One of my own best women friends recently sent to me a piece that her husband (without comment, it turns out!) had e-mailed to her: "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It" by Barbara Graham from O, the Oprah Magazine. Its subtitle says it all: "Forget everything you've heard about frankness, sharing your feelings, getting him to express his. Research into the functions of the male mind makes it clear that discussion may be the fastest way to shut down communication. (Oh, you noticed that, have you?)"
Graham sat down with psychotherapists Patricia Love and Steven Stosny. They teach extensively on gender differences, and last year co-wrote "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It."
Stosny explains that "talking about feelings, which is soothing to women, makes men physically uncomfortable. There's literally more blood flow to the muscles. They get fidgety and women think they're not listening."
"Durh!" Any woman worth her salt knows men are different than women and should NEVER be required to replace the women who are close to her in her life, just as any man worth his salt will not expect his woman to be his 'buddy.'
Now, if we could convince the super-intellectuals that there are deeply ingrained differences in the genders, that each of us is part of the Whole, not The Same, we'd be MUCH better off as a Society...not to mention that we'd have MUCH happier marriages AND children.
2 comments:
Heh. I am my husband's buddy. And I'm the one that gets all uncomfortable when he starts talking about icky stuff like feelings.
(Geez, not in the middle of this program! Can't it wait until a commercial?)
Got the same situation here.
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