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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
John Gray
Read between
May 20 - June 19, 2020
The Venusians discovered that by asking for the Martians’ attention in a relaxed and accepting manner the Martians were happy to redirect their attention.
When the Martians were completely preoccupied and in their caves, the Venusians also did not take it personally. They learned that this was not the time to have intimate conversations but a time to talk about problems with their friends or have fun and go shopping. When the Martians thereby felt loved and accepted, the Venusians discovered that the Martians would more quickly come out of their caves.
Men are motivated and empowered when they feel needed…. Women are motivated and empowered when they feel cherished.
In most sports today we can see an extension of this Martian competitive code. For example, in tennis I not only want to win but also try to make my friend lose by making it difficult for him to return my shots. I enjoy winning even though my friend loses.
In the beginning of a relationship, a woman gives a man a brief look that says you could be the one to make me happy. In this subtle way she actually initiates their relationship.
Similarly, when a man is in love he is motivated to be the best he can be in order to serve others. When his heart is open, he feels so confident in himself that he is capable of making major changes. Given the opportunity to prove his potential, he expresses his best self.
When a man is in love, he begins to care about another as much as himself.
He can easily endure any hardship to make her happy because her happiness makes him happy. His struggles become easier. He is energized with a higher purpose.
Given the opportunity to prove his potential, a man expresses his best self. Only when he feels he cannot succeed does he regress back to his old selfish ways.
Most men are not only hungry to give love but are starving for it. Their biggest problem is that they do not know what they are missing.
When his relationships fail he finds himself depressed and stuck in his cave. He stops caring and doesn’t know why he is so depressed.
by finding someone who needs him, he can shake off his depression and be motivated again.
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.
Empathy, understanding, validation, and compassion go a long way to assist her in becoming more receptive and appreciative of his support. Men don’t realize this because their Martian instincts tell them it’s best to be alone when they are upset.
Through sharing her feelings she begins to remember that she is worthy of love and that her needs will be fulfilled. Doubt and mistrust melt away. Her 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.
In her younger years, a woman is much more willing to sacrifice and mold herself to fulfill her partner’s needs. In a man’s younger years, he is much more self-absorbed and unaware of the needs of others. As a woman matures she realizes how she may have been giving up herself in order to please her partner. As a man matures he realizes how he can better serve and respect others.
When a woman realizes she has been giving too much, she tends to blame her partner for their unhappiness.
When a woman gives too much she should not blame her partner. Similarly, a man who gives less should not blame his partner for being negative or unreceptive to him. In both cases, blaming does not work.
When this situation occurs, instead of blaming his female partner for being resentful, a man can be compassionate and offer his support even if she doesn’t ask for it, listen to her even if at first it sounds like blame, and help her to trust and open up to him by doing little things for her to show that he cares.
Instead of blaming a man for giving less, a woman can accept and forgive her partner’s imperfections, especially when he disappoints her, trust that he wants to give more when he doesn’t offer his support, and encourage him to give more by appreciating what he does give and continuing to ask for his support.
Both of them needed to learn how to express honest feelings in a respectful way. They agreed in this third step to practice setting and respecting limits, knowing that at times they would make mistakes. Being able to make mistakes gave them a safety net while they both practiced.
When they talked and Jim interrupted, she practiced saying “I’m not finished, please hear me out.” Suddenly he started listening more and interrupting less.
As a man experiences limits, he is motivated to give more. Through respecting limits, he automatically is motivated to question the effectiveness of his behavior patterns and to start making changes. When a woman realizes that in order to receive she needs to set limits, then automatically she begins to forgive her partner and explore new ways of asking for and receiving support. When a woman sets limits, she gradually learns to relax and receive more.
A woman is particularly vulnerable to the negative and incorrect belief that she doesn’t deserve to be loved.
Hidden in the unconscious, this feeling of unworthiness generates the fear of needing others. A part of her imagines that she will not be supported.
Because she is afraid of not being supported, she unknowingly pushes away the support she needs. When a man receives the message that she doesn’t trust him to fulfill her needs, then he feels immediately rejected and is turned off.
Ironically, men are primarily motivated by being needed, but are turned off by neediness.
Without recognizing that men need to be trusted, it is difficult and confusing for women to understand the difference between needing and neediness.
“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.
It is not easy for her to depend on others and then be ignored, forgotten, or dismissed. Needing others puts her in a vulnerable position. Being ignored or disappointed hurts more because it affirms the incorrect belief that she is unworthy.
Repeatedly, when this is the case, I have assured women that they don’t have to give more to have a better relationship. Their partner actually will give them more if they give less. When a man has been ignoring her needs, it is as though they have both been asleep. When she wakes up and remembers her needs, he also wakes up and wants to give her more.
he is aware that he has neglected her and he wants to change.
Usually when a man realizes that he is unhappy and wants more romance and love in his life, his wife will suddenly begin to open up and love him again. The walls of resentment begin to melt, and love comes back to life.
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.
Just as women are afraid of receiving, men are afraid of giving. To extend himself in giving to others means to risk failure, correction, and disapproval.
Ironically, when a man really cares a lot his fear of failure increases, and he gives less. To avoid failure he stops giving to the people he wants to give to the most.
When a man is insecure he may compensate by not caring about anybody except himself. His most automatic defensive response is to say “I don’t care.”
He needed the acceptance and encouragement that he was good enough for her, and then he could feel how much he cared.
When she is disappointed or unhappy over anything, he feels like a failure. Her unhappiness confirms his deepest fear: he is just not good enough. Many women today don’t realize how vulnerable men are and how much they need love too. Love helps him to know that he is enough to fulfill others.
when he doesn’t deliver he is still adequate and still deserves love and appreciation for doing his best.
when a woman says “I feel like you never listen,” she does not expect the word never to be taken literally. Using the word never is just a way of expressing the frustration she is feeling at the moment. It is not to be taken as if it were factual information.
To fully express their feelings, women assume poetic license and use various superlatives, metaphors, and generalizations. Men mistakenly take these expressions literally. Because they misunderstand the intended meaning, they commonly react in an unsupportive manner.
a “literal” translation of a woman’s words could easily mislead a man who is used to using speech as a means of conveying only facts and information.
A translation of a woman saying “I don’t feel heard” so that a man could correctly interpret it is: “I feel as though you don’t fully understand what I really mean to say or care about how I feel. Would you show me that you are interested in what I have to say?”
when a Venusian is upset she not only uses generalities, and so forth, but also is asking for a particular kind of support. She doesn’t directly ask for that support because on Venus everyone knew that dramatic language implied a particular request.
If a man listening to a woman can recognize the implied request and respond accordingly, she will feel truly heard and loved.
“We never go out” translated into Martian means “I feel like going out and doing something together. We always have such a fun time, and I love being with you. What do you think? Would you take me out to dinner? It has been a few days since we went out.”
“Everyone ignores me” translated into Martian means “Today, I am feeling ignored and unacknowledged. I feel as though nobody sees me. Of course I’m sure some people see me, but they don’t seem to care about me. I suppose I am also disappointed that you have been so busy lately. I really do appreciate how hard you are working and sometimes I start to feel like I am not important to you. I am afraid your work is more important than me. Would you give me a hug and tell me how special I am to you?”
“I am so tired, I can’t do anything” translated into Martian means “I have been doing so much today. I really need a rest before I can do anything more. I am so lucky to have your support. Would you give me a hug and reassure me that I am doing a good job and that I deserve a rest?”
