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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
John Gray
We usually become angry or frustrated with the opposite sex because we have forgotten this important truth. We expect the opposite sex to be more like ourselves. We desire them to “want what we want” and “feel the way we feel.”
Quotes
We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain ways—the ways we react and behave when we love someone.
women mistakenly expect men to feel, communicate, and respond the way women do.
A
Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.
When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.
1
To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn’t know what to do or that he can’t do it on his own.
A woman’s sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.
Instead of being goal oriented, women are relationship oriented; they are more concerned with expressing their goodness, love, and caring.
intuitive.
Generally speaking, when a woman offers unsolicited advice or tries to “help” a man, she has no idea of how critical and unloving she may sound to him.
Men need to remember that women talk about problems to get close and not necessarily to get solutions.
Many times a woman just wants to share her feelings about her day, and her husband, thinking he is helping, interrupts her by offering a steady flow of solutions to her problems.
1. A man tries to change a woman’s feelings when she is upset by becoming Mr. Fix-It and offering solutions to her problems that invalidate her feelings.
A woman tries to change a man’s behavior when he makes mistakes by becoming the home-improvement committee and offering unsolicited advice or criticism.
When our partner resists us it is probably because we have made a mistake in our timing or approach.
lessens.
A man wants to make improvements when he feels he is being approached as the solution to a problem rather than as the problem itself.
To feel better Martians go to their caves to solve problems alone.
When a Venusian becomes upset or is stressed by her day, to find relief, she seeks out someone she trusts and then talks in great detail about the problems of her day. When Venusians share feelings of being overwhelmed, they suddenly feel better. This is the Venusian way.
To feel better Venusians get together and openly talk about their problems.
To expect a man who is in his cave instantly to become open, responsive, and loving is as unrealistic as expecting a woman who is upset immediately to calm down and make complete sense. It is a mistake to expect a man to always be in touch with his loving feelings just as it is a mistake to expect a woman’s feelings to always be rational and logical.
A woman under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood.
To forget her own painful feelings a woman may become emotionally involved in the problems of others.
Martians talk about problems for only two reasons: they are blaming someone or they are seeking advice. If a woman is really upset a man assumes she is blaming him. If she seems less upset, then he assumes she is asking for advice.
Just as a man is fulfilled through working out the intricate details of solving a problem, a woman is fulfilled through talking about the details of her problems.
Men are motivated and empowered when they feel needed…. Women are motivated and empowered when they feel cherished.
Not to be needed is a slow death for a man. When a man doesn’t feel he is making a positive difference in someone else’s life, it is hard for him to continue caring about his life and relationships. It is difficult to be motivated when he is not needed. To become motivated again he needs to feel appreciated, trusted, and accepted. Not to be needed is a slow death for a man.
Most men have little awareness of how important it is to a woman to feel supported by someone who cares. Women are happy when they believe their needs will be met. When a woman is upset, overwhelmed, confused, exhausted, or hopeless what she needs most is simple companionship. She needs to feel she is not alone. She needs to feel loved and cherished.
When she is upset, out of respect he will leave her alone, or if he stays he makes matters worse by trying to solve her problems. He does not instinctively realize how very important closeness, intimacy, and sharing are to her. What she needs most is just someone to listen.
A woman’s tendency to be compulsive relaxes as she remembers that she is worthy of love—she doesn’t have to earn it; she can relax, give less, and receive more. She deserves it.
Similarly, many women today are also tired of giving. They want time off. Time to explore being themselves. Time to care about themselves first. They want someone to provide emotional support, someone they don’t have to take care of. The Martians fit the bill perfectly.
“Needing” is openly reaching out and asking for support from a man in a trusting manner, one that assumes that he will do his best. This empowers him. “Neediness,” however, is desperately needing support because you don’t trust you will get it. It pushes men away and makes them feel rejected and unappreciated.
When she wakes up and remembers her needs, he also wakes up and wants to give her more.
A man’s deepest fear is that he is not good enough
or that he is incompetent. He compensates for this fear by focusing on increasing his power and competence. Success, achievement, and efficiency are foremost in his life. Before they discovered the Venusians, the Martians were so concerned with these qualities that they didn’t care about anything or anybody else. A man appears most uncaring when he is afraid.
A man’s deepest fear is that he is not good enough or that he is incompetent.
Just as women are afraid of receiving, men are afraid of giving.
It is difficult for a man to listen to a woman when she is unhappy or disappointed because he feels like a failure.
It is very difficult for a man to differentiate between empathy and sympathy. He hates to be pitied.
A Success Story Once, on a trip to Sweden to teach my relationship seminar, I called back to California from New York, informing Bonnie that I had left my passport at home. She reacted in such a beautiful and loving way. She didn’t lecture me on being more responsible. Instead she laughed and said, “Oh my goodness, John, you have such adventures. What are you going to do?” I asked her to fax my passport to the Swedish consulate, and the problem was solved. She was so cooperative. Never once did she succumb to lecturing me on being more prepared. She was even proud of me for finding a solution
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I started saying “I would be happy to do that.”
A woman should not be judged for needing this reassurance, just as a man should not be judged for needing to withdraw.
When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer.
A man automatically alternates between needing intimacy and autonomy.
To a certain extent a man loses himself through connecting with his partner.
