Emotions And Communication....Oh My!

I read an article not long ago that explained why men have such a hard time communicating and dealing with emotions.

Dr. John Gottman of the Gottman Relationship Institute says it’s harder for men to deal with and to recover from emotions than it is for women.

Imagine that. Could it be because we have different communication styles, different emotional needs and different lifestyles? After all, aren’t Men from Mars and Women From Venus?

Besides the fact that men are infected with MAN Disease

Gottman teaches that guys are evolved to be single taskers. To push everything out of their mind except the one thing they're hunting.

Hummm….can you say “one track mind".

He says that’s why men are slower to get into an emotional state and much slower to get back out of it once they’re there.

One article I read likened it to swimming:

“Getting emotional for women is a lot like jumping off a dock into a lake. You get wet, sure. But the dock is right there and just a few seconds later you're safe and dry. . . But for guys, "getting emotional" is like getting dropped in the middle of the ocean...bobbing in the water... surrounded by sharks....with land nowhere in site.”

Don’t laugh girls!

Deborah Tannen, in an article for the Washington Post wrote, “For women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven. Little girls create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets; similarly, women regard conversation as the cornerstone of friendship. So a woman expects her husband to be a new and improved version of a best friend. What is important is not the individual subjects that are discussed but the sense of closeness, of a life shared, that emerges when people tell their thoughts, feelings, and impressions.

Bonds between boys can be as intense as girls', but they are based less on talking, more on doing things together. Since they don't assume talk is the cement that binds a relationship, men don't know what kind of talk women want, and they don't miss it when it isn't there. ~ Sex, Lies and Conversation; Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other? by Deborah Tannen, The Washington Post, June 24, 1990