Men are from Mars Women are from Venus

I recently finished a book that received a lot of hype back in the 90’s called Men are from Mars Women are from Venus. I mostly read it to laugh at it because most marriage relationship-building books I have read have been cliché, but there were some things that caught me by surprise like: men are like rubber bands emotionally and without reason we pull away from relationships, from intimacy to autonomy and then back to intimacy. Women must understand that it’s nothing personal or nothing against them or the relationship, we just have to pull back and when we return to the relationship we are just as fresh with the intimacy and psychologically we are back where we left off. This motion can freak out any woman in a relationship. The author, John Gray, goes on to say that if women try their best keep the man from pulling away the man will become irritable, uptight and short-fused.  It was interesting to see the author defending both sides of the relationship where most books tend to blame the man for failing relationships.

Another interesting thought is to never play the martyr. If you are always giving into to your spouse, doing what they want, giving them everything, and agreeing with what they say all the time (even if they are wrong, possibly) because you are more scared of them divorcing you, you are not in a healthy relationship. Either the man or the woman in this situation will fall into a bitter resentment a decade later.

Of course, Gray also went into respecting each other by embracing the differences in gender and communication which is also healthy for any newlyweds that may not understand that.

Have you ever read this book or seen the movie? I would love to hear your take on it, or recommend reading it if you have not.

Go Martians!