Counselling -

How to Prevent Your Differences From Breaking Your Relationship Apart

Men and women are different, very different. This may seem obvious, yet such a high number of people in dating and marriage relationships attempt to ignore or cover up this obvious fact. As a result, great numbers of men and women continue to measure the behaviour and attitudes of the opposite sex by their own gender standards. They may not be sure what their mate thinks or feels in a particular situation, so they retreat to what is familiar to them. What may be considered a normal behaviour pattern for men when communicating with each other, may in fact be the exact opposite for women. It's therefore vital to walk a mile in another person's shoes to gain perspective. In the case of dating and marriage relationships, it may require much more than a mile's walk, due to our vast differences.

Imagine that a person is seeking to understand their mate better. They describe a situation that is troubling to them and then ask why their mate behaves in that particular manner. Let's assume they receive a good logical answer to their question. What do you think they often do next? Do they take the information and ponder it, think about how to work it into the fabric of their lives? Sadly, many don't. What far too many people do is attempt to fight the answer. They become defensive and instead of pondering the new information, they attack it. "Well that's not what a woman would do," or "that's not what a man would do."

The language may be different than what I just used, but the message is clear...why can't the opposite sex being more like us? Why can't women get to the point quicker, be more efficient when they talk? Why don't men get it, how come it's so difficult for him to understand what I'm trying to say?

The problem is clear. Too many men and women are suffering unnecessary pain because they are measuring their mate by unrealistic standards. They are putting absurd expectations on their mate that can't be met. Their spouse is getting the message that there is something wrong with them, that there's some sort of fatal flaw they've got. If these unrealistic standards, unrealistic expectations aren't adjusted to reflect reality, the spouse or mate that is being measured by these will eventually become despondent and/or give up trying altogether.

The solution requires each gender to be willing to look at things from a different perspective and walk a mile in the opposite sex's shoes. As mentioned earlier, it will most likely require several miles to gain the valued perspective necessary to make the marriage more harmonious.

Why are you together? Fuzzy and unclear objectives or goals are the basis for failure in any human endeavour. This is also a very serious problem for dating and marriage relationships. Too often we believe that getting into the relationship is the ultimate goal. Once in the relationship we figure we've arrived, yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The world we live in is far more complex than what our ancestors dealt with. The marriage relationship is also more complex and requires a much higher degree of skill than it did when our roles and responsibilities as husbands and wives were rigidly defined. It's essential for men and women to increase their understanding of the communication patterns of the opposite sex.

For a marriage to be truly effective, it must function as a team. Intellectually we may agree with this point, yet so few of us have had the benefit of watching this level of team work in action. Truth be told, learning to work as a team in marriage is a much more challenging task than most people anticipate. It can be successfully argued that no human relationship is full of more emotion than the marriage relationship.

Because of this emotional intensity, it's vital for a couple to learn how to work cooperatively together. This will enable them to prosper as a couple and as a family. It will also prevent them from tearing each other to shreds as a result of the emotional intensity that has not been properly channelled. Clear objectives for the couple help to channel their collective passions. They also help each member to see their differences as beneficial to the team. Good teams are diverse teams. Where one is strong, the other is weak.