Male and Female Relationships

Dr. John Gottman is one of the most important and influential researchers on couples' healthy patterns. His unique approach reveals important principles and process for enhancing couple and family health.

Gottman watches the mental, emotional and physiological reactions of the couple as they relate to each other while discussing a family situation such as planning a vacation. By hooking couples up to brain wave monitors, he has been able to track the positive and negative aspects of relationships.

His insights are consistent with the biblical record and they reveal the destructive habits that we have practiced since Adam and Eve. Successful marriages come in different packages. However, despite individual differences and commonalities all successful marriages have similar characteristics and all destructive marriages have identical markers. We will focus on those principles and integrate them with biblical principles.

Conflict can either strengthen or destroy a marriage. The way couples handle conflict is the most significant difference between being successful or unsuccessful. Those who handle differences appropriately are able to make it through life with success. They will not divorce or suffer other traumatizing problems. If, however, they cannot deal effectively with the differences which plague every couple, they will very likely separate and divorce.

Couples come to a critical path in the road of marital togetherness. If they travel along the positive path the marriage will grow. If not, it will very likely dissolve. That fork in the road is called, attack or attend. If they personally attack the other, the marriage is in real danger. If, however, they find a way to attend to each other's needs the marriage will grow.

Some would have us think that being a Christian or a Church member will keep us from having marital problems. That is not true. A Christian mate’s attack is as traumatic as a non-Christian’s and the results are just as devastating.

It is true that people who attend and become involved in church are much less likely to divorce, just believing in God doesn't provide much protection. Believing and acting with love, grace and forgiveness is the key to healthy, happy relationships.

Gottman’s research looks at the changes in a mate's heart rate, breathing and other physiological manifestations of anxiety during a conversation rather than self-reports or clinical observations. As a result it is very accurate in predicting present and future problems. After many years Gottman and his colleagues have gathered data about thousands of marriages and correlated it with marital satisfaction or destruction. They know when a couple is in trouble.

Male Female Conflict

Women, although weaker in bodily physique than a man, have the power to overcome, kill or maim him with words. Before marriage she controls her man with the promise of romance. After marriage and sexual satisfaction this approach does not work. She cannot as easily manage and control the relationship and gets frustrated so she uses strong emotional language. She thinks he is so thick skinned that the words will not hurt him but that is so wrong.

He is in the same boat. He discovers soon after the wedding that he cannot control her with words. He usually just gives up trying and tries to manage his anger and other negative emotions by acting like a stonewall.

He gets over involved in work. Religious leaders have a perfect alibi for overwork. They say it is God that forces them to stay away from home. This is the most damaging thing that can happen to a couple or family.

After marriage a man may become more interested in performing well in activities outside the home while she becomes deeply involved in children and the home. She wants to change that scenario, of course, so she attacks him for abandoning her and the kids. He withdraws even more into his own world of work and golf and leaves her to be a mother. She nags but he gets defensive and withdraws. The more she accuses him the more fragile he becomes and the more he resists her. This deadly cycle can drive them to awful behaviors. It is not her fault or his fault. It is their fault.

In an act of desperation she resorts to angry criticism to get his attention. She feels abandoned, betrayed and hurt. She thinks he wants only sex or is frustrated that he is no longer interested in intimacy. This exacerbates the problem and he withdraws faster and more often.

Thinking that he cannot “hear or understand her” she becomes insistent and more attacking. Women are normally able to express their feelings more freely and may use this ability to attack the man. The cycle continues as he reacts and withdraws and she shouts ever more loudly. They are stuck in a dance of death.

Males quiet often attack the women they love through withdrawal of attention and affection. He is more sensitive than she to emotional pain. This means that intimate discussions cause him to fear her. Intimacy means he will get hurt so he is dedicated to work, sports, male friends and external activities where he gets affirmation. The guys affirm him as do his bosses and colleagues. He is a hero at work but a bum at home.

What can he do? Unfortunately, he often turns to something or someone else to satisfy his needs, and that can lead to terrible consequences.

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