Several years ago, marriage therapist John Gray wrote a book titled, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. He tried to explain the difficulties and challenges of marriage by pointing out that men and women come from different planets. Women are from the planet Venus which is named after the goddess of love, and men are from Mars which is named after the god of war. According to Gray, if you understand this basic difference, you have a fighting chance of making your marriage work.
My problem with Gray’s thesis is this: he assumes men and women are from the same universe. Mars and Venus, after all, are in the same galaxy and in the same universe. Physics on Mars works the same way as it does on Venus. This hasn’t been my experience at all. What works in Jeannie’s world doesn’t work in my world at all. We’re not only on different planets, we’re not even in the same universe!
Jeannie is very different than me. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I love all of her differences! I will say, however, it took me a long time to understand just HOW different she is from me. She looks at the world differently than I do. She uses words differently than I do. She uses silences differently than I do. I finally understood Jeannie has her own language, and if I was going to be a good husband, I had to learn to speak her language. I had to learn to speak “Jeannie-ese.”
Couples complain that the other person doesn’t talk to them. A wife will say her husband never talks to her. When I confront the husband about being non-verbal, he’s usually shocked. He’ll tell me he talks to his wife all of the time. She just doesn’t listen.
The truth is he does talk to her. The problem is he’s talking to her in HIS language. She doesn’t understand his language. (Funny, any guy would understand exactly what the husband was saying.) If she’s going to learn to talk to him, the wife is going to have to learn his language. (Yes, grunts count as entire words.)
And if he’s going to understand his wife, he’s going to have to learn to speak her language. (Sometimes, she’ll say, “OK, that’s fine” when it isn’t. A well-trained marriage linguist will recognize the difference.)
Husbands, if you love your wife, learn to speak her language. Sure, she needs to learn your language, but understand that anytime someone wants to speak something deeply important, they always go to their heart language. So, if you really want to know what matters to her, you’ll need to speak her language.
And wives, when he wants to say something important, he’ll speak in his language. Make sure you know what he’s saying.
Learn his language. Learn her language. Every marriage is multi-lingual.
