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WHAT WOMEN WANT MEN TO KNOW:
When a woman wants to improve something, whether in her environment or her relationship, it isn’t because she disapproves of it – it’s because she sees the potential for making it better.
Women are natural fixers, natural healers, natural helpers. We are always on the lookout for whatever or whoever needs assistance. If we hear just a little change of tone in our baby’s cry while she’s in her crib, we quickly go in to check and make sure she’s all right. If we see a woman in a store struggling to zip up the back of her dress, we volunteer to help. If we know a friend is going through a difficult time, we call just to see if she needs anything. If we sense our lover is having a rough day, we ask him what’s wrong, and if there’s anything we can do.
Again, perhaps it is because we are genetically designed to be mothers that we have such an elaborate system of built-in radar that detects need in others. Over and over again in my interviews with women for this book, they asked me to explain this to men: When a woman is trying to help or improve something in her relationship with you, she isn’t doing it out of a desire to criticize or make you feel wrong – she’s doing it out of love, and with a vision of the potential for something even greater to blossom between you.
WHY MEN FEEL CONTROLLED WHEN WOMEN’S CREATIVE ENERGY FLOWS
I believe that, at times, men love the part of a woman that is a “manifester” and “improver,” but they can also fear and mistrust it. There is a force to that expression of a woman’s nature that often makes men uncomfortable, like gazing upon a rushing body of water that can’t be stopped as it moves forward. They know they are witnessing something intense, something powerful, and something that appears, at times, almost relentless in its mission to manifest a particular outcome. And in a way, they are right – for when a woman is in a creative mode, she is tapping into the primordial life force that reverberates deep inside of her Whether she is conscious of this or not, she is, in that moment, a channel for what the Eastern mystics call the shakti, the life-giving principle, the creative power that is responsible for every form of manifestation.
Here’s an important point I want to share with you: The intensity of the creative life force manifesting itself in a woman’s behavior or intention can mistakenly appear aggressive, domineering, and controlling to a man.
WHAT WOMEN WANT MEN TO KNOW:
A woman’s tendency to create or improve can be misinterpreted by men as tendency to control.
Men, a woman could be expressing her tendency to manifest or improve by planning a trip for the two of you, redecorating the bedroom, attempting to offer her suggestions for a problem you’ve been having with a coworker, proposing you both go to a therapist to work on your relationship, or asking you what you’d like for dinner – it often doesn’t matter what her specific behavior is – and somehow you end up feeling as if she is trying to control you, to get you to do things her way.
Let me share a story from my past that perfectly illustrates this point:
Many years ago when I was in one of my first serious relationships, my partner and I decided to take a trip to the Caribbean – neither of us had been there before and we agreed that we would treat ourselves and go. I asked him if he wanted to make the arrangements, and he suggested I go ahead and look into it. Our vacation was approaching in only four months, so I thought I’d better get started on the plans right away.
The next day I went to the bookstore and bought several guidebooks for the Caribbean islands. I began researching all of the different places we could stay, called the 800 numbers to order free brochures from various hotels, and got in touch with some friends who’d taken several trips to a number of islands to ask their opinion of the best places to visit. Within days, I had pages of data about every aspect of our upcoming journey.
One evening later that week, I enthusiastically showed my partner all the information I’d discovered, explaining in detail which hotels in our budget seemed best, which islands had the most features suited to our taste, and what airlines offered the most convenient and economical flights. I sat there bursting with excitement as I shared the results of my vacation project, and couldn’t wait to see my mate’s reaction, for I was certain he’d be so pleased with me and the thorough job I’d done.
You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I finished my presentation and looked at my partner, only to discover that he had a horribly cold look on his face.
“Is something wrong?” I asked him. He didn’t respond; he just kept looking at me with that same uncomfortable stare.
“Didn’t you like the places I showed you?” I probed.
“They were fine,” he finally said in a flat voice, breaking the icy silence.
“But what’s the matter?” I pleaded. “Why do you look like you’re mad at me?”
“It’s just the way you did all of this,” he said in a sharp tone. “Why did you even bother telling me about it? I mean, it looks like you’ve already made up your mind about where you want to go and what you like best. Since it’s your plan, there’s really nothing for me to say.”
My plan? What was he talking about? It was our vacation. All I did was do the research. I couldn’t understand why he was so upset with me.
“But I thought you told me to go ahead and look into this,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d make it into a full-time job,” he retorted sarcastically. “As usual, you’re taking control and doing things your way.”
Tears began to fill my eyes, and trickle down my cheeks. “I wasn’t trying to take control,” I insisted, my voice trembling with emotion. “I was just trying to plan a wonderful vacation. And now you’ve ruined it!”
I forget how the conversation ended, but I remember exactly how I felt: I was shocked, confused, and very hurt. How could he interpret my trying to create the perfect vacation as controlling? My only intention had been to make him happy, and to get information that would help us make the best decisions. What had gone wrong?
Many years have passed since this incident, but I’ve experienced others like it over and over again, and heard countless stories from women about similar circumstances – she is happily in her creative mode, focused on a plan or project or purpose for herself and her partner, and he reacts with irritation, annoyance, or even anger. She ends up feeling hurt and unappreciated. He ends up feeling controlled and manipulated.
Why do men interpret a woman’s creative focus as an attempt to control them? The answer is complicated, but in part it has to do with a man’s need to feel autonomous, and his habit of rebelling when he feels he is being told what to do. (See Chapter 8 for more on this.) For instance, in the story about my boyfriend and the Caribbean trip, my thorough and passionate presentation of the travel information unconsciously made him feel as though he had no choice, as if I was announcing, “This is what we are doing.” Of course, that was not my intention at all; my theory is that he interpreted the intensity and detail of my communication almost as a command.
WHAT WOMEN WANT MEN TO KNOW:
When a woman plans or suggests something for your relationship, she is not trying to control you – she is trying to contribute, to create more love and happiness.
HOW MEN MISINTERPRET THIS:
Men often mistake a woman’s creative enthusiasm for domination, and the intensity of her passion for a direct order.
Remember: In most cases, a woman’s true intention really isn’t to tell you what to do. It’s to share her input and offer her creative contribution, whether by planning a vacation or finding you a new doctor or suggesting she redecorate the living room, or asking that you spend some time together to talk about issues in your relationship.
Don’t mistake the intensity of her creative energy for a dominant attitude. Usually she’s not being aggressive – she’s just being enthusiastic. She’s not being controlling – she’s being caring.
WHAT MEN CAN DO:
1. When you find yourself feeling controlled by the woman in your life, ask yourself:
“What is her true intention in doing this?”
This is a powerful question that can snap you out of the unconscious reflex of concluding that she is controlling you. If you take the time to ask this question, you’ll probably discover the true answer within your own heart:
“She is doing this because she loves me.”
“She wants to manifest something wonderful or make something better, or plan something delightful, but her intention is not to control me.”
Note: I’m not saying there aren’t angry, controlling women out there. But I’ve found that much of the time when a man who’s in a pretty good relationship feels controlled, he’s misinterpreting his woman’s behavior in the ways you’ve been reading about.
2. Practice recognizing the things she does as expressions of her creative nature, rather than reacting to them in the old critical way.
HOW A WOMAN’S CREATIVE NATURE CAN BACKFIRE
The propensity to create something out of nothing is a woman’s blessing, but it can also be our curse. It is a blessing when we are inspired to decorate an empty house and turn it into a home, or create a costume for our child from scratch, or manifest a romantic evening for our mate. But it is a problem when we create an emotional problem where there really wasn’t any. Here are some examples I know every woman will relate to:
Your husband has a funny look on his face when he leaves the house, and you can’t get it out of your mind. All day long, you create scenario after scenario about what might be wrong, and by the time he comes home you are sure he wants a divorce and just hasn’t told you yet. Later, he tells you that he had a terrible case of indigestion.
You call your boyfriend at work to check on your plans together for the evening. He sounds distant, and not very excited about seeing you. When you get off the phone, you begin to worry. Maybe he’s feeling too cramped in the relationship, stifled because you’re spending so much time together. Maybe he’s trying to tell you that he wants to slow things down. When he comes over to pick you up for dinner, you are a nervous wreck. However, he is sweet and loving, as if everything is fine. Over your meal he tells you that he’d just come out of a very tense staff meeting when you called and had someone waiting in his office to speak with him about it.
WHAT WOMEN WANT MEN TO KNOW:
A woman’s habit of creating can sometimes work against us as we create unnecessary worry, insecurity, or fear about our relationship.
We admit it, guys: Women know we do this, and believe me, we don’t like this part of ourselves. So while we try to work on it (and that’s in another book!), we’d appreciate it if you can remember that when we get too creative and imagine things that aren’t there, you can help prevent a negative emotional spiral by telling us what’s going on with you.
WHAT WOMEN WOULD LIKE MEN TO DO:
When you realize we look or sound upset and you have no idea why, ASK US WHAT’S WRONG. This gives us an opportunity to tell you what we think is happening, so if we are mistaken, you can correct it, and we can avoid being upset over nothing.
If you notice in a particular moment that you aren’t feeling well, or are stressed or worried, try to let us know. You don’t have to go into details, but just informing us that you are anxious for some reason that has nothing to do with us, will allow us not to jump to the wrong conclusion and create a problem where there isn’t any.
I know that putting these suggestions into practice may feel unnatural at first, guys, but believe me, you will like the results: Your woman will be calmer, less emotionally reactive for no reason, and much more fun to be around.
3 WOMEN HAVE A SACRED RELATIONSHIP WITH TIME (#ulink_7d3bf672-f7c2-56b3-acd9-5ea7429379cc)
To really understand the nature of a woman, you have to understand the nature of her relationship with time. Learning how a woman experiences time, thinks about time, and makes decisions about time will teach you the secrets of her mind and heart. This is something you’ve probably never thought of before. Frankly, I hadn’t either until I began doing the research for this book. But as I interviewed women and collected questionnaires they’d filled out for me, a pattern began to emerge: Over and over again, what these women wanted men to know had something to do with time.
The more I thought about this, the more I realized that, indeed, issues about time are often at the very center of our love life. If you examine the disagreements, conflicts and areas of tension in your intimate relationship, you’ll discover, perhaps to your surprise, that many of them have to do with time. Here are some examples:
Conflicts over giving time:
Disagreeing about how much time you spend together
Disagreeing about how much intimate time is enough or too much
Disagreeing about staying in touch – phone calls, checking in, etc.
Wanting to spend time apart
Not understanding the importance of sharing special time
Promising time to someone or something else when your partner expected you to give her your time instead
Conflicts over remembering time:
Forgetting to perform promised tasks, such as making a reservation or passing on a message
Forgetting to ask how an important event in time turned out, like how her doctor’s appointment went or what happened at your child’s school meeting
Forgetting to inform her of something that affects the future, such as the fact that you’ll be out of town on the weekend of the big church social
Conflicts over respecting time:
Being late
Procrastinating about doing things you say you will do
Diminishing the significance of an event a woman thinks is important
Conflicts over planning time:
Waiting until the last minute to make plans
Criticizing your partner for wanting to plan in advance
Conflicts over celebrating time:
Disagreeing about how to celebrate special occasions
Disagreeing about what constitutes a special occasion
Forgetting birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
Are you as amazed reading this list as I was? I’d never realized how many conflicts over time couples get into. However, once I thought back over my own relationships, I could see that time issues were often indeed the source of many disagreements. Getting this feedback from women made me decide to talk about time early on in this book.
Men and women have very different ways of relating to time, and these differences create continual misunderstandings between us that are the cause of ongoing conflict in our relationship.
To women, time is not simply something that passes, or a way to measure our experience of living. Time is something we are very intimate with, and therefore something we honor and hold sacred.
WHAT WOMEN WANT MEN TO KNOW:
Women have a sacred relationship with time
Why is this true for women? It is not something we are taught, or even something we are conscious of. Like our nature to put love first and to create, having a special and sacred relationship with time is part of who we are.
This intimate relationship with time is programmed into a woman’s biology. At this most fundamental level of our existence, women are intimately aware of the cycles of time in a way men are not, for our body cycles in a monthly rhythm. From the moment we begin menstruating as young girls, we become conscious of each day, each week that passes, waiting for another cycle to begin. This is where we first learn our habit of counting, and we never stop. The counting and watching of time continues through other cycles in different phases of our lives: when we are pregnant, as we count the months until our baby is born; when we have a child, and count the hours between feedings, and then later, the time between doctor’s visits, meals, and baths.
Let’s look at several ways a woman’s relationship with time manifests itself in her behavior, and how men often misinterpret or misunderstand this behavior:
1. Women are natural timekeepers.
Women like to keep track of time. Ask us how long it’s been since our daughter’s last dental checkup, or since our dog’s last bath, or since we spoke on the phone to our mother, or since we had our hair cut, or since we made love with our husband, and we will tell you. Accurately. Men are always astonished at our ability to do this, and often become quite annoyed with us, particularly when we correct them.
“You know, we haven’t been to the movies in a long time,” a woman says to her husband. “I’d love to go out Friday night if we can get a baby-sitter.”
“What do you mean – we just went to the movies. Wasn’t it a few weeks ago?”
“No,” she replies with certainty, “it wasn’t a few weeks ago; it was more like two months ago! I remember exactly when we went, because it was right after my parents were here for my cousin’s wedding.”
“Whatever,” he grumbles. Of course, now that she explains it, he knows she is right. But he’s still irritated with her for remembering so precisely!
This penchant women have for accurately chronicling time manifests itself in many ways:
Women keep track of tasks men don’t want to be reminded of.
“You haven’t called your mother in three weeks.”
“It’s been a month since you mowed the lawn.”
“You were supposed to drop off that package for your brother five days ago.”
Women keep track of how accurately men keep promises about time.
“You said we’d talk this weekend about possibly re-landscaping the front yard next spring, but it’s Sunday night and we still haven’t discussed it.”
“Where have you been? You told me you’d get home by six so we’d have time to eat before going to the play, and it’s almost seven!”
“You promised you’d call me when you got to your hotel, but I didn’t hear from you until late last night.”
