Hi guys,
Today I am back with a book review.
Have you ever wondered how to improve your relationship with your spouse or anyone else?
I sure did and then I stumbled upon a great book to help me with this issue.
Being a bookworm, I dived right into this book, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray.
The book says that most couples tend to argue because they fail to identify the key differences between men and women. (I am guilty of this as well)
If you ever reach a point in your marriage where you are tired of dealing with the same problem over and over again, it is TOTALLY normal.
This is because men and women think differently. They have distinct emotional needs and communication preferences.
Once you know how you and your partner differ, you’ll see each other from a new perspective and understand each other better.
This knowledge will improve your relationship.
And resolve many of the struggles that arise from misunderstandings.
Moving on, here are the three lessons from the book to improve your relationships.
1. Women want men to listen to them while men desire solutions to problems.
Imagine a scenario where you and your partner came back home from a long day at work.
As both of you sit down for dinner, you start to talk to your husband about how your boss is making you work too much.
While your husband, because he is wired differently to solve problems, starts offering solutions.
Have you been in this situation before? And did it upset you because you only needed him to listen to you to make you feel better?
On the other hand, your husband only talks to you when he wants to hear a solution from you but you feel upset.
Because he does not talk about what is bothering him as you do from time to time.
Both parties try to fulfill each other’s needs the wrong way, so they end up fighting.
To solve this issue, the husband can listen to the wife without offering solutions unless she asks for help.
You can let your husband process his emotions by himself when he needs to.
2. Women need to feel loved, whereas men like the sense that they are useful.
As a woman, you can show men that you trust them and let them help when they want to, so they’ll feel useful.
As a man, you can repeatedly show women how much you love them to make them feel fulfilled.
Do you recall a situation that happened to yourself or a friend where the man in the household is trying to fix a light bulb or some DIY issue at home?
But then you try to get help and he gets annoyed?
This is because men wants to prove that they are useful and capable of handling the problem themselves.
Until they acknowledge the issue and ask for help.
When women do simple household chores at home or cook for the family.
They just want some appreciation and love from everyone else, including their husbands.
For example, whenever I have the time to cook for my family, I feel so happy as long as they enjoy the food and appreciate the effort I put into my cooking.
3. Men and women may use similar words but mean different things.
Now, this is the one I am sure you are very familiar with.
Have you ever been in a situation where you use the same word as your husband but both of you interpret it differently?
In the past, when I noticed my husband, Shawn, being very stressed at work, I would ask him if everything is alright at work. He would say everything would be fine but it seemed that was a lie.
So that made me worried about him because he did not want to tell me about it.
But I failed to realize that what he meant was that he was going to deal with the problem himself.
Because it was not a big deal and did not want to worry me.
Regardless of the problems you and your partner face in marriage, I strongly encourage both of you to take the time to read this book.
Because when you understand the key differences between how men and women think, it will go a long way in improving your relationships.
We live in a world today where divorce rates are so high because couples do not make time to understand each other.
Because they are busy with other things like work.
But it is simply not worth it. Don’t wait until the marriage has hit rock bottom and then you start trying to find a solution to fix it.
After all, as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.
Jenny
P.S. If you found this book review useful, I would love to know your thoughts on it.
Also, if you have any book recommendations, please leave a comment because I am always looking for more books to read and recommend to the Pretland family.
