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by
John Gray
Read between
May 20 - June 19, 2020
more aware that she needs to be heard and he needs to listen more when he is not pulling away. In addition, he knows that listening helps him to become aware of what he wants to share in a conversation.
To initiate a conversation the wise woman learns not to demand that a man talk but asks that he truly listen to her.
She trusts that he will gradually open up more as he feels accepted and listens to her feelings. She does not punish him or chase after him. She understands that sometimes her intimate feelings trigger his need to pull away while at other times (when he is on his way back) he is quite capable of hearing her intimate feelings.
A woman is like a wave. When she feels loved her self-esteem rises and falls in a wave motion. When she is feeling really good, she will reach a peak, but then suddenly her mood may change and her wave crashes down. This crash is temporary. After she reaches bottom suddenly her mood will shift and she will again feel good about herself. Automatically her wave begins to rise back up. When a woman’s wave rises she feels she has an abundance of love to give, but when it falls she feels her inner emptiness and needs to be filled up with love.
During this down time she especially needs to talk about problems and be heard and understood.
soon after she reaches the bottom, if she feels loved and supported, she will automatically start to feel better. As suddenly as she may have crashed, she will automatically rise up and again radiate love in her relationships.
A woman’s ability to give and receive love in her relationships is generally a reflection of how she is feeling about herself. When she is not feeling as good about herself, she is unable to be as accepting and appreciative of her partner.
In relationships, men pull back and then get close, while women rise and fall in their ability to love themselves and others.
A man assumes that her sudden change of mood is based solely on his behavior. When she is happy he takes credit, but when she is unhappy he also feels responsible.
When a woman moves into her well, he needs to learn that this is when she needs him the most, and it is not a problem to be solved or fixed, but an opportunity to support her with unconditional love.
Bill made the mistake of trying to prevent his partner from “going down” or “bottoming out.” He tried to rescue her by pulling her up. He had not learned that when his wife was going down she needed to hit bottom before she could come up.
When his wife, Mary, started to crash, her first symptom was to feel overwhelmed. Instead of listening to her with caring, warmth, and empathy, he would try to bring her back up with explanations of why she shouldn’t be so upset.
What she needs is someone to be with her as she goes down, to listen to her while she shares her feelings, and to empathize with what she is going through. Even if a man can’t fully understand why a woman feels overwhelmed, he can offer his love, attention, and support.
when a woman goes into her well, if she feels supported she doesn’t necessarily feel better right away. She may feel worse. But that is a sign that his support may be helping. His support may actually help her to hit bottom sooner, and then she can and will feel better. To genuinely come up she first needs to hit bottom. That is the cycle.
When a woman comes out of the well she becomes her usual loving self again. This positive shift is generally misunderstood by men. A man typically thinks that whatever was bothering her is now completely healed or resolved. This is not the case. It is an illusion. Because she is suddenly more loving and positive he mistakenly thinks all her issues are resolved.
When a woman goes into her well her deepest issues tend to surface. These issues may have to do with the relationship, but usually they are heavily charged from her past relationships and childhood. Whatever remains to be healed or resolved from her past inevitably will come up.
Warning Signs for Men That She May Be Going into Her Well or When She Needs His Love the Most
As she feels more and more supported at these difficult times, she begins to trust the relationship and is able to journey in and out of her well without conflict in her relationship or struggle in her life. This is the blessing of a loving relationship. To support a woman when she is in her well is a special gift that she will greatly appreciate. Gradually she will become free from the gripping influence of her past.
After her wave peaked, suddenly she started feeling very needy and possessive. She became insecure and demanded more attention. This was the beginning of her descent into the well.
A man’s love and support cannot instantly resolve a woman’s issues. His love, however, can make it safe for her to go deeper into her well. It is naïve to expect a woman to be perfectly loving all the time. He can expect these issues to come up again and again. Each time, however, he can get better at supporting her.
A woman going into her well is not a man’s fault or his failure. By being more supportive he cannot prevent it from happening, but he can help her through these difficult times.
A woman has within herself the ability to spontaneously rise up after she has hit bottom. A man does not have to fix her. She is not broken but just ne...
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This tendency to be like a wave increases when a woman is in an intimate relationship. It is essential that she feel safe to go through this cycle. Otherwise she works hard at pretending that everything is always all right and suppresses her negative feelings.
When a woman doesn’t feel safe to go into her well, her only alternative is to avoid intimacy and sex or to suppress and numb her feelings through addictions like drinking, overeating, overworking, or overcaretaking. Even with her addictions, however, she periodically will fall into her well and her feelings may come up in a most uncontrolled fashion.
When negative feelings are suppressed positive feelings become suppressed as well, and love dies. Avoiding arguments and fights certainly is healthy but not by suppressing feelings.
Some women who avoid dealing with their negative emotions and resist the natural wave motion of their feelings experience premenstrual syndrome (PMS). There is a strong correlation between PMS and the inability to cope with negative feelings in a positive way. In some cases women who have learned successfully to deal with their feelings have felt their PMS symptoms disappear.
One study revealed that a woman’s self-esteem generally rises and falls in a cycle between twenty-one and thirty-five days. No studies have been done on how often a man pulls back like a rubber band, but my experience is that it is about the same. A woman’s self-esteem cycle is not necessarily in sync with her menstrual cycle, but it does average out at twenty-eight days.
A wise man learns to go out of his way to help a woman feel safe to rise and fall. He releases his judgments and demands and learns how to give the required support. As a result he enjoys a relationship that increases in love and passion over the years. He may have to weather a few emotional storms or droughts, but the reward is much greater. The uninitiated man still suffers from storms and droughts, but because he does not know the art of loving her through her time in the well, their love stops growing and gradually becomes repressed.
what can happen when the wave and the rubber band occur around the same time.
Cathy’s experience of abandonment is hard for a Martian to understand. Martian logic says “I have been so wonderful for the past two weeks. Shouldn’t that entitle me to a little time off? I have been giving to you all this time, now it’s time for me. You should be more secure and reassured about my love than ever.” Venusian logic approaches the experience differently: “These last two weeks have been so wonderful. I have let myself open up to you more than ever. Losing your loving attention is more painful than ever. I started to really open up and then you pulled away.”
By not fully trusting and opening up, Cathy had spent years protecting herself from being hurt. But during their two weeks of living in love she started to open up more than she ever had in her adult life.
If given the chance to share and explore her hurt, deep feelings would have emerged. Cathy would have hit bottom, and then she would have felt significantly better. Once again, she would have been willing to trust intimacy, even knowing it can be painful when inevitably he temporarily pulls away.
Sometimes when a woman is hurting she may even agree intellectually that she shouldn’t be hurting. But emotionally she is still hurting and doesn’t want to hear from him that she shouldn’t be hurting. What she needs is his understanding of why she is hurting.
Women instinctively know that if only their pain can be heard then they can trust their partner to make whatever changes he can make. When Cathy shared her hurt, she just needed to be heard and then be reassured that he wasn’t permanently reverting back to the old Harris, addicted to TV and emotionally unavailable.
Men argue for the right to be free while women argue for the right to be upset. Men want space while women want understanding.
It was naïve for Harris to think that Cathy’s anger, resentment, and feelings of powerlessness from being neglected for twelve years were going to go away after two weeks of being in love.
It was equally naïve for Cathy to think that Harris could sustain his focus on her and the family without taking time to pull away and focus on himself.
She was not just reacting to Harris watching TV that night but to the years of being neglected.
By supporting her need to be heard she could support his need to be free.
“What if I just can’t listen and I need to be in my cave? Sometimes, I start to listen and I become furious.”
When her wave crashes and she needs to be heard the most, sometimes his rubber band is triggered and he needs to pull away. He cannot give her what she needs.
When a man needs to pull away and a woman needs to talk, his trying to listen only makes matters worse. After a short time he either will be judging her and possibly explode with anger or he will become incredibly tired or distracted, and she will become more upset. When he is not capable of listening attentively with caring, understanding, and respect, these three actions can help:
1. Accept Your Limitations The first thing you need to do is accept that you need to pull away and have nothing to give. No matter how loving you want to be, you cannot listen attentively. Don’t try to listen when you can’t. 2. Understand Her Pain Next, you need to understand that she needs more than you can give at this moment. Her pain is valid. Don’t make her wrong for needing more or for being hurt. It hurts to be abandoned when she needs your love. You are not wrong for needing space, and she is not wrong for wanting to be close. You may be afraid that she will not forgive you or trust.
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