Accepting our differences can immediately lighten up our relationships. Many couples feel a heaviness in their lives, because they believe they have to sacrifice themselves to please their partners. This attitude needs to change.
Certainly every relationship requires making adjustments, compromises, and sacrifices, but we do not have to give up ourselves. Instead, we can arrive at a reasonable and fair compromise. Life is not about having everything our own way whenever we want it. We experience the opening of our hearts when we share.
When a plane takes off and flies on automatic pilot, it will arrive at its destination. Though the course seems perfect, it is not. At every point on its route, a plane’s course varies due to changing wind speeds and plane resistance. It is never perfectly on target, but it is generally moving in the right direction. A plane on automatic pilot constantly makes small adjustments to correct the direction.
Relationships are the same way. No one is ever perfect, but your partner can be the perfect person for you. If we continue to correct and adjust ourselves, we can create a lifetime of love. When we can own our mistakes and adjust our actions, we can reduce the tension in our relationships.
Without an understanding of our different needs, men and women are adjusting their actions and reactions to no avail. Our actions may be pointed in the wrong direction. My aim in Why Mars and Venus Collide is to give you the understanding and the techniques you will need to counter the disruptive effects of stress and to steer a true course to a lifetime of love.
We’ll begin by examining the dramatic new source of stress in our lives brought on by the shift in the roles of men and women. The increased pressure on women to work outside the home and the diminished potential of men to earn enough to be sole providers has shaken the foundations of our society. The complex mosaic of traditional roles and expectations for men and women, fashioned and refined for thousands of years, has been shattered, and we are still picking up the pieces.
Never before in history have we witnessed so much social change in such a short period of time. With equal rights, higher education, sexual liberation, and greater financial independence, women today have more choices to create a better life than ever before, but we are all more stressed at home. Never in history have women been expected to do so much, and that can be overwhelming on Venus. Of course, that stress is immediately transmitted to Mars and ends in misunderstanding, friction, and a sense of helplessness.
After looking at the change in the expectations in our relationships, we will review groundbreaking scientific research that supports the gender differences I have described anecdotally in all of my books. There are physiological reasons that women find comfort in talking about their problems and men prefer to retreat, or why women can multitask and remember everything while men focus on one thing at a time, forgetting everything else. I will give you an overview of the scientific research in easy-to-understand terms to show you how the brains and hormones of men and women are hardwired to respond differently to stress.
By examining how we behave differently in stressful situations, a woman’s never-ending to-do list, for example, I hope to give you new insights into how our diverse responses to stress cause us to clash. You will see how men and women really are different throughout Why Mars and Venus Collide.
Remembering and understanding our differences are only half the battle. The other half is about action—learning to cope more effectively with stress. This book aims to help you discover new ways to lower your own stress and help to lower your partner’s. Whether you are in a relationship or single, you will discover a variety of new and practical ways to improve your communication, uplift your mood, increase your energy, elevate levels of attraction in your relationship, create harmony with your partner, and enjoy a lifetime of love and romance. You will learn why communication breaks down or why your relationships have failed in the past, and what you can do now to ensure success in the future.
I will guide you through the anatomy of a fight and give you fail-safe techniques to stop a fight before it becomes hurtful and advice on how to make up. Even more important, I will teach you how to prevent fights from even starting by making Venus Talks a ritual in your lives that will relax Venetians and give Martians a sense of accomplishment with a minimum of effort.
Finally, I will suggest a variety of ways you can reduce stress in relationships by engaging in the world and reaching out to enrich your life. When you learn to cope more effectively with stress and remember the gender differences that are hardwired into our brains, you will blame stress, rather than your partner, for your problems. Instead of waiting for your partner to change, you will learn how to lower your own stress levels. When your stress is reduced, you will be freed from the compulsion to blame or change your partner. Instead, you will remember and experience the pleasure of loving and accepting your partner just the way he or she is, as you did when you first fell in love. Mars and Venus orbit around the sun on their own paths in harmony, just as men and women must do to create lasting love.
For additional support, join millions of others who visit me each week at my Web site, www.marsvenus.com (http://www.marsvenus.com). You can reinforce your new understanding of our differences by watching my free Internet TV show or listening to my radio show. On a regular basis, I answer your online questions on relationships and the biochemisty of health and happiness. In addition, to get extra relationship support regarding your personal situation at any time or place, either planned or when a crisis occurs, you can talk online or by phone with a Mars Venus relationship coach. You can also listen to our regular conference calls, in which I explore many strategies and resources to improve communication, lower stress, and enjoy better health, happiness, and loving relationships.
In addition, I invite you to join the Mars Venus Wellness Community on my Web site, where I give gender-specific advice for healthy nutrition and the cellular cleansing of your body. Just as adjustments in your behavior can make a big difference in lowering your stress levels, small but significant changes in what you eat and how you exercise can make a substantial difference as well.
As you read Why Mars and Venus Collide, I hope you share my enthusiasm and begin to talk about these new insights and resources with everyone you know. Together we can create a better world, one relationship at a time.
—John Gray, Ph.D., April 2007
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