Widows. Women and Men and how they are Different
And now, back to one of my favorite topics, (and I know most of you will agree with me), men!
I am unendingly fascinated. I am intrigued by both the nature of men and by the nature of women and I am amazed at how we women continue to resist accepting the very obvious differences. (I include myself here.)
Many of my clients are widows who are returning to dating after a 25-30 year marriage. If women want to date and enter into new relationships successfully, they MUST be ready to acknowledge the differences between men and women.
Men are not like women. They are built differently, they think differently and they act differently. (Thank goodness…who really wants her man to be a woman?) You may think that this is obvious, right? Yet we women often look to our men to react as we ourselves do. We want them to be sensitive, to want to talk about the relationship, and we want them to show us that they understand us.
Forget about it.
Now I can hear a good number of you saying, “Not true! My husband was a wonderful conversationalist and listener and loved talking about the relationship…”
Good for you. But trust me – you are in the minority.
If we assume that men think and react as we women think and react, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Men do not think like we do, most of the time they don’t enjoy talking like we do, and if we try to change them, if we try to get them to think and act like we do, we will be frustrated, they will be frustrated and our relationship will not be supported.
Men have much to offer a relationship. But our strengths are not theirs and their strengths are not ours.
If we ask our man to talk, especially about the relationship, it is like asking him to speak Taiwanese. He might try to fake it because he knows how important it is to us, but it will be just that. Faking it. It has nothing to do with how he cares about us. Talking like a woman is not in his skill set. And, if he could talk like a woman, I am pretty sure that we would not be interested in him! We want a man.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t get to talk about our relationship – but rather than going to him and asking him to do what he can’t or doesn’t want to do, we are better off going to our girlfriend. Or better yet, our Life Coach! We don’t have to deny our need to talk. We just need make a better choice and go to someone who is as good at it as we are.
A year or so ago I watched a PBS special that beautifully addressed the differences between the female brain and the male brain. And there were even MRI scans to back up their claims.
Men are not naturally empathetic. Although there may be a few men who are, and another few who can adequately fake it, women have a much larger ‘empathy center’ in their brains. It is why we are the first to make chicken soup, react to a baby’s cry, and cry at commercials. Women are more global their thinking, more intuitive, and easily overwhelmed. We are easily overwhelmed because our ability to think globally allows us to see all of the difficulties and ramifications in a situation. Hence – overwhelm.
Men are generally (not always) more competitive, one-problem-at-a-time oriented; they are able to separate themselves from problems more than women. When faced with a problem, women with think it over, talk it over, and share it with others before arriving at a solution. Men will be compelled to offer a solution, and quickly.
What does this mean for relationships?
The first thing it means is that we need to go to men for the things they are good at. Among many things, they care for us, protect us, fix things, solve problems in a wonderfully linear fashion, and smell good. (And a whole lot more…) But talking about relationships, especially theirs, is not what they like to do and is not what they are good at.
Just like women need conversation, men need appreciation. And they need it from their woman. So, rather than focus on what he can’t give us, (female-like conversation and understanding) we get to appreciate what he does bring to the relationship.
Don’t go to Bloomingdales for milk. Go to Bloomingdales for clothing and Stop & Shop for milk.
Go to men for the richness of what they have to offer. They will be happy and feel appreciated.
And go to your friends, or your life coach, for the rest.
Mie Elmhirst. The Widow’s Coach
