Grounds for a Good Marriage Rosario Alfaro Martínez (psycotherapist)

It is important to take into consideration the psychological differences between a man and a woman, regarding communication. Men and women languages have the same words, but they are used in very different ways so they acquire different meaning. The expressions are very similar, but they have different connotations and emotional emphasis.

In order to express their feelings, women adopt a poetic style and the use of several superlatives, metaphors and generalizations. Men misunderstand such expressions in a literal way.

Men are used to using speech as a means of transmitting facts or information, on the other hand, women think aloud, sharing an internal discovery process with an interested listener. A woman often discovers what she wants to say through a simple verbal process. Men process the information in a very different way, before talking or answering they “meditate” or think what they heard or experimented in an internal and silent way, they figure out the most useful and right answer. They elaborate it inside first and then they express it. This process can take a few minutes or hours. And to confuse women even more, if they do not have enough information to elaborate an answer, they can even not answer.

Women have to learn that when a man is troubled or stresses, he automatically stops talking to solve things. Nobody can enter that “cave” not even his best friends. After a certain period of time men will come out end everything will be al right. Women should not try to make a man speak before he is ready. In an intimate relationship, men need to feel very safe before they can open and ask for support.

A good communication needs participation of both sides. When a men learns how to listen and interpret correctly women’s feelings and vice versa, communication becomes much easier. Just the way it happens with art, listening needs practice.

Women do not talk to transmit or gather information (and this is the only reason why a man talks).

Women talk to analyze and discover what they want to say (he stops talking to look inside himself what he wants to say) She talks thinking aloud.

Women talk to feel better and more concentrated when they feel upset (he stops talking when he feels upset, he has the opportunity to feel calm inside his “cave”).

Women talk to create intimacy. Showing their intimate feelings they are able to know their affective personality. A man stops talking to find himself again. He is afraid that too much intimacy might move him away from himself.