Contents
- She talks all the time / He is silent
- He tells facts / She expresses feelings
- She needs to be listened to / He gives advice
- She would like him to anticipate her desires / He only responds to specific requests
- She needs to withdraw into herself / He wants to stir her up immediately
- Prohibited methods of communication
He and she speak different languages, so attempts to understand the other often come to a standstill. However, you can talk and not get angry at each other – there are certain rules for this. A small piece of love grammar.
We, men and women, have different ideas about love and different sign systems – behavioral and verbal – for expressing it. The differences are so strong that the American psychotherapist John Gray in his book “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” compares us with creatures who arrived from different planets: men who bring values of action, power, competence to the sensual sphere come from Mars, and women for whom the manifestation of emotions, harmony of communication, creativity is more important – come from Venus. As a result, an unfortunate misunderstanding may arise between us. To avoid it, you need to imagine risk areas and learn how to act in them with the least losses.
She talks all the time / He is silent
A man speaks 2000 words a day, and a woman 8000. She often thinks out loud, looking for a form of expression for her momentary thoughts and moods, so her speech flows like a stream. At the same time, this flow often changes direction, and what is said is only a preliminary sketch. This may cause bewilderment in the partner: “Why does she change her mind so often?”.
He is silent for a long time, and she perceives his silence as a lack of interest in her. To avoid tension in the dialogue, a man should take into account that women’s speech is not chatter, but the way of the birth of thought. And it is important for a woman to keep in mind that male silence is not an expression of contempt, but a need for reflection, which takes time. So she can respect that pause, instead of pushing him with the questions “well?”, “and?”, “what do you think about this?”.
She needs to choose more precise expressions. And he better try not to take everything literally
What mistakes should be avoided in dealing with a silent person? Pounce on him with reproaches of supposed indifference, harass him with interrogation-like questions, take up too much space in the space of communication to fill the silence. Instead, it’s better to regularly express your feelings without expecting anything in return, expand your circle of interlocutors, or accept the fact that a silent person will never become an extrovert. This will help to avoid pressure in the relationship and soften the female frustration.
He tells facts / She expresses feelings
A woman willingly talks about how she feels different events in her life; a man prefers to report objective information about facts. She willingly (even too much) uses superlatives in her speech, resorts to metaphors and generalizations, allowing herself even poetic liberties. He searches for exact words and takes the speech of the other literally.
Here is a typical example of a statement that can lead to an argument: “No one cares about me.” In the female language, this means: “I’m lonely,” but the man replies to this: “It’s not true, there are so many people around you.” So most clashes between partners arise from a misunderstanding of the meaning of words.
In order to be understood, she had better get used to using more adequate and precise expressions. And he should not take everything literally – it is better to proceed from the fact that the essence can be read between the lines.
She needs to be listened to / He gives advice
To relieve tension and relieve stress, a woman is looking for an attentive listener who would recognize the legitimacy of her feelings and experiences. But it is important for a man to be a hero in the eyes of his girlfriend, saving her from any trouble! So he cuts her off with remarks of his own that show the unfoundedness of her worries (“It’s not so scary”), or offers a quick fix that confirms his ability to make her happy.
If we want to be heard, it is better to build a phrase in the first person. “I want” sounds more convincing than “you have to”
So it is important for a woman to take precautions before pouring out her soul (“Can you listen to me without interrupting?”), And clearly explain that she does not expect a man to solve her problems: he will help her by simply listening. And the man, in turn, must learn to listen to the end, not allowing himself to explain to her the essence of her concerns and trying to really understand the thought that she seeks to express.
She would like him to anticipate her desires / He only responds to specific requests
For a woman, one of the definitions of love is that “you don’t have to ask for anything.” Since she herself intuitively feels the needs of other people and gives them everything she is capable of, a woman mistakenly believes that a man can do the same. He, on the contrary, believes that it is insulting to offer help if it is not asked for: it would mean that he doubts the strength of his companion.
In addition, a woman often thinks that she has made a request, when in fact she was simply stating a problem (“I have a lot of work”) or stating a fact (“Shopping in the car”). In order for a man to live up to her expectations, she needs to learn how to articulate them clearly. Avoid questions such as “Can you take the kids?” which literally means “Can you physically do this?” It is better to say “Please take the children tomorrow”, which is more effective. She should refrain from giving reasons why he should help her, otherwise he will get the feeling that she doubts his consent …
She needs to withdraw into herself / He wants to stir her up immediately
A woman is like a wave: her mood periodically rises and falls. When she is on the rise, she wants to give love. When in decline, she feels that she is only able to accept it. At the low point of this cycle, she sorts out her emotions.
This is a natural process that has nothing to do with how she feels about her partner. However, he perceives what is happening as a kind of accident in a love relationship and tries with all his might to fix them, that is, to cheer up his partner as soon as possible. But the fact is that her mood will not change until it reaches the bottom.
This means that a man should, on the contrary, help a woman quickly immerse herself in herself … just by listening to her carefully.
Prohibited methods of communication
Respectful dialogue allows you to freely touch on annoying subjects. The sociopsychologist Jacques Salomé recommends following a few rules of “relationship hygiene.” And avoid statements that form a “system of undermining.” A few examples:
- Orders that tell the partner what to do and substitute for his own free will (“You must get rid of this habit”, “You must cut your hair and at least lose some weight”).
- Devaluing statements that hurt self-esteem (“You are not feminine enough”, “You never understand anything”).
- Emotional blackmail, which shifts responsibility for our grief to another (“If you don’t want to please me, I’ll go alone”).
- “The word ‘you’ kills dialogue,” explains Jacques Salome. – Instead of “You never look at me” say better: “I do not feel that you see me.”
A study by Simmons, Gordon, and Chambless shows that partners who often say “we” in an argument are more likely to resolve the problem amicably: they do not perceive each other as adversaries and share responsibility for resolving the conflict situation. Statements with “you” tend to lead negotiations to a dead end. Those who often use the pronoun “I” are the most satisfied with the state of their relationship. It remains only to learn how to use the “I”, not being afraid for the “we”. Living relationships are those in which there are always three of us: I, the other, and the connection that exists between us.
He wants to be accepted as he is / She wants him to move forward
A woman always strives to ensure that her companion and their couple develop, move forward. A man, on the other hand, feels loved only if he is accepted as he is, and thinks about a couple that everything is either good or everything is bad. When a woman says, “We should go out more often,” she means, “I wish I could do something with you” (showing attention). And the man translates it into his own language as “You are such a homebody!” (that is, she questions his qualities).
Where is the exit? It is important for a woman to try to express her possible disagreement with her partner’s behavior, without judging him as a person and constructing a phrase in the first person singular (“I would like you to …”, and not: “You should …”), while considering a partner as a source of solutions, not as the root of the problem. A man, for his part, must understand that when a partner is unhappy with his actions, this does not necessarily mean that she does not love him.
To the words “I love you,” he replies: “I love you too,” she says, “Why do you love?”
The man is fascinated by the object of desire. A woman is more interested in desire itself. This is explained by the fact that she, more than a man, needs this desire to feel her own existence. According to Freud, it is more difficult for a little girl to find her own identity, since she does not have such obvious distinguishing features as boys (penis) and her mother (female forms).
To understand the other to the end would mean in some sense to appropriate his originality and thereby reduce him to nothing.
This is what further makes her dependent on male desire. But this desire is often unstable (it is believed that a man is polygamous by nature), and a woman cannot achieve certainty in any way. So she keeps asking, “Do you love me?” and wants to know why. Instead of being annoyed by these doubts and endless questions, a loving man can try to calm the woman by explaining to her that he loves her for her difference from others.
She and she: reconcile with the fact that full understanding is impossible
Now that we have the keys to mutual understanding, it may seem that it is enough to use them – and the doors of communication with the opposite sex will swing wide open. This would be possible if the complexity of the human soul, in other words, our unconscious, did not intervene. After all, for a man to be open, complaisant, ready to work for the good of his couple – does this not mean “feminizing”? And a woman who decides to open up and stop being mysterious, does she risk losing part of her charm, her femininity?
It seems that until a man comes to terms with his feminine component, and a woman with a male one, both of them will remain under the power of their “shadow sides”, which, among other things, are called upon to preserve the otherness of the other. After all, to understand the other to the end would mean in some sense to appropriate his originality and thereby reduce him to nothing. Let’s be realistic: let’s proceed from the fact that consent is not understood in a partner, in his intimate thoughts – this, oddly enough, is the first step towards him.
This irremediable incompleteness of understanding has that positive side: it nourishes sexual desire. And also the desire to continue the relationship in the hope of unraveling the mystery one day. The secret of another person.