This afternoon, Michelle and I had an opportunity to join our friend and host of Social Chats, Tonya Scholz and her co-host, Dean Bairaktaris to discuss why and how men and women communicate differently and how understanding these differences can make or break a relationship.
It was an interesting topic, to say the least!
The truth is that good communication is at the heart of making a relationship work. But “good communication” isn’t just about you saying what you want the other person to hear. It involves understanding how to say what it is you want to say so that the other person can understand what is being said. It’s also about understanding and accepting that there are differences in the way that men and women speak, hear, process, and use the information being delivered and received.
If we can begin to understand these differences, and accept them as not as “right” or “wrong,” “better” or “worse,” but simply as different, we are on our way to improving and bring peace to all of our relationships – our romantic relationships, the relationship we have with our family and friends, those with our co-workers, and, yes, even the relationship between countries!
Below are some of the main differences we spoke about on the show.
Women tend to speak a lot more than men do,
The fact is that most women tend to speak more – a lot more – than men do. For example, research shows that, while most women tend to speak about 20,000 words a day, most men speak about 10,000 words in a day. That means that there is a 50% difference between the amount of talking that is being done between men and women.
This is why, while women tend to want to include what we feel are “important details” when telling a story or relaying information, men tend to want us to just “get to the point.” It’s also why you’ll begin to see that “glazed” look come across a man’s face when there are simply too many words being said. It’s not that he doesn’t care or doesn’t want to listen. It’s just that there’s so much coming at him at once, it’s difficult to figure out what it is you are really trying to say.
If, as women, we can understand this, then we can begin to get clear about what it is we want to say so that he can actually hear it!
Women’s and men’s brains process emotional information differently.
While men’s brains tend to process better in the left hemisphere – which is more logical and factual, women tend to process equally between both hemispheres. There are actually more areas of the woman’s brains that connect their ability to feel, process, and speak about their feelings, then in the man’s brain. This is why, if a woman is communicating very emotionally, she may have the experience that the man “doesn’t care,” because he isn’t saying anything right away. It possible that what he’s doing is processing the information coming at him. He’s actually having to “sift” through all of the emotions coming at him, coupled with the tone of voice, volume level, tears (if there are any), the intensity with which the actual words are being delivered.
If, as women, we can understand this, then we can begin to be responsible forthe manner in which we are communicating, and choose to wait until we can do so in a calm and rationale manner so that (1) he can actually hear what we’re saying, and (2) so that the processing time can be shorter.
Women tend to want to talk about several things at once, while men are more single-focused
There are two difference that fall under this category.
Men are single-focused individuals. While a woman can talk about what happened during the day, the fact that she’s worried about her friend’s surgery, and the argument that she had with a co-worker, men tend to be single-minded. That means that they will communicate better if there is one topic being addressed at a time.
By the way, ladies, this is also why he’s not listening when you’re talking to him during the game! It’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s that he’s focused on something else. It’s not personal, so don’t take it personally!
Men prefer transition time. If a man has been dealing with something at work, working on a project, or doing something that takes a lot of his attention and energy and you want to have a conversation with him, it’s probably a good idea to give him some transition time, or, what I refer to as “time to decompress.”
Allowing some time for his attention and energy to transition from one activity or topic to the other means that, when you do finally get to communicate with him, the conversation is probably going to go a lot better than if you approach him with a machine gun of questions, topics, and decisions that need to be made right away.
If, as women, we can understand and accept this difference, then we can allow time to pass so that when we finally do have the conversation we’d like to have with him, he can be present, attentive, and responsive to what we are saying.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the communication styles between men and women are “different,” does not mean that one is better or worse than the other.
If we can bring both understanding and acceptance to these differences, we’ll not only be able to improve the level and type of communication we have in our relationships, but we’ll also experience more peace, happiness, and intimacy as a result!
Feel free to contact usif you’d like more information on how you can learn learn how to communicate more effectively with members of the opposite sex!
We’ll be sharing the actual interview in our next article!
For more information on Social Chats, visit: http://socialchats.net/
Questions? Comments? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
Today’s a pretty special day at Heart’s Desire International… It’s Michelle and Arnie’s 3rd Wedding Anniversary!
For those of you who are not blessed enough to know Michelle and Arnie, I can tell you that they are one of the most inspiring, couples in the world! To see them together is to see what real, unconditional, and extraordinary love looks like! They love and respect one another, are each other’s biggest fans, and accept one another exactly the way they are and exactly the way they are not!
While their relationship isn’t “perfect,” because neither one of them is, either, the love that they share is as close to perfect as it gets!
Now, you may be wondering how Michelle got so “lucky” to end up with such an amazing relationship and marriage? You may think that she’s simply one of the lucky ones who just happened to land an amazing guy without having to go through any type of heartache. And you’d be wrong.
To see her now as a confident, motivational leader who wins one award and recognition after another, and has helped hundreds of women around the world fall in love with themselves and the man of their dreams, you would never guess that just a few years ago she was feeling alone, rejected, and heartbroken.
See, Michelle fell in and got married at a very young age, and her marriage was far from the fairytale romance she lives now. She and her ex-husband did not get along, did not know how to communicate with one another, and, after 13 years of fighting and chipping away at the love they once had, they divorced.
When she began dating again, Michelle will be the first to tell you that she had no idea what she was doing. And because her self-esteem was on the floor and she was looking outside of herself for validation, she dated some pretty bad frogs. At that time, she didn’t honor and love herself, so it was impossible for her to attract a man who would love and cherish her. She tried to create a relationship with men who were clear they did not want to commit, she stayed in dead-end relationships for longer than she should have, and she allowed men to treat her poorly.
It wasn’t until Michelle began practicing the skills we now teach women world-wide that she began to fall in love with herself. She began to realize that she was worthy of love, that she was loveable, and that she could have and deserved the type of happy, peaceful, loving relationship she had always dreamed of.
It wasn’t long before she began enjoying dating because she started attracting some really wonderful men into her life who treated her like the princess she is. She was able to have fun, meet different types of guys and have the really wonderful “problem” of having to choose which of these great guys she wanted to date exclusively! Arnie was one of those guys.
But their love story wasn’t always smooth sailing. While dating, Arnie had moments when he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in a committed relationship, so they would stop seeing each other. But Michelle would not go into a cave and hide until he was ready to tell her that he wanted to be in a relationship with her. She continued dating, attracting more generous, affectionate men of great character into her life, and, when he did come back, she had the choice of whether or not she would let him back into her life and her heart. And she did.
Today, she has the experience of waking up and falling asleep in the arms of the man she loves and who loves her with every part of his being. They laugh, love, grow, and dedicate their lives to empowering people to create the life and love of their dreams!
Michelle can tell this story so much better than I can (and I love hearing it!), so, if you’d like to learn more about how she turned her dating experience from one of pain and tears to one of constant tears of joy, join us tomorrow night, Thursday, February 13th, at 9:00pm ET. We will be offering a FREE webinar called “Ready to Love Again.”
In this webinar, you will learn:
What makes it difficult to move beyond the heartache of a breakup
The steps you can take to move beyond your heartache and toward a new future filled with LOVE
How to begin attracting new love into your life NOW!
Recently, I was working with a client who was frustrated about the fact that her long-term boyfriend had not proposed. Who can blame her? When you invest a lot of time – months, years, sometimes decades – to a relationship and it doesn’t seem to be moving forward or to be working out, it’s not unusual to begin to feel angry and resentful toward the other person. And it’s tempting to begin to blame him for the choice you made to stay in the relationship.
While it’s possible that promises were made that had you continue to stay in the relationship – such as him promising that he would propose, and it never happened – the choice to stay inside of a dead-end relationship is completely yours. You get to decide just how long you are willing to wait. And you also are the one who decides how long you are willing to put your dreams, your happiness, and your life on hold, waiting for him to pop the question.
I’m not saying that it’s “easy” to walk away from a relationship, especially if you really love the person. It’s going to take courage to stand for yourself and your dreams. But if you won’t stand for your dreams, who will?
One mistake women make is to begin to dish out ultimatums, such as: “If you want to be with me, then you need to propose and give me a ring.”
“If you want us to be together, then we have to go to counseling.”
“If you want us to get back together, then _____.”
The problem with issuing ultimatums is that they suck the love, romance, and joy right out of the proposal. Think about it this way: Do you want him to propose because he feels he has to, or because he can’t imagine living his life without you in it?
Issuing ultimatums backs the other person into a corner, and, even if you do get the proposal you want, you will never truly know for sure whether he is marrying you because he really wants to.
And, by the way, this holds true for situations other than proposals. If you’re trying to get your husband to help you around the house, take you on a vacation, or start a family, and you’re doing that by threatening to leave him, giving him the silent treatment, or withholding sex, you may get what you want, but I promise it won’t be as fulfilling as if you knew that he was doing these things because he wants nothing more than to see you happy.
So, what are the alternatives to issuing ultimatums?
Be clear about what you want. Once you know what it is you want, it’s easy to communicate that to you partner. Let your partner know that you love him and that, for you to be truly happy, you need to be married. Let him know that while you would love to spend your life with him, you know that may not be what he wants, but that it is what you want. Then stop talking. If you don’t, it highly likely that you will slip “convincing mode,” and there will be a temptation to start getting emotional and angry, and issue an ultimatum.
Realize that he may not want what you want. Just because you want to be married doesn’t mean that he wants that, too. If you’re with a man who loves and wants to take care of you, there’s a high probability that he’ll want to do what he can to please you and that he wants to spend his life with you. But there’s also a chance that he may want something different, and that doesn’t mean that either one of you is right or wrong. You simply want something different.
Know when it’s time for you to let go.Before you have this conversation, know how much longer you’re willing to stay in the relationship before moving on. However, don’t share this time frame with him, because then you’ve created a deadline, which means you just issued an ultimatum. This is your timeline for yourself.
Once you’ve expressed that you would like to be married without issuing an ultimatum, if there’s still no movement toward marriage after the amount of time that feels right for you, you’re going to have to be courageous enough to let go. This means it’s time stop putting your life and your happiness on hold, time to move on, and make space for the man who is going to want to commit to spending the rest of his life with you. This does not diminish or lessen any of the love that the two of you shared. You are simply choosing to stand for your happiness and create space for what you want to come into your life.
In case you’re wondering whether or not this really works. Remember the client I mentioned at the beginning of the post?
After a few coaching sessions, she had the conversation I described above with her boyfriend. She waited the amount of time she’d decided she was willing to wait making sure not to keep bringing it up, hinting, or reminding him. What happened? Right before her time frame was up, she got the proposal she had been waiting on for years!
They were married last week and she gets to live the rest of her life knowing that he asked her to marry him because he wanted to, and not because she forced him to!
Here’s to youliving the life and love your heart desires!
Questions? Comments? Let us know below. We love hearing from you!
I admire my husband for thousands of reasons, but one of them is his level of commitment. When he commits to doing something – whether it has to do with work, a project, or working out– he follows through until he’s done. Even when he doesn’t feel like it. It’s what has him get the results that he gets at work, life, and with his health.
Many times, what has relationships not work is that we tend to let ourselves be guided by our feelings and emotions. Now, I know that love has a lot to do with feelings and emotions, but if just feelings were enough to make relationships work, there would be no breakups and no divorces. Having a relationship that really works and stands the test of time requires something else: a high level of commitment – even when you don’t feel like it.
See, you may not feel like responding in a respectful manner when your husband or boyfriend snaps at you. However, if you strike back with sarcasm or a venomous response, you can guarantee that the conversation is not going anywhere, except south. On the other hand, if you choose to respond respectfully, or not at all (to avoid saying that nasty thing that is sitting on the tip of your tongue, just dying to pop out of your mouth), then there’s a good chance you’ll nip that potential argument in the bud so that you can have a conversation later that actually leads to a resolution.
You may not feel like saying “Thank you,” when he does something nice for you, especially if you’re upset with him, or if you think it’s something he should have done, anyway. If you choose not to say “Thank you,” you forfeit an opportunity to point out something to him that you’d like to see happen more often. However, if you do express your thanks, you send him the message that, even though you’re upset or it was something small or that he’d already said he’d do, you care enough about him to notice when he’s done something you like and let him know you appreciate it.
You also may not feel like saying, “I’m sorry” after an argument. Maybe you’re not sorryfor thinking and feeling the way you do. That’s okay. You don’t have to apologize for having your own thoughts and feelings. However, consider that apologizing for how you said what you said to him sends the message that respect him and value the intimacy in your relationship morethan you do being “right.”
Having a happy, fulfilling relationship takes work. It takes the willingness to go beyond our feelings and stand inside of a commitment to have the kind of relationship we really desire: a relationship that is built on respect, gratitude, appreciation, and love, and nothing less!
Questions? Comments? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
When working with clients, there are sometimes “themes” that come up during our conversations. What’s interesting about this is that the ladies are all different ages, in different stages of life and relationships – single, dating, in a committed relationship, or married – and living in different parts of the world. Yet, during our sessions these recurring themes begin to emerge.
One theme that has come up recently is that of wanting to know how things are going to turn out.
Whether you’re a single woman who is wary about going on a second date with the man you met online because you’re not sure if it’s going to work out, or you’re in a long-term relationship and wondering if he will eventually ask you to marry him, or you’re ready to make changes in yourself because you wants to transform the relationship you have with your husband, you’re probably asking yourself the same question:
How do I know if things are going to work out?
If you’ve asked yourself that question, know that there’s actually a fear behind it:
The fear that it won’t work out the way you hope it will.
See, every time you go out on another date or you’re with your boyfriend, wondering if he’s going to propose, you’re hoping that this is it. That you’ve finally met the one with whom you’ll share your life.
And, inside, you’re terrified that he might not be.
If you’re in a relationship or married, and you’ve finally come to the point where you realize that if there is going to be a change in this relationship, it’s going to start with you and the way you choose to treat and respond to your man, you’re also hoping that all of these changes you’re making will lead you back to that happy place you once knew together.
And, inside, you’re terrified that they won’t.
The first thing to realize is that the fear that you are feeling is normal.
When it comes to love and relationships, there simply are no guarantees.
Opening your heart to another human being, who, by the way, has his own hopes, fears, and insecurities, means being willing to take the risk that things might not turn out the way you hope they will.
The other side of that coin is that, when you are vulnerable and courageous enough to, for example, go out on one more date, let him know that you want to be married, and to show him that you’re committed enough to your marriage to do whatever is within your realm of control to make things better, there is that beautiful possibility that you will actually experience the love and happiness your heart desires!
The thing is that you’ve got to be willing to take that chance.
Yes, it can be scary.
And, no, I can’t predict that everything will work out exactly the way you want it to.
But I can promise you one thing:
The only way for there to even be a chance of experiencing the love and relationship of your dreams is to be willing to open your heart and mind up to that possibility and then taking the steps that lead you in that direction!
So, what is one step you’ve been afraid to take in your love life or relationship?
And are you willing to be courageous enough to take it and see what’s possible?
If so, leave a comment below and let me know what it is and how I might be able to support you!
Comments? Questions? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
Last week in the U.S., as you probably know, we celebrated one of my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving. For a few days, there was a collective focus on the act of taking stock of our blessings and giving thanks for them. Whether or not Thanksgiving is a holiday you celebrate, I hope you took time to think, write about, and/or verbally express thanks for the people, things, and experiences with which you are blessed.
And, while the holiday is officially over, the act of giving thanks is something you can do every day! In giving thanks regularly, you have the power to shift your state of being from one of feeling upset, sad, and disappointed to that feeling happy, fulfilled, and blessed.
It may difficult to believe that something that simple could have the power to transform the way you experience your life, health, wealth, and relationships, but it’s absolutely true!
Last week, I wrote an article about The Transformational Power of Gratitude. Earlier that day, I had the privilege of doing an interview with Michelle Richards-Phillips of GeTVisioned TV to talk about how gratitude can help create more love and peace in our lives and relationships. Of course, I threw in some other dating and relationship tips, as well! This was probably one of my favorite interviews, as I felt such a connection with Michelle as we spoke!
Several of the people who have viewed the episode have let us know that they took on the Gratitude Challenge we gave at the end of the interview and what a difference it is making for them! People are not only experiencing a feeling of gratitude in their lives, but relationships with spouses and family members are being restored!
I hope you’ll take the challenge, too, and experience the transformational power of gratitude in your own life! Click below to watch the episode, and let us know if you’re going to take the Gratitude Challenge, too!
Questions? Comments? Let us know below! We love hearing from you!
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