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How to Have Great Communication

 

HOW TO HAVE GREAT COMMUNICATION
 
There are major and significant differences between men and women. The more you expect, accept and respect those differences, the better you’ll get along!
 
Click here to read our article on the differences between men and women.
 
 
 
The most frequent complaint men have about women is that women are always trying to change them.
 
The most frequent complaint women have about men is that men don't listen.
 
Women want empathy, yet men usually offer solutions.
 
When a woman tries to change, improve, correct or give advice to a man, men hear that they are being told that they aren't competent or don't know how to do something or that they can't do something on their own.
 
Men often feel responsible or to blame for women's problems, when they may not be to blame.
 
Men always assume women want advice and solutions to problems, that that is the best way to be helpful and to show love; women often just want someone to sincerely listen to them.
 
Housework: men avoid it, try to get others to do it at all costs, feel demeaned by doing it. For women, cleanliness of house is a manifestation of a warm, homely nest. Men and women have different thresholds for cleanliness and dirt.
  
Men often try to change a woman's mood when she is upset by offering solutions to her problems, which she interprets as discounting and invalidating her feelings.
 
Women try to change men's behaviour by offering unsolicited advice and criticism and becoming a home-improvement committee.
 
 
When women are upset, it is not the time to offer solutions, though that may be appropriate at a future time when she is calmed down.
 
A man appreciates advice and criticism when it is requested. Men are more likely to want to make improvements when they feel they are being approached as a solution to a problem (rather than as the problem itself).
 
Men have a greater need for status and independence (emphasis on separate and different); women have needs for intimacy and connection (emphasis on close and similar).
 
Women need to receive caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation, and reassurance.
 
Women are motivated when they feel special or cherished.
 
Men need to receive trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, encouragement.
 
Men are motivated when they feel needed.   A man's deepest fear is that he is not good enough or not competent enough, though he may never express this.
 
Useful Books and Sites
 
Relate offers advice, relationship counselling, sex therapy, workshops, mediation, consultations and support face-to-face, by phone and through their website. Click here for details:
 
 
Do YOU have any top tips on how to communicate in your relationship?  Why not share them?  Click here to visit our forums or why not post a quick comment below....
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