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He Says…She Says

The Differences in What Men and Women Have to Say About Relationships And How They Say I

When it comes to relationships, it is a known fact that men and women differ greatly in what they want and how they express what they need. Proven scientific fact attributes these differences in needs, wants, and how we communicate them in relationships, back to our primal days. The basic and built in differences between men and women are indisputable. However, even with all of these inherent differences in needs and communications in and about relationships, we both have some commonalities that must be met in order to have a long term relationship of any kind.

When you understand the basic communication differences between men and women, you can clearly distinguish how we differ on our views of relationships and what we have to say about them. Men are great communicators, as are many women. However, men and women have very different means and motives behind the way we communicate.

Men undoubtedly analyze each situation and talk when it will result in getting things done. They also talk in terms of facts rather than feelings and how those facts affect them internally. Men center their speech and expressions around task accomplishments. They may speak with a tone and intent that seems as if they lack sentiment. Do not interpret these communication techniques as lack of emotion or feeling about relationships, but rather as just as how their speech comes across. Men have a burning primal need to ‘fix’ anything that is amiss in a relationship due to their analytical approach to problem solving and communication. Therefore, when relationship encounters obstacles, they view them methodically and without emotion and think they can fix the problem like they fix their car. While it may come across as an inability to ‘share’ their deep dark emotional self and how the relationship problems are hurting them too, their step by step analytical approach to just fixing it and not asking any questions about why it is broke is a natural response to them. Simply put, men see a crack or loose wire in their relationship and they simply want to seal it, caulk it, fix it and call it a day. They see no need to ask why it cracked or how the crack or loose wire made them feel.

Women, on the other hand, have much more to say about relationships and an entirely different way of expressing it. It is actually a fact that women do literally talk more then men. Women, as opposed to men, use language to communicate feelings. They will express their emotions verbally as a primal way of showing empathy and support to who they are communicating with. Rather than state the facts, they will try to bring harmony and equality into the conversation. Women use language as a rapport builder and as a nurturing tool. They will verbally express their empathy and let you know they too feel your pain. They also will see a problem in a relationship and want to express verbally how it makes them feel. While they may know men do not want to express their feelings on the same level, women will naturally want to extract and share in the emotions they feel around them. So in essence, if women see the same crack or leak in a relationship, they will undoubtedly want to talk about how the leak makes them feel and demand the man tells how the leak has made home feel!

Knowing these deep rooted biological differences in how men and women communicate makes it much clearer when trying to decipher why they seem to be speaking a different language when talking about relationships. Women will say they see relationships as a lot of emotional work with a great time commitment to expressing how you feel. They say they want to feel secure and free to express their nurturing and emotional side. They also say they need to feel appreciated. They want this conveyed in words and more importantly in actions. Men on the other hand will say they want simple things out of a relationship. They really just want to feel needed and be confident that if there is something wrong in your life or relationship, they can fix it. They say relationships should be easy. They also will say that if the relationship is strong, they should not have to express their feelings in words.

The great thing about understanding these differences in communication and how men and women feel about relationships is that there are still very common fundamentals. Men and women will both say they really want to be loved and respected by the other. If men can find a way of gently verbally expressing this love and respect and women can find a way of not needing verbal verification of a man’s feeling, both may eventually be able to see relationships the same way.