important. She said that making love that night was actually better than in the beginning, because, as she explained, “In the beginning, we didn’t really know each other. Now you have seen the best of me and the worst of me, and you still adore me. That is real love.”
Bonnie helped me to have a richer understanding of lasting love. Love is not a fantasy of perfection in which our every need is met, but sharing a life together, striving to meet each other’s needs as best we can. Forgiving our partners for their mistakes and accepting their limitations can be just as fulfilling as appreciating their many gifts and successes. Just as it was difficult for her to live with a man who didn’t always measure up to her expectations, it was challenging for me to accept that I could not and did not provide everything her fantasy of a perfect relationship included.
Just as women need to let go of expecting men to be perfect, men need to let go of expecting women to think we are perfect. Together we have learned that our life does not have to be perfect for us to connect and support each other. Real love does not demand perfection but actually embraces imperfection. Sharing this kind of love enriches all aspects of our lives and brings increasing fulfillment.
Real love does not demand perfection but actually embraces imperfection.
Intimate and truly loving relationships make up the fabric of a fulfilling life. The relentless demands in our lives to have more, go faster, and do better can distract us from this simple truth. The social changes that have expanded our freedoms have also created the need for new ways to keep harmony in our most intimate relationships. In the pages that follow, you will gain new insight, allowing you and your partner to come together in harmony, ease, love, and mutual fulfillment.
CHAPTER TWO
HARDWIRED TO BE DIFFERENT
The first step in understanding and accepting our differences is to recognize that men and women are actually hardwired to be different. The way our brains are structured and function is not the same. Although some of our differences result from parental or social conditioning, we will explore how and why we are biologically different.
Acknowledging these hardwired gender differences helps us to identify and release our unrealistic expectations that our partners be more like us and to accept that we are not the same. At first, these differences may seem to be a hindrance, but once you fully understand the biology, it becomes clear that we complement each other perfectly. In fact, it is as if men and women were made for each other.
If we cannot find a way to embrace the differences and to achieve a balance, sustaining a relationship is difficult. Many couples never develop their relationships beyond dating. Others make a commitment, but over time, their differences erode their intimacy, and they split up. In these instances, both believe that there was not enough common ground to make a relationship work. Though sometimes couples are not compatible, usually their problems derive from not understanding their differences. Here are some expressions of how we feel when we don’t understand our differences:
If you have read my previous books, you know that the root cause of these complaints is a lack of understanding and acceptance of our basic differences. They are certainly legitimate complaints, but they emerge because we fail to take our differences into account.
If you have ever said, felt, or heard your partner utter one of the criticisms listed above, your resistance to natural differences may be at the root of many of your collisions. When you resist rather than support your partner’s needs when he or she is coping with stress, you will evoke the worst of your partner’s character. If you are single, this insight might make you aware that you have alienated a potential partner or that your behavior may have been misinterpreted by another. Whether you are married or single, a new understanding and acceptance of how we are supposed to be different will enable you to bring out the best in your partner and yourself as well.
Married couples with good relationships often report that they have stopped trying to change each other. But acceptance of our differences does not mean accepting any behavior, however negative. Instead, loving acceptance provides a foundation from which we can work with our differences, so that both partners get what they need most. Accepting our differences is not always easy, especially when we are under stress, but the advice in these pages can help to smooth the way.
Radically Different Responses to Stress
The responses to stress are very different on Mars and Venus. Men tend to shift gears, disengage, and forget their problems, while women are compelled to connect, ask questions, and share problems. This simple distinction can be extremely destructive in a relationship if it is not appreciated and respected.
When a man needs time alone or doesn’t want to talk about his day, it doesn’t mean that he cares less for his partner. When a woman wants to talk about her day, it doesn’t mean she is excessively needy or high-maintenance. His detached manner doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, and her stronger emotional reactions do not mean she doesn’t appreciate all that he does to provide for her.
If a man forgets a woman’s need or a woman remembers his mistakes, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.
By understanding our differences, we can correctly interpret our partners’ behavior and feelings and give our partners what they need most, which will inevitably bring out their best side. Instead of seeing our different stress reactions as a problem, we need to recognize that our attempts to change our partners are most often the real problem.
Instead of seeing our different stress reactions as a problem, we need to recognize that our attempts to change our partners are most often the real problem.
Understanding the biological reasons for the different ways we perceive and behave in the world enables us to be realistic about what to expect from our partners.
Skills Are Different on Mars and Venus
As you have already noticed in daily life, men and women behave, think, feel, and react in dissimilar ways. It is obvious that men and women do not process language, emotion, and information in the same way. But now we have a way to make sense of this difference. Although happily married couples have already figured this out, finally the academic and scientific community has verified our different gender-related tendencies.
Edward O. Wilson, a world-famous sociobiologist from Harvard University, has systematically observed our gender tendencies. He found that women are more empathetic and security-seeking than men and have more developed verbal and social skills. In comparison, men tend to be more independent, aggressive, and dominant and demonstrate greater spatial and mathematical skills.
In practical terms, this means that situations that could be simple to resolve become very tedious and tiresome when we don’t understand and accept our differences. For example, when you discuss how you are going to invest your savings, a man is generally more of a risk taker and a woman will be more conservative. Certainly how we are raised will make a big difference, but generally speaking, men feel more comfortable taking risks, while women prioritize security. With an understanding of this difference, a man doesn’t have to take it personally when she asks more questions. She is not necessarily mistrusting him but simply seeking to meet her greater need for security. When he is more impulsive and wants to find solutions right away, she can realize this is his nature rather than misinterpret his tone by presuming he doesn’t care about what she feels, wants, or needs.
Studies
