Earlier this week, I sat with a successful and glamorous friend of mine having lunch in our beautiful village pub with log fires roaring as we shared some crisp white wine. At the table next to us were three beautiful and well-groomed 30-somethings whose conversation centred upon their frustration with the men in their respective lives.
The blonde was recounting a story about how she and her partner had arrived at a wedding just in time to see the bride and groom leaving the church because in spite of being horribly lost, her husband absolutely refused to stop and ask anyone the way. The brunette was outraged that having put their children to bed singlehandedly every night this year and still greeting her husband with smiles and a glass of wine when he came in from late meetings or boys drinks, he by contrast was so stressed having done it once whilst she went to an exercise class that he couldn’t speak to her for over an hour and behaved as if he had just ‘negotiated world peace’. The redhead was marveling at how her fiancée would insist that he had lost his moisturiser every morning and frantically demand where she had moved it to, only for her to open the bathroom cabinet to find it in the same place that it was every morning. After each had told their story with much animation and hand waving, and sympathized with the grievances of her friends, their frustration turned to laughter and they relaxed into the rest of their lunch.
This was fascinating to me on a two levels: firstly it was a wonderful example of how the differences between the sexes continue to frustrate and annoy despite the number of self-help books on the market, and secondly it demonstrated how effective talking is for women as a means of stress relief.
With the added pressures of the recession over the last couple of years, ‘Relate’ reports that 25 per cent of families admit to arguing more and that across the UK 66 per cent of their counseling centres have seen an increase in demand for their services. It is estimated that the number of divorces will rise this year and depressingly, websites offering introductions for married people looking for an affair have reported a sharp upturn in business, particularly from executives seeking to relieve stress and wives who feel that they have no one to talk to.
In a calm moment, most of us would accept that men and women respond differently to stress and difficult situations and whilst we can laugh about it objectively, in the heat of the moment those differences can seem insurmountable and start us on an unnecessary road to possible break up. With another difficult year ahead for many of us, it can be invaluable to spend a little time reminding ourselves that those traits that we find so irritating are in fact hard wired differences between the sexes.
Male brains respond to objects and their shapes, female brains respond to people and faces. Studies of babies from just a few hours to a few months old consistently demonstrate that boys like things, girls like people. At 12 weeks old, a boy will be better than a girl at locating a lost toy, but a girl will perform better at recognising pictures of family. These differences exist long before any social conditioning can take place and they are visible throughout childhood.
This trend continues into our adult lives and shapes how we deal with situations. Men, still programmed to literally ‘bring home the bacon’ (whether or not they actually are the main breadwinner) are most likely to define themselves by their work and accomplishments whereas women will assess their self worth by the quality of their relationships. This echoes our traditional roles, the man as the hunter and problem solver providing food for survival and the woman as nest defender ensuring the existence and survival of the next generation. Studies in the 1990s showed that 70 – 80 per cent of men saw work as their most important role and that the same number of women reported the family as their greatest priority.
When under pressure, a man sees talking about the situation as interference to solving the problem; a woman finds the act of talking a stress relief in itself. A man, with his competitive and protective instincts, wants to find space and quiet to solve the problem and come back to the woman with a solution, a woman, with her focus on the quality of her relationships, finds the process of working through the stress together as important as the solution itself. To a man, the woman’s need to talk is annoying and counterproductive, to a woman, the man’s need for space seems uncaring and disinterested.
These perceptions are the result of the differing organisations and priorities of the brains. Understanding that these differences exist can make co-existing with your partner easier.
Often, I am told of situations where a woman, having complained to her husband that she doesn’t feel appreciated, is bewildered when his response is to change a blown light bulb or mow the lawn. He is trying to show his appreciation by solving problems because this sense of achievement is what makes him feel better. He can’t understand why spending an hour talking would be valuable, because nothing tangible would have changed at the end of the activity. A man will often’complain, ‘nothing makes her happy’ referring to his provision of things, a woman will complain, ‘he doesn’t care’ referring to his inability to listen without offering solutions.
It is important to a man not to be seen to be wrong because they equate that with failure and this again goes back to the time when a man was solely responsible for providing food for his family. Weakness or mistakes could genuinely leave his family starving and this sense of responsibility remains in the brain even though the financial responsibility in families is now shared in most cases. When a woman says to a man, ‘why don’t you ask for directions?’ he hears, ‘you’re incompetent’. In an attempt to show his mate that he is capable of protecting and providing for her he will determinedly continue to drive around desperately hoping that he will somehow find his destination regardless of being utterly lost.
Under pressure, a woman’s speech function is activated and we talk. We will talk and talk to anyone who will listen, to our friends for hours, to our colleagues, even to the person on the checkout at the supermarket. We examine our problems from all angles, discuss past problems, how they link to our present problems and how these may lead to future problems; we can discuss many subjects at the same time and importantly, no conclusions are necessary.
Under the same pressure, a man will find that his logic and problem solving brain function is activated and he doesn’t want to talk about it, he wants to do something to solve it and reach a conclusion as quickly as possible so that he can move onto the next task. A man will take himself off, physically or mentally, to a quiet place so that he can examine the problem and come up with the right answer.
The problem when we come together in stress is that with such different coping and survival strategies it can be very difficult to successfully negotiate the issues as a couple. A woman talks, a man offers solutions, a woman dismisses them because a conclusion was not the aim, a man is then confused and so tries to minimize the problem by saying ‘forget about it, it’s not a big deal’, a woman then feels rejected because he didn’t care enough to just listen!
Relationships are tough, but in spite of the challenges and the fact that in modern society we do not need to follow the traditional roles of our ancestors, the majority of the human species still chooses to live with one significant partner whom they build their life with. Given this and the fact that very few of us are able to enjoy a stress free existence, a little effort to understand why the opposite sex behave the way that they do may make life easier to enjoy together. After all, if nothing else, the frustrations of our existence together provide both men and women with something to laugh about when they get together with other members of their own gender, and as we all know, laughter is an excellent antidote to stress!
Executive and Life Coach, Rachael Wood, www.ogilviedavies.com can be contacted at Rachael@ogilviedavies.com
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