WE ARE CREATURES CALLED WOMEN - hence YOU here refers to us WOMEN
You know, men usually complain that we as women baffle them with our myriad of feelings.
When we (females) are happy, anything is alright, okay, positive, the whole world is right, and anything goes, nothing he says are wrong. Then he will assume it's okay to say and do as he does, and everyone lives happily ever after.
HOWEVER, When we are upset (i.e. anything from angry/sad/disappointed/frustrated/irked/the list of negativity goes on) - nothing ever seems right and usually we lash out at the man closest to us, maybe not in proximity but in the closest relationship with us, and usually besides our fathers or brothers.. this man is our partner/spouse/lover/boyfriend, etc. Then the men will feel confused as we are giving mixed signals - when we were happier, the same thing he said made us laugh but now it made you scowl.. he's baffled.
I am a big fan of John Gray's best-selling book - "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" - you should grab a copy if you haven't read it already. Hubby hardly reads and he finished the whole book!
Anyway, men and women are different creatures who think and act differently, and when they say opposites attract, they certainly knew what they were talking about.
DIFFERENCES
Even when two friends of the same gender come together and develop a close friendship, there are bound to be differences in thoughts/opinion/habits, hence it isn't fair to expect our partner who are of the different gender to behave and think exactly like us, isn't it?
PROBLEM-SOLVER
A man loves to solve problems and not just listen, so a woman gets irritated when he stopped her flow of ranting and sharing of her day by offering solutions.. or even worse, he judges her, criticising her moves in her 'story' that she was so eager to share with him. She then felt unhappy, and clammed up, and he knew there was something wrong, so he asked her if anything's wrong - she will force a fake smile and say: NOTHING, I'm fine. Which is the total opposite.. but she expects him to read her mind. When he just take her words at face value and didn't think much of it cos YOU SAID YOU'RE FINE - he thought just that, he will shrug off that nagging feeling that something's not right and forget about it while you cry your heart out and call your girlfriend and went through the whole two lines of conversation over and over again to see where you or he went wrong. Then you will start thinking the worst and think that you cannot live with that insensitive brat who doesn't understand your feelings and you cry some more while your girl friend agree with you and joined in the over-analysing of the whole matter -- all the time, he was already enjoying his football match with his buddies, totally forgetting about that 'small matter'.
When at first I tried to behave like a woman does - and think like a woman does - and then react like a woman does - I get the typical response from the man, as illustrated in John Grays' book named above. When we lacked communication, I felt like there was something wrong so I prompted him to speak. Again, whoever says that a woman speaks 10 times more than a man is very near the truth. With the exception of the group of talkative men which is like maybe a handful, the rest are typical men which conforms to the "man of few words" term. You cannot FORCE someone to talk more, if that's just not his nature. Doing so will only bring more stress to him, and he will retreat into his 'cave' to get away from the stress = which now becomes 'YOU'. I admit it, my guy doesn't mind me talking, but if I start to prompt him to 'talk', he'll start to move away from me, emotionally, due to the added 'stress'.
SO WHAT CAN WE WOMEN DO?
There is no fool-proof way to 'solve' this difference because to 'solve' something means to improve or change something.. and we should love and accept each other as we are. So what can we do?
SISTERS, we CAN change the way we feel - feelings are like water in our mind and heart - if we don't allow it to move/change, it will be stagnant, and mosquitoes (negativity) will lay their larvae (negative thoughts/ideas) in us and we become the breeding ground for diseases of the mind - in this case - it is OUR MIND. Who will suffer the most? Us women. We women torture and torment ourselves with negative thoughts and we will replay that unhappy moment over and over again, be it a single word/phrase/that smirk on the face/that laugh that ridiculed us/that email/text message/anything! Even that innocent smile he gave to the girl when all he thought was that she's helpful enough so he was just being friendly, and we let jealously take over and PUNISH ourselves and HIM for a whole three days by not talking to him or sometimes, the PUNISHMENT is WORSE, but is it worth it over one innocent action? Or you assumed it was a deliberate action on his part?
Just some thoughts. We should throw away that stagnant water to get new, cleaner water to fill our pond of consciousness that we call our mind. I think that's how Physics law of how water travels and moves explains anyway. We need to empty our mind of negativity in order to embrace positivity - which in return, hopefully, will inject some positivity in our relationship.
I've tried the power of positivity since 3++ years ago and so far, it has helped me many times at the darkest moment of my life -- okay, darkest sounds negative -- change it to CHALLENGING. A challenge sounds more positive and makes us feel more motivated to achieve or overcome it. At least it worked for me.
I started by changing the words I use to think/describe things/use in conversation. A simple change like - 'The weather is too hot, I hate it' - can be improved to - 'The weather is very hot (too means it's too much, negative) - I think that's a good thing as my laundry can dry faster and will have this sunshine smell. I love sunshine smell'.
You may call me an optimistic fool but if you don't try it, you'll never know. Be a skeptic, and forever skeptical you will be. Be an optimist, and you know your spirit isn't easily broken. That will certainly help relationships from breaking up, isn't it?
Of course, we are not to be the extreme of this maxim and take all the &!@# from guys as I don't condone domestic abuse or slavery of wives, and let's not get to those topics.
Change the way we think/feel or specifically - the WAY WE REACT - that makes a whole lot of difference and may just make your man reciprocate with the same positivity. I wish you love and luck!
*Up Next - I have this crazy idea to write my version of HOW TO - advice on relationships for women*
First of many series, I hope. Let's hope I maintain the mojo to continue writing. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment