The Experiment

I began reading Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus last night. As I have serious doubts in my abilities to be a good wife, I have read a lot on topics akin to this. In the first chapter, Dr. Gray wrote about how men and women are supposed to be different. Fine. I can accept this. Because of these differences, we are going to communicate in different ways. Fine. I can also accept this. He then proposed this first difference: women think that men don't listen to them. What men are really doing, however, is listening but then proposing solutions because they think their women are asking for these solutions. Problem with this is that women don't want these solutions. They simply want their men to listen and to sympathize. On the other hand, men don't want women's unsolicited comments. Unless they ask for help, women should not be giving it. And if the women do give it, we as women are undermining their masculinity by implying that they need help. Bad, very bad. He ended this chapter by giving the following challenge: for one week C is simply to listen to whatever I say with the intent to only understand, but not propose solutions. He challenged me to give no unsolicited advice or criticism during this same week.

By bedtime, I had already had to bite my tongue three times. It had only been 90 minutes. It's going to be a looong week.