Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improve Your Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress. John Gray
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get an extension until Monday? Do your best. Let me know.”
He drops his briefcase and slouches against the counter, ready to check his BlackBerry messages.
“Your day sounds as crazy as mine,” Joan says. “Would you like to have some wine? We can sit and talk. So much happened today.”
“Wine—er, no,” he says, distracted by a text message. “I think I’ll just grab a beer and watch the news for a bit.”
“I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.” Joan pulls a bottle of beer from the refrigerator for Steve. “Does this mean you won’t be able to go to Kyle’s hockey tournament this weekend? He’ll be so disappointed. And I have to take Melanie to her dance lesson, and Jake to basketball practice and tutoring. I can’t be in three places at once.”
“I don’t want to think about it right now. It might not even be an issue. If we can’t get that date postponed, I’ll have all the time in the world this weekend, but I’ll be a basket case. We’ll work it out—don’t worry.”
“But I have commitments, too. When do you think you’ll know?”
“I don’t think we can do anything about it until the morning.”
“What would you like for dinner? The kids were so ravenous, they devoured the chicken.”
“Doesn’t matter—whatever you’d like.”
“Well, we could have pasta or—”
“Really, Joan,” Steve cuts her off. “Whatever you want. I don’t want to think about it.”
“Lovely—I’m glad you appreciate the meals I shop for and prepare—and I worked today. I’ll throw something together for us.” She opens a cupboard and surveys its contents. “When we’re done, Kyle needs some help with his algebra. His grades are starting to suffer, because he’s at practice all the time—”
“All I want to think about now is that soft couch and a droning anchor.”
“Dad, you’re home!” Little Jake runs into the kitchen with his new basketball. “Want to play catch?”
“Hi, buddy!” Steve greets his son wearily.
“Not now, Jake,” Joan says. “Your dad is exhausted. And you should be doing your homework!”
“You guys are never any fun!”
Joan and Steve look at each other and know their son is right. There seems to be no downtime in their lives to kick back and to enjoy the fruits of all their hard work. So many couples today, like Joan and Steve, experience increasing frustration and confusion as they cope with the stress of their day-to-day lives.
In this scenario, rather than considering each other’s unique needs to de-stress after a demanding day, Joan and Steve are locked into their own Mars/Venus coping mechanisms, which causes considerable friction between them.
Our Differences Are Intensified by Stress
Relationships are suffering because men and women deal with stress differently. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and our differences are intensified by stress. When we do not understand our different coping mechanisms, Mars and Venus collide.
Our greatest challenge today is that men and women cope with stress differently.
Since men and women do not respond to stress in the same way, the kinds of support we require to relieve stress differ. What helps men release stress can be the opposite of what helps women feel better. While he withdraws into his cave to forget the problems of his day, she wants to interact and discuss things. When she shares her frustrations, he offers solutions, but she is simply looking for some empathy. Without a clear understanding of their unique needs and reactions to stress, they will inevitably feel unsupported and unappreciated. By remembering that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, we can overcome this tendency to collide and instead come together in mutually supportive ways. Rather than being another source of stress, our relationships can be a safe haven in which we can expect support, comfort, and ease. We need to understand our differences if we are to support each other in overcoming this challenge. This new understanding of how men and women react differently to stress will allow our relationships to thrive rather than just survive.
Recent scientific research, which is covered in the next two chapters, reveals that these different stress reactions are actually hardwired into our brains, and to a great extent are determined by the balance of our hormones. These reactions become more extreme under greater stress. In Why Mars and Venus Collide, we will use these scientific insights along with common sense to guide our way. Being aware of our innate biochemical differences frees us from the unhealthy compulsion to change our partners and eventually leads us to celebrate our differences. Instead of resenting each other, we can laugh at our differences. In practical terms, we cannot change the ways our bodies react to stress, but we can change the way we respond to our partner’s reactions to stress. Instead of resisting, resenting, or even rejecting our partners, we can learn new ways to provide the support our partners need as well as to get the support we need.
When hopelessness turns back to hope, the love in our hearts can flow again. We all intuitively know that love includes acceptance and forgiveness, but sometimes we just can’t find it. With these insights, you will discover a new level of acceptance and love that will transform your life. Instead of trying to change what cannot be changed, you will be able to focus on what is possible to change. In this process, you will discover that you have the power to bring out the best in your partner.
Rather than dwell on what you are not getting or what you don’t want, you will begin to focus on what you do want and what you can get.
This important shift will provide a new foundation for you to create a lifetime of love. The scenarios in this chapter demonstrate some of the many ways men and women commonly collide. See if you can relate to any of these common complaints or hot spots I hear when counseling both single or married women and men.
Do any of these complaints sound familiar? They are only the tip of the iceberg, but they represent a new trend in relationships. If we can see our differences in a new light, we will not only enrich communication in our relationships but also make our relationships a solid base to support all the other areas of our lives. Equipped with new insight, we can actually come closer together while coping with stress instead of being torn apart.
Why We Are Stressed
A dramatic new source of stress in our lives during the past fifty years has been the shift in the roles of men and women. A man used to go to work to provide for his family. The sense of pride and accomplishment he felt, along with the love and support he received when he returned home, helped him to cope with the many stresses of his day.
Women used to spend most of their days creating a beautiful home and family life, while nurturing friends and contributing to the community. Though being a homemaker was demanding, having time to focus on what she had to do enabled a woman to pace her life to minimize stress. There was men’s work and women’s work. Any additional demands on her partner beyond being a good provider were few, and usually involved heavy lifting.
With today’s rising