Women are wanting a better connection yet her behaviours repel him, men want more sexual connections unaware he is killing her desire to see him as attractive so she struggles with wanting a sexual connection.
When you sit in my shoes and you watch what men and women naturally do in relationships, especially when they go wrong, it’s easy to see that growing up none of us (me included) naturally understood or were taught how to keep connection, love and passion alive.
It’s why so many detach, have affairs or settle.
This post is about helping people understand and accept they are simply not designed to understand each other.
Overcoming that understanding, we are not designed to understand each other is the first hurdle.
You see, we must rid ourselves of our expectations of how our partners should behave and start to learn about these critical differences.
The simple answer is my partner will not behave like me or think like me; they are different and are supposed to be.
The second hurdle is understanding how they are different and why.
This is critical because too many people are becoming judges of their partners’ behaviours.
You’re too sensitive, you have no empathy, and if you don’t do it my way or think the same as me you are wrong.
Other people are seeing this lack of alignment as a loss of connection and a loss of love.
This is not true; they are usually normal differences. What’s abnormal and destructive is helping your partner to feel bad about their natural difference.
The problem couples suffer from is not seeing their differences as strengths, so they make each other wrong – this is the problem.
The next question is why?
Why is my partner this way? Why do they do what they do?
I remember one lady who diagnosed her husband with some kind of mind-degenerating illness like dementia.
He couldn’t remember some details about what had happened the week before.
So she kept telling him his memory was going.
All she was really doing was knocking his confidence in him being who he was.
In fact, the more she helped him to think there was a problem the more exaggerated his memory loss became, and even he became worried.
When she was asked to stop, his confidence was reclaimed, and his clarity came back.
What she didn’t know was it was normal for men to not remember what to him is irrelevant details.
What is normal for most women is they have very clear memories, but there is a reason.
As humans, we tend to remember times when there were important emotions present.
Women tend to experience the world emotionally, and men are less likely to experience the world this way which is why the memory isn’t there.
In fact, most men have rejected their emotional response in favour of looking at the facts.
Women can see men as being blunt or tactless when all he is being is honest.
In contrast, all he sees is she is overly sensitive.
When men communicate, what they say is all they mean, when women communicate, what they mean is really attached to what they feel, based on what they say.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
To compound this problem, couples do not understand themselves or each other.
All this will create is a heightened need to control their partner.
Understanding human behaviour in the context of intimate relationships is fascinating and, for me a real pleasure to teach individuals and couples how to get the best from themselves and each other.
It’s gratifying to watch the penny drop as each person starts to put the correct meaning to what is really happening at home.
Now they can swap their worries for freedom and live the life they were always supposed to.
Harley Street Expert | Founder & High Performance Coach
With two decades of experience helping couples out of crisis, Stephen the founder of The Marriage Breakthrough Program, uses his proven system for rescuing and rebuilding relationships on the edge of divorce. A trusted advisor to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders globally, his work blends emotional intelligence with strategic clarity. Known for navigating highly complex relationship challenges, Stephen helps individuals and couples find clarity and direction when everything is at stake.
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