have a much stronger sense of confidence in themselves and their ability to keep themselves safe. In fact, because of this confidence, they almost always feel safe moving through the world. The exceptions have to do with extreme cases, like having a gun pointed at their head, but in general, there is very little regarding their physical-ness that they experience with fear.

Women on the other hand, tend to be smaller and weaker than men, so their confidence in their physical abilities to protect themselves isn’t so high. They rely on the men in their lives to protect them, and if they don’t have a man, they do everything they can to protect themselves and their offspring.

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

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, request a Relationship Breakthrough Session today. If someone you know is struggling with their relationship, please pass this on.

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