Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improve Your Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress

A needy man is a huge turnoff to women.

Other women, who are able to feel their needs but don’t understand how men are different, expect them to react and respond the way a woman would. For these women, determining what they need in a relationship and what is possible can be very confusing. The days of women needing a man just for survival and security are gone.

So what do modern women need? When I ask this question, single women often have no idea. At first, they don’t even want to admit that they need a man. They prefer to have a partner. They want to share their lives with someone, but they don’t need a man. Needing a man would make these women feel weak rather than just feminine.

Women need to rediscover the power and strength of their femininity. Women don’t have to be like men to be powerful and get what they want and need. Likewise, men don’t have to become like women to be loving and supportive in their relationships.

Many successful women are repelled by the idea that they might need a man.

Needing a partner is not a weakness. It is why we partner up. Men and women just have different primary needs. Men need to feel needed, and women need to feel they are not alone. Just as a woman is happiest when she feels she is getting what she needs from her partner, a man is happiest when he feels successful in meeting his partner’s needs. This is an important distinction. We certainly need each other, but for different reasons.

Men need to feel needed, and women need to feel they are not alone.

Feeling that he makes a difference reduces a man’s stress. It is what gives men a reason for living. On the other hand, feeling that she is not alone and that she can get what she needs reduces a woman’s stress. When a women feels she can open up and depend on someone, her stress in life is greatly reduced. When a woman is unable to recognize her needs or get them met, she increasingly feels distress in her life, and then wonders why she doesn’t sleep well at night.

Independent and successful women often ask me why their husbands are so tired. With this new insight, it becomes clear. If she is unaware of her need for him, then he is not empowered by her love and appreciation. Instead, he becomes exhausted in her presence.

When a woman learns to feel her feminine side and identify her true needs for a man, her appreciation can bring out the best in her partner. Rather than becoming tired when he interacts with her, he is energized.

Many women today are under so much stress that they are simply unable to feel their needs. Under stress, women tend to reach out and feel the needs of others rather than their own. With a little time and exploration, these strong and independent women discover and admit to a variety of needs, most commonly:

♦ She needs a man for romantic companionship.

♦ She needs a man to be faithful.

♦ She needs a man for simple companionship. She doesn’t want to come home to a big, beautiful, empty house or apartment.

♦ She needs a man for financial backup—someone who could support her if she couldn’t work.

♦ She needs a man around because she feels safer—two people are twice as good as one.

♦ She needs to have a partner to share fun times with.

♦ She needs a partner to share with who cares about her well-being.

♦ She needs a partner who misses her when he is away.

♦ She needs a partner to help raise the family if they have children.

♦ She needs a partner if she doesn’t want to have children alone.

♦ She needs a partner to have a family.

♦ She needs a partner to share the responsibilities of caring for the nest.

♦ She needs a partner to fix things when they break. She doesn’t want to do her own plumbing anymore.

♦ She needs a partner’s support to feel really great.

The truth is, women today need men more than ever. They just need men in different ways. Men can provide special support that can assist women in coping with the new stresses of modern life, but most women don’t know how to get this support or to appreciate it properly when it is available. With a greater awareness of her needs, a woman can begin to appreciate what she is getting and focus less on what she is not getting. With a more realistic vision of what is possible rather than the Hollywood fantasy of a man who fulfills her every wish, she is better able to appreciate his efforts and not take for granted all the things her partner already does provide.

When she learns to appreciate what a man already offers, a woman holds the key to asking for more in small reasonable increments to get the support she needs and deserves. This is not only a formula for success, but it is also what real love is all about.

I remember when this idea became very clear to me about six years into my own marriage with my wife, Bonnie. After some particularly great lovemaking, I commented, “This was as good as it was in the beginning.”

Her response taught me something 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.