I'm not sure I believe everything Patricia Love and Steven Stosny have to say in How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It
If you were to say to the man in your life, "Honey, we need to talk about our relationship," what do you think would happen?
If he would answer this question with something like "I thought you'd never ask!" or "I've been dying to share my feelings about our life together, and I especially want to hear how you feel about us and what you want for us," then neither of you needs to read his book. Most women would expect their men would get distracted, defensive, irritated, or fidgety, or roll their eyes or shut down completely; and most men would feel like they were being punished for a crime they didn't commit."
Since every time I say "we need to talk", Frank says "what did I do wrong now?" and nothing I say can convince him that he didn't do anything wrong, we just need to talk, … well, I was interested in hearing what the authors suggested.
Their reasoning is that men feel the need to protect and by saying something isn't going right, they feel shame. So the minute you say "we need to talk", they get flooded with hormones that make them anxious and shameful. Women, according to the authors, feel the need to connect and when something isn't going right they usually feel fear, primarily fear of abandonment. They go on to explain how this drives couples further apart.
They offer a number of concrete suggestions for how to work better together without getting into the same ritual every time. (Women are supposed to try connecting and emphasizing without talking or criticizing, and men are supposed to try helping and talking.)
I found many of their points useful to think about in terms of my kids. I seem to spend a lot of my time telling my kids "no" and while reading this book, I found myself thinking a lot about how that must make them feel.
So while I don't agree with everything the authors say (there was a lot of gender stereotyping), they did have a lot of really good ideas and things to think about. I'd recommend reading, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It
“we need to talk” certainly sets tone
how about just talking instead of scaring the poor man with a vague title, flooding that poor man with hormones that make them anxious and shameful?
I found another book on couples very refreshing: Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mating-Captivity-Lies-Domestic-Bliss/dp/0340943734).
ah sorry, the first sentence was not meant to have poor man twice 🙂
I’ve found John Gottman’s books and research to be fantastic resources. They’re researched-based – from video studies he did of couples arguing (predicting whether couples would get divorced from a single conversation/argument about a difficult topic), and from his counseling practice. I’ve also read _The Passionate Marriage_, which is a bit further out in left field, uses strong language and isn’t shy about talking about sex, but does a great job of describing some of the difficulties that couples have ‘differentiating’ (and offering great suggestions for evolving/fixing problems), while at the same time having a cohesive marriage.
Thanks for the recommendations. Have you read Gottman’s Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child? If it was available on the Kindle I’d buy it now. (I’m leaving town tomorrow and the library doesn’t have it.)
“Their reasoning is that men feel the need to protect and by saying something isn’t going right, they feel shame. So the minute you say “we need to talk”, they get flooded with hormones that make them anxious and shameful. Women, according to the authors, feel the need to connect and when something isn’t going right they usually feel fear, primarily fear of abandonment.”
You could look at the bright side and be happy you’re not a gay guy. In my experience both people in a gay male relationship tend to exhibit both qualities at once, all the time. so you both frequently feel the need to ‘have a talk’ with the other while simultaneously going all brittle and defensive as soon as it actually happens…=)
One very important subject that is not taught and studied to/by all students in school, which should be, is human behavior.
Jacque Fresco from The Venus Project really opened my eyes to how people behave and how to go about treating one to get the results one wants. He has spent over 60 years studying animal and human behavior. He would join groups like the kkk and the technocracy movement, and he would try to learn why they think the way they do, then he would show them with examples why they think the way they do and he would dissolve the groups. Very interesting stuff.
You should check out some of his books and videos. There are lots on youtube, some on amazon, and you can find all of them on the research center website: thevenusproject.com