God Is Good All The Time!!

Dr. Phil - About Men #1

I was reading stuff online and came across this stuff on Dr. Phil's website. Pretty interesting! I can relate to some of this, and I'm sure my wife can, too. I will post different one's randomly.

Michael and Stephanie

"I cannot communicate with Michael," says Stephanie. "He's a typical male. He is so hard to talk to ... When I try to tell him what I do or don't like, Michael will shut down."

Michael says that Stephanie tends to dwell on things. "She'll walk around the whole day angry over something that I don't even know what I did," he says. "She has so many preconceived notions, what can I do to please this woman? It seems like there's nothing I can do that's good enough for her."

Stephanie turns to Dr. Phil for help: "I can't talk to my husband. Please help me communicate more effectively."

Dr. Phil starts by explaining that men have very fragile egos. "Men make a lot of relationship choices based on fear," he says, "and men have been socialized to a stereotype. Talking about feelings is just not natural for a guy."

Also, when Stephanie turns to her husband and says, "Can we talk?" what Michael hears is, "Have you got about an hour for me to chew your butt out?"

"Didn't you say that most of the time that you're talking to him, you're chewing him out?" Dr. Phil asks Stephanie.

"He deserves it," she says.

"How's that working for you?" Dr. Phil asks.

Dr. Phil drives home the point that men have fragile egos, they hate rejection, and their relationship choices are often fear based. So, when Stephanie criticizes her husband or makes an attempt at what she thinks is problem solving or communicating, he may view it as rejection. Then, if he makes a physical advance and she rejects him — which Michael says she does often — that's another blow to his ego.

Dr. Phil reads parts of the letter Stephanie wrote to Dr. Phil, in which she realized that she's not "fighting fair" with her husband. "I have done a great job of killing his character and dignity," she wrote, acknowledging that she needs to make changes from within herself.

All I'm asking you to do is recognize these characteristics about men," Dr. Phil tells Stephanie. "Men make these decisions based on fear. He's saying, 'I don't want to get rejected, I don't want to get hurt again, so I'm going to shut down.'"

Also, men have been socialized to not talk about their feelings, because showing their emotions could be perceived as weakness. "It's not natural for us to do that," Dr. Phil says. "That's just the way it is. I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's fair, it's just the way it is. And what you're doing is not working. You are attacking ... When we are attacked, physiologically we are wired up to have one of two reactions: fight or flight."

Dr. Phil says that 90 percent of problems couples have are not resolvable. "You don't solve them, you just agree to disagree," he says. "You can be right or you can be happy."