The 1st chapter gives summaries of the other chapters in the book and basically says that Men and Women clearly have differences, different thoughts, values, behaviours, emotions and different ways of expressing emotions and dealing with situations.
Men expect women to think, communicate and react the way they do and women expect men to feel, communicate and respond the way that women do. This results in conflict. All you have to remember is that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.Be aware of the differences, take time to understand each other so you may respect each other. And don't become demanding, resentful, intolerant and judgemental.
'When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom'
Women always complain that men don't listen, men complain that women are always trying to change them. A women wants empathy, he thinks she wants solutions. A man wants acceptance, but women persist in trying to 'help' them and then the man feels like he is being controlled. We need to understand why men offer solutions and women why women seek to improve.
Lets go meet the Martians!
They value power, competency, efficiency and achievment. Thier sense of self is defined through the ability to achieve results and accomplishment. While women fantasize about romance men fantasize about fast cars and poweful technology. They are pre-occupied with things that help them express power by achieving their goals. Achieving goals is veyr important to them because it shows their competence and makes them feel good about themselves. No one else can achieve for him so they pride themselves in doing things by themselves. If women understand this about Martians they should understand why they resist being corrected or being told what to do. The issue of competence is very important, so if a woman comes along and starts telling the man 'oh do this like this do that like that' and giving unsolicited advice, it's like they are presuming that he can't do it on his own.
Because they handle problems themselves, they don't really talk about their problems unless its an urgency. Asking for help when you can do it yourself is seen as a sign of weakness. However when they do need to ask for advice then it is a sign of wisdom. They will find someone they respect, and the other Martian will then feel honoured, get into his Mr Fix-it suit and offer some gems of advice.
When a women starts talking about her feelings and the problems in her day and every other problem she has, a man thinks 'oh she needs advice' and gets into the Mr Fit-it suit and shows his love and willingness to help by offering advice.
He wants to help, he wants to be useful, be worthy of value and thus worthy of love from her, and hence offers advice. BUT... women just talk and talk, and the poor Martian is bombarded with these problems one after another even when he has offered a solution! If the Venusian is still upset (as women tend to grab every problem once they get started!) he will find it difficult to listen becuase he will think that she keeps talking about the problems because his advice was not good and therefore he thinks 'she's rejecting my advice!' and his Mr Fix-it suit gets stained as he feels he is not able to help. However, all he needs to know is-
just by listening with interest and empathy he can be supportive. She doesn't necessarily require solutions, but rather just someone to listen. Most Martians fail to note that when a Venusian is talking about a problem it is not an invitation to offer a solution.
In the next post we will travel to Venus.
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