It’s no secret that men and women communicate differently. It’s also no secret that those differences create barriers that result in conflict in romantic relationships.
There’s really no getting around this issue but there are ways to minimize arguments and develop conversations with each other to gain understanding with your partner.
First things first, honesty is the best policy. This could not be truer. Being open and honest with your significant other eliminates misunderstandings. For example, us girls love using the phrase, “I’m fine,” which could have many meanings and men are well aware that we’re most likely not “fine.” If we’re truly not all right, we should speak up. He won’t know what’s wrong, and we won’t get the reaction we want.
When an argument does arise, our conflicting communication styles can intensify the disagreement even more. According to Discovery, men avoid questions, interrupt them and emotionally shut down. This causes us girls to feel guarded and offended. Discovery then goes on to explain the apology after the argument. Women apologize regardless of what they might be feeling in order to restore connection where men may skip out on apologizing in fear of what it makes them look like to the other person. This of course causes us to feel insulted. This argument could then last forever!
Not only do we argue differently, we express ourselves in two completely different ways. LiveStrong.com stated, “Women connect through conversation, while men connect through action.” With that being said, men should have the understanding that we communicate by sharing emotions and we need to understand that they communicate by sharing ideas and suggestions. This is like night and day. Of course we won’t see eye to eye on everything, we’re seeing things from two different perspectives. We must realize this and make peace with it in order to have cohesiveness in a relationship.
Here are the facts; neither one of us will be right all of the time, neither one of us can read minds and most importantly, not every argument is worth having. If we both learn to show some empathy and pick our battles, we can have successful relationships. No relationship is required to be perfect, but it should always be healthy and learning how to communicate with one another is the first step to achieve that.
Emotions and Information
Women connect through conversation, while men connect through action, according to Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D. a psychotherapist, in the “Psychology Today” article, “Men, Women, Emotions and Communication.” When a woman wants to talk, she wants to share emotions and thoughts, while a man generally shares ideas, suggestions and facts and avoids talking about feelings, writes Goldsmith. That doesn’t mean that a man won’t talk about his feelings, but he might be uncomfortable while doing so.
(Feature Photo via We Heart It)