LIGHT BULB I figured it out! Yup, the other day I had an epiphany and I think this epiphany could change the world. Are you ready to find out what it is yet?? Okay well since you twisted my arm here it is….now listen closely. It’s not that men are wrong or women are right, the fact is that we’re just different! Yup yup! It took me all these years to figure out that many times the disconnect that exists between men and women and husband and wife doesn’t come from one being “wrong” and one being “right”, it comes from the fact that we are just different. Lets explore this a bit!
Ladies how many arguments have you had with your man or husband about an issue because he didn’t do something that you assumed he would just do because to you it’s just intuitive? For example, you asked your man to wash the clothes. Ok! He goes and washes the clothes. You walk in the washroom and see the clothes still in the washing machine. You get a little attitude and say “babe I thought I asked you to wash the clothes!?” He says, “…I did.” Inside, you get infuriated because even though he did technically wash the clothes he didn’t bother to dry them, fold them, or put them up. You see ladies to him he completed the task at hand, but to you he is now a slack man because he didn’t do the things that you obviously would have done, which were wash, fold, and put away the clothes. Remember though…all you asked him to do was wash the clothes. Now does this mean that he is a lazy, inept man or does it mean that we are just different???
I often tell my female clients who are frustrated with their men that you can’t expect a man to hear what you never said. Let me say that again… “you can’t expect a man to hear what you never said!” The bottom line is that as men we follow instructions very well, but very rarely do we think outside of the task that was given to us. I’m not saying this is all men, but I am just saying that many times this is the case. I know many ladies are reading this article thinking “well why should I have to spell everything out for him, he should just know how to do it or know how things make me feel!” Okay ladies I get your frustration, but all I am trying to tell you is that even though that’s what YOU think we should do, that’s just not how WE operate. The minute you stop trying to understand the why, the sooner you will accept what is, and the less confusion there will be.
Okay now that we got that out of the way the second thing I want to address is the fact that sometimes our wife or woman thinks that as men we are cold because we aren’t emotional enough. I want it to be understood that it’s not that we aren’t emotional as men, it’s just that we express that emotion in a different way. Think about this…from a young age, men are usually taught to not show emotion, instead we are raised to FIX things. Little boy falls and scrapes his knee his mama hugs him and tells him it’s okay. His dad, on the other hand,tells him to get up, put a band aid on it and go back and finish playing. Hence: his mom feels and his dad fixes!
Think about this example: Let’s say you’ve had a bad day at work and you come home and say, “Oooooh let me tell you about what this heifer at work did today!” And proceed to vent for the next 7 minutes straight without taking a breath—your man may cut you off mid-sentence and say, “Ok. So what are you gonna do about it?” While you want to talk about it, he wants to figure out how to fix it! But you aren’t asking for a solution, you just want to talk about what happened and how it made you feel! That doesn’t make him wrong…it doesn’t make him right: it just makes us different! Further more, many times in relationships your man shows his emotion by what he does for you, how he provides for you, and how he protects you…he will express it by showing, while women may be more likely to express their feelings by telling them.
I believe that a lot of our disagreements and disconnects in relationships come not because we spend too much time arguing about who is right and not enough seeking understanding. The fact of the matter is that men and women are different beings and the sooner we embrace our differences and alter our behaviors and expectations accordingly the better off we will be. Instead of these differences being a wedge between men and women let’s use them as a bridge to connect and understand each other better
BMWK – Get involved in the conversation: What are some of the differences between men an women that would help us understand each other better?