Understanding your Boyfriend

Men and Women are two Different Species

I’ve dedicated this month of reading to the topic of relationships. I want to understand how we can encourage our partners to be more in touch with their emotions in order to have more effective communication.

To be honest, I’m mostly looking to understand men’s brains in more depth to help you, girls, as my inbox is full of ‘How can I get my boyfriend to understand my needs?’ and ‘He doesn’t see that he’s hurting me! ’

So, I went old school and started reading Men are from Mars,Women are From Venus, and came across the cave.

What is described in the book is that men like to come up with solutions to problems alone! They are wired to be independent with problem-solving. When there is a problem in the relationship they feel obliged to come up with the solution alone. So they retreat to their cave, they need space to figure out the problem in their own little cave.

Then they will eventually come out of the cave and present solutions. This sounds simple enough, right? But no! Because women are very different. We like to talk and put it all out of the table. We like to solve problems together. We need to talk about all our emotions in order to come to the solution.

The problem then arises when women enter the cave. A big no-no in the book supposedly. Men then feel smothered. He states: men often feel offended that women think they can’t solve the problem alone. He will then rebel, a fight may occur. The more the women enter the cave the more distant and resistant the man will become.

He suggests that we should let the man enter the cave and come out when he’s ready and both people can come to a solution at that point, and while he’s in the cave women can talk out the solutions to other women. ( Thank god for the girls eh !)

I’m still reading the book, it’s definitely worth the read by the way and I will keep you updated if I come across any other tactics but I thought maybe some of you could try this tactic and see how it works in your relationships. I mean it’s worth a shot eh!

Buy Men are From Mars,Women Are From Venus by clicking here

Todays Journal prompt

Reflect on all the times you think you entered the cave and how you could of approached it differently.

Sinead ‘Would love to get into mars’ Hegarty