3 Things to Learn About the Opposite Sex

We are alike in so many ways, but when it comes to relationships and love, there's no denying it: 

Men and women can seem to be complete opposites. What might surprise you however is just how many and how real these differences truly are. And yet, you can't ignore these different ways of looking at love if you want to build a successful relationship.

3 Things Men Need to Understand About Women in Relationships 

1. Conflict lingers:  My long-term study on marriage found that women are much more sensitive than men about conflict and problems that arise in relationships. When a woman has a disagreement, it lingers in her mind for two-to-three days. She replays it over and over. She wants to go over the disagreement the next day. By contrast, when men have a conflict with their partner, once it's been discussed, it's resolved. The fight doesn't linger in their minds. They have already moved on to thinking about something else.
2. Don't fix things: Men need to understand that when women have a problem and they come to share that problem with you, they don't need the problem solved. Men want to repair or fix issues when women raise them. Women just want you to listen, empathize, and say you understand.
3. Women connect through talk: Women connect and feel close to others by talking and sharing personal information. Talking time is therapeutic to women. If you want a woman to feel close to you, she needs to open up to you—and you to her. Most men feel connected by doing activities with others (poker, sports), but women feel close by simply talking.

3 Things Women Need to Understand About Men in Relationships

1. They need affirmation from their partners: Affirmation is the degree to which you are made to feel loved, cared for, and valued or special. Studies show that long-lasting relationships are those in which men feel affirmed. Women also need to feel cared for, but they have so many other people they can get affirmation from—sisters, friends, their mother, even neighbors and co-workers. Men, however, typically do not receive affirmation from anyone besides their partners.
2. Track what they do, not what they say: Men are action-oriented. They have trouble verbalizing their love. They can learn to verbalize their feelings, but they are more likely to express their love by doing, rather than by saying—like filling up your car's gas tank, picking up your cleaning, or starting the coffee in the morning. Romantic? Perhaps not by your standards, but to men it is what love is all about.
3. Talk can be a problem: Men don't like to be criticized. And when women bring up the need to change something in the relationship—or just in them—men interpret this as criticism. Women may have the best intentions at heart, but men hear that there's trouble and that it's their fault. The next time you are tempted to talk about your relationship, praise or acknowledge your partner's strengths first. Then zing him with the discussion of necessary change.

Credits: psycologytoday: Research-tested lessons for men and women in any relationship.

Published on January 21, 2010 by Terri Orbuch, Ph.D. in The Love Doctor