It is difficult for a man to listen to a woman when she is unhappy or disappointed.

The reason is that he knows that deep down she is blaming him for feeling the way

she does.

these numbers don't make sense, what 
the hell has he been doing with our money?

A young man who is fortunate enough to see his father succeed in fulfilling his mother’s needs enters a relationship as an adult with a  rare confidence that he too can succeed in fulfilling his partner’s needs. He is not terrified of

commitment because he knows he can deliver. He has seen it done,
up close and personal.

He also knows that when he doesn’t deliver he is

still adequate and still deserving of his woman’s love and appreciation for doing his best.

He does not condemn himself because he knows he is not perfect and that he is always doing his utmost and his best is good enough.

He is able to apologize for his mistakes because

he expects to be forgiveness, that’s love.

He knows that everyone makes mistakes.
He saw his father make mistakes and his
wife continued to love himself.

He witnessed his mother loving and forgiving his father through all mishaps.

He felt her trust and encouragement.
Even though at times his father had

disappointed her. Many men these days do not have successful role models.

For them staying in a loving relationship, getting married,

is as difficult as flying a 777 Jet without any training.

He may be able to take off, but he is sure to crash

. It’ is difficult to continue flying once you have crashed the plane a few times.

Or if you’ve witnessed your father crash.
Without a good role model training manual for

relationships, it is easy to understand why many men and women give up on relationships.

I will never forget my fiance correcting my mom before we got married my mom said that

I had worked hard to graduate from a university and completed my dream of becoming a

professional in my field of Computer science and that I had become “the perfect man”

she knew I would become.
My fiance said, “he is not perfect!”

My mother looked at me with that look in her eyes that said:
“she does not have blind faith

in you  my son.”
Well honestly I knew that up front and it didn’t matter to me.

But to my mother, she was not happy that the modern day woman would have the nerve to

feel like that,
as she was hitching her wagon on a train that was moving forward.

Her one and only son had made a choice and she would not live long enough to see if it

was the right choice.
My mother died 3 months after our wedding.
My marriage lasted 25 years before ending in a divorce!
Longer than most folks who got married during
the same period in my inner circle of associates.

Just like we wear masks in our relationships, 
we don’t always face the facts that we misunderstand the true meanings of each other’s phrases! 

We speak different languages, and we translate incorrectly.

To fully express their feelings, women assume poetic license to use various superlatives,

metaphors, and generalizations. 

When we first got together the man from Mars and the

woman from Venus encountered many of the problems with relationships we still have today. Because we still don’t recognize that we are different, we are not able to not solve

problems because we still to know the secrets of effective communication.

Ironically, we communicate well because we speak the love language at times,

But when we have problems, we need to have a translator to assist us.

Everyone should know that people from different places speak different languages,

so why do we assume that we can deal with conflict we start judging and fighting

instead of pulling out our phrase dictionaries to understand each other fully.

We use the same words in the language we speak but the way we express

them has different meanings. We need to know the difference between expressing feeling

versus expressing information. We need translators especially these days.

With the crossover in gender roles, men and women seldom mean the same things

even when they use the same words in the same environments.

For  example, when a woman says:’ I feel you never listen”.”

She does not expect the words never to be taken literally. Using the word “never”  

is just a way of expressing her frustration she is feeling at that moment. It is not

to be taken as if it is factual information.

Final thought

Fellahs the #1 complaint women have in relationships is: “I don’t feel heard.”

Even this complaint is misunderstood by men.  OK, what does it really mean?

A Man’s literal translation of “I don’t feel heard” leads him to invalidate and sometimes argue with her feelings. Men think he has heard her if he can

repeat what she said. A translation of what a woman is saying:

I don’t feel heard”  = “I feel as though you don’t fully understand what I really mean to say or care enough about how I feel. Would you show me that you

are interested in what I have to say? And at least try to figure out how I feel”

If we men really understand a woman’s complaints then we would argue less

and be able to respond more positively.  

Think about it for a minute when you are on the verge of arguing,

it’s generally because of misunderstanding each other.  

Take the time to rethink/ translate what we have heard and how to

best understand that women express feelings differently,

women inappropriately judge or invalidate their partner’s feeling,

often because she feels that he is invalidating her feelings.

This leads to wars of the sexes!

She has boxed up her stuff... and is ready to leave and she is smiling.
this can mean two things: a happy goodbye
 Or.... she might go postal in a few minutes. can you determine which?