Mars and Venus on Lockdown -- Making relationships work during the pandemic.

Foreign.

Hi, everybody. Welcome back. My name is Eric Edmeads. I'm the host of your show. And I am really, really excited today to be sitting here, well, virtually sitting here with a very, very good friend and some somebody who has guided my thoughts and millions of other people's thoughts about communication in relationship. And I think there could never have been a more important time than that. We are talking about the author of a phenomenal number of books, one of which everybody's heard of and many of them also, but Men Are from Mars, Women from Venus has, in my opinion, been one of the most important, if not the most important book on the discussion of communication between men and women. And I, I can tell you that this is a rare opportunity to talk with somebody who really has dug in for decades into this topic and has been working with couples for many, many years. And I got to tell you that not only are the thoughts insightful and powerful, but they're also really entertaining. John, it's funny to say this to a friend, but honestly, you're one of my favorite speakers in the world to just sit and watch, and I don't have a lot of patience for that these days. So that, that does mean a great deal. I'm always impressed when I see you on stage, and I've been looking forward to doing this with you for a long time. Because right now, here, right now, with everything that's going on in the world, the reason that I created this show was because I just felt like life has just suddenly changed and people are worried about any number of things. And what we're getting a lot of is, okay, wash your hands socially, distance yourself. Okay, do all that stuff. But, you know, what they're not telling us is I'm cooped up in my house with my wife and husband and my children and my everybody, all in one, and all of our little stresses are coming out. And then I saw the other day, and I think I sent this to you, that the divorce rate in China is going through the roof at the moment. And that seems to have a lot to do with how long they've all been under quarantine. So I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have you here. Thank you so much for coming.

What a pleasure it is to be with you, Eric, always.

So, John, tell me, like, there's so many different avenues that I want to go into here, but I have to say I've had a number of my friends calling me, and I find myself speaking to them about some of the very basic, very early principles that I First learned from you in the early 90s, you know, talking about the differences in communication between men and women. Now we've got husbands and wives, you know, sitting in close proximity, in a closer proximity than most of them have ever had to deal with. Then we have another set of circumstances where if husbands and wives, like in my situation, where we're actually separated, you know, geographically separated at the moment. And then we've also got people that are having to navigate their divorce or their exes through all this. Let's start with this. With people cooped up, you know, in their house, and they're starting to notice stuff like, oh, I can't believe he's doing that all the time. Talk to me a little bit about how a husband and or a wife deals with the little things that seem to start to get in the way.

Well, those little things that start to get in the way build up and build up and eventually become divorce. You know, many years ago, my first book, actually before Men Are for Mars, I talked about the stages of relationships going downhill. You can talk about it in terms of the four Rs. And this is going to happen during times when you're together a lot, is that when you're together a lot, basic needs are not going to be met. Because primarily we have a need for connection, and primarily we have a need for distance. Okay, this is like very, very important. And in most cases, it's the man who has a greater need for distance, the woman has a greater need for connection. But we all need it both. And when men pull away, it kind of forces women to find connection, to distance themselves from him and look to other places in their life, like their work, their gardening, their singing, the things they enjoy doing, their hobbies, their friendships, their luncheons, whatever. There's all these activities that fill up our life. Then there's our relationship, which only part of our life. But suddenly you're at home and women are faced with looking to their partner for that connection which normally 80% of their life would fulfill. And as you know, I like to back up some of these ideas now with the modern science, which tells us that women need more estrogen than men. Biologically, they need 10 times to 20 times more, depending on different times of the month. As a result, if they don't get the hormonal stimulation of connection and depending on someone for support that stimulates estrogen, then their stress levels go up. Men, we need estrogen. Estrogen creates feelings of love and interdependence and caring and sharing and happiness. Men need that just as much. That's why we need women and our families and our people we care about. But we have a greater need for distance and separation. And that distance and separation produces testosterone, the hormone we often associate with men. Certainly women have it, but men need 10 to 30 times more to feel good, to feel loving and accepting. So that's kind of a foundation for this. Let's just keep in mind there's some biological differences here. And sometimes there's role reversal due to circumstances. For example, need, connection with my partner. But if she, due to feelings of resentment or anger, she might separate. Then at a certain point, I want to be the one who's chasing her. So there can be this role reversal. Let's keep that in mind. But the four R's start to occur once we begin to experience too much connection. Okay, so what's happening there is for the man particularly, his estrogen levels will start to rise. And when it becomes too high for men, he becomes annoyed, irritated, bothered, bugged, and so forth. As well as for women, when their estrogen goes higher and they don't feel supported, then they begin to feel dissatisfied. So the first R is resistance, the second R is resentment, the third R is rejection, and the fourth R is repression. So let's cover those real quickly. They're like dominoes. If I'm resisting you, then it's kind of like, oh, I don't really like that. I don't like that. But it keeps happening. And particularly when you're together all the time, these things are going to keep happening and keep happening. If you don't have really good communication skills to balance this need to separate and connect, the balance, the need to be able to ask what you want in a way that doesn't bother your partner. And it's harder, it's hard to ask what you want at times when you're already feeling annoyed, because then you start, the partner will start to feel controlled. You don't feel heard, so the resistance is there. If it continues and you're not able to fulfill your basic needs for distance and connection, then what happens is those little annoying things become resentment. You start to feel like, oh, I'm giving more in this relationship. I'm not getting back. And characteristically, a lot of times what I hear from women is, I do and I do and I do for him, but I'm not getting back. I feel ignored and neglected. Meanwhile, what men will often say when they're in the resentment stage is, I do so much for her, and it's never enough. To make her happy. So that's a stage we get into. And if we don't know how to deal with that. Coming back to those basic needs of feeling the separation, feeling the connection, the two different ways we can feel that, as well as other basic emotional needs, like to bump up testosterone, you need to feel appreciated. Now, if a man's not out working, he'll start to feel needy. Because, see, if my work allows me to feel appreciated, so I'm not looking to my partner as much for that. But if I'm not working, if I'm not making a difference, then what happens is my testosterone goes lower. So I'm having a greater need for appreciation at a time when probably I'm doing less for my wife than ever before.

So.

So this creates challenges when you're together all the time. Separation, of course, distance creates testosterone. That's why Buddha, when he taught meditation, it was, forget all your problems. Disconnect, separate. And mainly, men thrived through that. It was primarily taught in ancient days to men. Today, women have much more testosterone because they're more on their male side. They're more independent, so they too can run out of testosterone. So for many women, they meditate and they love it. But the key to it is the love part is the estrogen is doing things you love to do, enjoy doing, will produce estrogen. Okay, so feeling accepted the way you are, where someone's not trying to change you, also creates testosterone. So these are basic needs we all have. Just men need it more. On the female side of this, what women need is to be seen, to be heard, to feel safe, secure. That's sort of the role we men have had always throughout history as the, you know, the provider of protection, you know, holding the spear and so forth. As I'm looking at your line behind you, are you a tiger?

Tiger?

We've got to protect those women. So this is an ancient thing, is that men are protectors and we provide safety so that women can feel they can depend on us. That produces a lot of estrogen. And when you're at home, you're constantly seeing this guy who maybe he's in his studio making a video, or he's writing his book, or he's busy doing calls on the phone. She feels ignored at that time. And here's the irony, and I went through this with my wife Bonnie, is if I was working at home, she would feel ignored. But if I was working at the office, which is away from home, not in her sight, then she didn't feel ignored. So this is like, this is the problem today is that women are going to be home, guys are going to need to do their thing. She's going to feel ignored, unsupported. And so what happens is her stress levels go up. So anyway, to finish the four R's, and I know you want to make some comments on that thing we just said, but you go from resistance to resentment. If you don't overcome those feelings of resentment, then what happens is you sort of shift into this gear of rejection. And rejection is where you're not conscious of it. You just kind of disagree with your partner about everything. You know, if they want to have sex, I'm not in the mood. If you want to have sex, they're not in the mood. If you want to go to the movies, they don't want to go to the movies. If they want you to do something over here, why do I have to do it? Now? There's just sort of this immediate pushing away. Pushing away because if we were to connect at that time, it would force us to feel these negative emotions associated with resentment. And nobody wants to feel resentment. Nobody wants to feel the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the hurt, the. You don't want to feel it. So we want to push away anything that would make us feel that. So in a sense, it becomes a story my mother used to tell me from Aesop's Fables, which is sour grapes. You know, the fox wants to eat the grapes. He sees the grapes on the hill. He's all excited. I want the grapes, I want the grapes. When he gets there, there's a big fence. He can't jump over the fence. He tries many, many times. And then what he says is, oh, I didn't want those grapes. Anyway, so what happens in relationships. We have this deep need for love, affection, appreciation, acceptance. But, you know, you keep trying and because what you're doing isn't working, because we don't have this knowledge of how to make it work in most cases, then what happens is we just go, sour grapes. I don't care about it. It's not so important to me. And it's a quick pushing off. No, no, no. Then if you're stuck together, then it becomes repression. All the negative emotions go away, but you just have no feeling. You turn away your feelings, and often then you put on a smile and pretend that everything's okay. But the passion goes away, the sexual connection goes away. And previous generations, that was kind of okay. That was the peaceful time. Too comfortable, you know, you're comfortable. You feel content. You have Your own life, you share. You're good companions. You're not alone. But today, people want more than that. And so that's why there's one of the reasons there's so much divorce today. So those are the four R's. And it tends to be accelerated when we're stuck with somebody all the time, or we might even say we get to be with them all the time. But you really have this need as human beings to be close and to be apart and to find that balance.

Wow. So many interesting nuggets in there and good observations. I think that there are many times in life where things can come along and expose the cracks in the foundation. You know, for example, there are some people who think, oh, look, we're gonna go have a baby, and that's gonna make everything better. And let's be really clear, it'll make a lot of things better, but it'll expose the cracks in the foundations, and so will lockdown. You know, I really like that observation you made, and I think all men and women could really pay attention to this one in particular to make a massive transformation. And that is that. That idea that, you know, because Elise and I, it's the same way. If I'm working at home, she will often feel ignored out there. But if I'm out on the road, she feels that I'm out there slaying dragons, right? And it's like, so what's the difference? I'm still working, I'm still providing. But the proximity thing makes it feel like a choice that I've made, a choice not to be. If I'm at the office, I'm doing the right thing. And she actually said that to me one day. She came in and she's like, it's the weirdest thing. I know you're working, but that you're so close makes it feel like I'm alone. And I think that's something that we all really need to be aware of right now. And I think in both directions, frankly, I wonder even if I might feel the exact same way when she's working, do I maybe feel a little ignored that she's close? And I think all of us need to remember that we are going to have to work in various ways and try to save our businesses and try to thrive through this and so on. We're going to need to give each other the space to do that and be conscious when those feelings come up. I really, really love that distinction.

I think good communication around that can then bolster it with things like, I Just need a little me time. That would not work if you didn't already have the conversation where you had agreed upon understanding that as human beings we have this need because quite often when somebody is angry at their partner, they don't want to talk, they don't want to be close, they pull away. And instinctively it's a protection. And again, when we look at gender, I see this more commonly with women than men, but it could be the other way around. You know, I started talking about these ideas 30 years ago, but that's pretty, pretty well known joke. You ask a woman sometimes, what's the matter? And she'll say, nothing. And a man who doesn't understand women will go, oh, great, I can go watch tv. And inside of her, she'll feel like, I knew it. He doesn't care what I feel. He doesn't care what I feel. So if you say to someone, what's going on? Oh, nothing. You stand there and you ask for more. You give them time to warm up. It's literally a warming up process. And I'll switch it around because quite often women will say to men, well, what are you feeling? He needs time to warm up. She needs time to warm up. But particularly often when it comes to feelings, not every man, you have to keep balancing this. But it's not every man. But he really does have a disconnection from his feelings a lot when he's thinking about something. So I remember doing an Oprah show 30 years ago and I was pointing out the distinction of women thinking the male side is thinking the female side is feeling more if they feel safe. And a woman was complaining about her husband. And this is back when Oprah was doing therapy online. You know, in the show, she was always saying, what do you feel? What he feels. So she had this couple there and asked the woman what she felt. And the woman went on and on like, you know, how could he forget my birthday? And he bought the present at the last minute. I can't believe he didn't plan anything. And all this stuff. So she had all these feelings. Am I not important? You know, I'm insignificant. He doesn't love me anymore. She had all these assumptions about him, and which is why she need to understand that man, he loves her. He give his life for her. He just waits to the last minute to do stuff. That's his mode of operation. It's not that he doesn't love you, but her mode of operation is that when something important is going to happen, she's going to worry about it. In advance. She's going to plan. She's going to prayer prep, prep, prep, prep. Which is actually, right now, one of the. One of the causes of conflict for couples is a lot of guys are like, ah, it's not such a big deal. You know, when we get hungry, we'll go kill the. Kill the elephant. We'll go find the game. But for the woman, it's like, we have to get prepared. We have to prepare for this. What could happen? What could happen? So there's a big run in the stores and everything. So these are both valid concepts, which is prepare, but also, if there's a problem, we can handle it. Often in my books on parenting, I talk about that as the distinction between, you know, what the mother offers a lot is how to prevent things from happening. She has a higher bias towards what possible bad things could happen, what mischief can happen. And a man has a bias towards, if there's a problem, we can handle it. Cool, calm and collected. Life is filled with problems. And a father teaches his children that, you know, when bad things happen, we can handle it. And often that's misinterpreted today as a man not caring. And it has nothing to do. He doesn't care. It's just his mode of operation, which is how he does these things.

You know, John, of course, I've gone off and done all these. For the last 10 years, I've been going and spending time with the Hadza, nomadic bushmen in Africa. And you and I have had some fabulous talks about that, walking in the woods in Marin. Here's one of the thoughts I have about that. If you really, really, like, you know, think about it, like, for most of human history, there was a heavy gender bias in terms of roles. I mean, we don't have to buy into those things anymore. But it did exist. And largely the women were in camp. And what were they doing? Keeping it safe, Making sure that there weren't snakes coming into the camp. Like they're, you know, making sure things were clean. Like it was safe. It was safe. It was safe. It was always looking for things that are not safe and solving for those. And what were the men largely doing? Well, yeah, they were preparing for major threats, but mostly they were opportunity spotting. Right. Weren't they, like, sitting there, working on their bows and arrows, looking for game for hunting? Like, you know. So I think that that mindset you're talking about might just be, in a weird way, like some evolutionary throwback that men were really largely programmed to be spotting for opportunities and women were really largely there to keep the environment safe. And I think that that definitely that does feel very misunderstood these days.

Oh yeah. And you know, we can come down to, I love how you bring in the evolutionary part of it. For me. I focus a lot on the just the straight biology we know now. And this happened about 18 years ago and it's pretty fresh. Still, information for the general public is when you're physically affectionate and a non sexual way, that's important in a non sexual way, like a compliment, a hug, holding hands, stroking the hair, being close, getting a massage, petting your animals, which by the way, if you have pets, that's a great thing to be doing right now while we're hibernating, particularly for women is non sexual touch, which is, you know, you're holding your children, but also a pet for people that don't have children is a wonderful stimulator of oxytocin. Now oxytocin is this hormone that got a lot of press and many people written books on it because they found that when oxytocin levels go up, when you're having a conversation with someone, for example, where you feel safe and you're more intimate, intimacy also produces oxytocin. And let me define intimacy, not just physical intimacy, but physical intimacy is where you take off your clothes and you're naked together. Right? Well, emotional intimacy is where you, you take down all your defenses and you reveal to someone a secret. You know, this is how teenage girls would bond, particularly we have secrets. You know, guys would do things, of course it would be secretive, but it was because it was dangerous. Okay, so there's an interesting thing here, is that danger stimulates testosterone and testosterone, when it goes low is going to raise stress levels in males. When testosterone is low, it doesn't creates stress levels in females. Females need the high estrogen progesterone levels compared to a man. Men need the high testosterone levels. So a lot of times if a guy's bored, he'll go out and do something dangerous, risky, and that will then bump up his testosterone. Generally speaking for women, if they share, they talk and reveal things about themselves. Look inside me, see me, hear me. They do it in a setting where they feel safe. Well, they won't do it unless they feel safe. Basically that's the whole idea of foreplay and sex and so forth. Take time to open up, romance and so forth helps a woman to feel safe. I can really show you who I am. That stimulates oxytocin and this we know. That's why therapy is so popular, particularly for women, is it will bump up their oxytocin levels. Massage will do it. Romance will do it. Affection will do it. Now, having said all that, what oxytocin does in the research is it lowers stress levels in women. It doesn't lower stress levels in men. There's occasionally it will lower stress levels in men. That's if men have testosterone levels that are too high. But generally speaking, what oxytocin does is it raises, it lowers testosterone and raises estrogen. So men, you know, we're working hard or whatever or we're not doing any work, our testosterone levels, we deplete them or we don't make them. And so the last thing we're thinking about for most men is I need to go give some hugs. Why do I need to give hugs? Well, I remember when I first started doing the hug thing, I read a little book 40 years ago called the Hug Book. It said give four hugs a day. Well, that's my religion now, but I would have never thought of that because I don't need four hugs a day. So sex every day, okay, we're talking a different story. But hugs non physical, non sexual affection is kind of like, well, what's the big deal? You know, you do that in the beginning because you can't really do more.

Because you're in public.

So anyway, well, I learned that, you know what happens for it became very clear with Bonnie. One time I was giving her this hug and the book said, you know, make sure you don't just do a quick hug. Well, later on I found research that said that six second hug, non sexual hug actually creates that surge of oxytocin. It releases oxytocin and then there's a surge of estrogen. It's estrogen that actually lowers the women's stress level. And that's why oxytocin, which also lowers testosterone, raises estrogen, doesn't lower a man's stress level. So men are generally not motivated to do oxytocin stimulating things. And yet that's one of the primary things women need, particularly at this time when she's cooped up. That's again that need for connection. So when you're wandering through the kitchen, guys, and if she happens to be making something, just go stand by her. Just have a calm presence next to her, maybe stroke her hair, what you're doing, get her to talk a little bit. And three practical tips. I always like to get some practical takeaway things. Big estrogen stimulators for women is intimacy and if she's talking about something, try not to say much. Instead, ask more questions. The question would be, oh, help me understand that better. Oh, really? And then, so help me understand that better. Tell me more. And then what else? These are like, give us something to do because we're so much into the doing. Let me go fix something, solve something. Why are we so much into the fix it? Doing stuff is because, first of all, on a behavior level, when you do stuff, people give you rewards, okay? So you feel appreciated. But on another level, when you can solve problems, when there's a problem and you're the solution, your testosterone levels go up. And I remember one woman who said, I was explaining this in a seminar, and she jumped up and she said, that's what saved my marriage. We all said, well, what happened? And. And she said, well, I was going to divorce my husband. He was out of work. He was in Florida. He was a roofer, and he was out of work, and he was just sitting around the house watching tv. Watching tv. It's just like bringing her down because, see, an inactive man is ignoring her. You got to come back to this whole thing, you know, we were talking about before. So he's just sitting there watching tv, which is. He's ignoring her, and he's not doing anything for her.

And.

And his testosterone levels are low because he's not doing anything. So here he is. She's ready to be done with this guy. And then she said, there was a hurricane and all the roofs came off. He got up on that roof. He fixed that roof. He protected the family, got a hotel roof first. And then he went and got his job again. She said, he became my husband again because he had a job, he had something to do. He was solving problems. It bumped up his testosterone. You know, when we talk about arousal, we're actually talking about pheromones that get produced from men when they're producing a lot of testosterone. And pheromones get produced for women when they're producing a lot of estrogen and pheromones. Say to the man, oh, I've got a job to do here. Make love to this woman. And he gets aroused. His energy goes up. And for a woman, she feels like, oh, I can depend on him. I'll let him in. And she gets aroused. So, you know, the whole romantic side of relationship is hugely dependent to a great extent, certainly on good skills, but also on men's testosterone levels being bumped up due to circumstances and women's estrogen levels being bumped up during circumstances, which is why? Often, you know, I focus on what do women need most? What do men need most? Because we want to bump those levels up and because ultimately, and I think, you know, we all agree on this in personal growth. Who's responsible for our happiness? I am. You know, I can't blame the world for being unhappy. And it's funny, you know, I can talk to any audience and say, who's responsible for your success? Me. If you're a failure, what do you got to do? Change what I do. Change me. Every. Nobody questions that. But then you get a couple who want divorce. Who is responsible for your unhappiness? Him or her? We lose all of our, like, higher consciousness and awareness because we just don't have the skills, you know, the skills necessary to see how we are contributing to the problems. It's always so easy to see how they are contributing to the problems. That's always easy. But that's where knowledge and, you know, education comes in big time. And just self awareness, you know, do you want to be a victim in life and keep repeating patterns, or do you want to actually make some changes, learn some new things to create a different result? And generally that's possible.

I like, you know, let's go real practical here. So, you know, I. One of the things that I observed off visiting with the Hadza Bushmen was that every camp that I've been to now over 10 years, has a very clearly defined masculine and feminine culture, much more so than in our world. They, in fact, they physically separate. There's a fire for men and there's a fire for women. They barely interact with each other. And I've been fascinated to see that they do interact and they're respectful and sweet and kind to each other. It's just that the vast majority of their interactions are with their own culture, the male culture, the female culture. And so, you know, that's where I've really enjoyed all the translation work that you've done. Like, when a man says this, what a woman hears is this. That kind of stuff. And when a woman says this, a man hears this. I think that's really valuable. Here's what I'm concerned about, because here's what I'm hearing from people right now is, I'm home. And this stuff's kind of getting to me, you know, like, I normally can kind of put up with it, but I'm like, it's getting a bit much. One of us thinks that this is more serious than the other one. One of us thinks that it's okay for the kids to go out, play with the other kids in the playground. The other one doesn't, like, we're fighting. And I'm like, here's what I'd love, is one or two strategies for there's a fight in situ right now in the house. And bear in mind the old policy of don't fight in front of the kids is getting harder and harder to deal with because, like, we're all in one place, right?

So great point.

Like diffusing strategies. There's an argument brewing. There's tension brewing. What can a husband and wife do right now to diffuse that tension without one person? Because what I hope one of those strategies is not just let him win or let her win.

Right?

Like, I'm looking for some diffusing strategies that will be practical for people. Like today, they can go, oh, we were in a fight, and we did that thing that Eric asked John about, and now we're hugging.

Wow. Okay. Some kind of magic wand.

I know that's a big ask, but I just.

I'm all for it. My distinction when it comes to this is when you're making a decision, you have to leave motions out of it. And if there's emotional charge, you have to stop making a decision. So you have an agreement that, look, if there's. Again, these things require an understanding that if there's emotional tension, we have to have the recognition if there's emotional tension, meaning somebody doesn't feel safe. What Bonnie would say to me is, john, I don't feel you're in your heart. That was a thing we agreed upon that she could say, and then we would take a time out, and this means many, many timeouts to give a time to reflect on how you might have contributed to that problem. Now sometimes I say, she says, you're not in your heart. Okay, let me adjust. Let me adjust, because let's look at the biology here. We want to have two people from two different points of view come together in harmony with a compromise. Okay? There has to be compromise in relationship. Opposed to, she always gets her way or he always gets his way. There needs to be this compromise, and both partners need to be aware that there's a compromise. Because if you're always saying yes to your partner, they're just getting the message that they're right all the time and you're wrong all the time. And you can't have that. You know, both partners need to have dignity and respect and so forth. So we're going to do a compromise here because this issue is more important to you than. Than it is to me. Okay? That's where you have to weigh things. And if you do a compromise, which is, this is like, I see. This is an eight of importance to you. It's a four to me. We're going to go with the eight this time. What that does is creates a recognition that we went your way this time as opposed to we went your way because you're right. Okay, get the distinction. Let me give a parallel for people to understand this. After a couple years with Bonnie, she would say, you know, we always do what you want. I said, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? And she says, we go to the movies. They're always like action movies and thrillers and superheroes. We don't ever go to the ballet. We don't go to the opera. We don't do any of that stuff. And I said, oh, we can go do that. You know, I didn't know you wanted to do that. She says, well, I would always tell you, but then you would decide. I said, what are you talking about? And she explained it to me. You know, she'd say, oh, Baryshnikov is in town. There's the ballet. I said, oh, that's interest. You know, we've got this Rocky movie going on, that she would be the loving wife. She's, okay, we'll go to the Rocky movie. So I got the idea that we're going to the Rocky movie because that's the best idea as opposed to. That's the idea for me. So for several years, I thought we were always doing what we did together, but she was feeling neglected. So it's really important for women to see and men to see that if we're going to go your way, it's the compromise is we're going your way this time, which creates a kind of a balancing factor. We're always doing it your way. Let's do it my way this time. People naturally want to do that if given the awareness. Another example of that is maybe not totally appropriate now, but I'll just say it as scheduling. I would maximum every month, 10 days a month. I would be a way to travel. I can be a way to travel 10 months, 10 days a month. And sometimes she says, oh, you're gone all the time. And she'd be upset. And then I say, oh, we're having a Venus talk. I wouldn't try to figure anything out yet if she's upset. You talk about feelings and you don't get to the bottom line of making decisions. That's a Mars talk. A Mars talk is where you leave feelings out of it completely. You're saying, okay, we're only going to be logical here and look at what are the possibilities, what is the compromise we want to achieve. What's so important to you? What's so important to me? You can't have a logical talk if emotions are involved. And that's where we get inflamed. Because once you have negative emotions, we're talking about anger, we're talking about frustration, we're talking about urgency, we're talking about concerns, worries, fears, and so forth. When those buttons get pushed, we have to know biologically, blood flow stops to the prefrontal cortex, where we can make compromises and not feel like victims, where we can experience compassion, where we can come up with creative win win solutions. And the key should be a magic phrase here. You look for a magic phrase. One magic phrase is, okay, we have a difference of opinion here. And I know we're going to get through it. We're going to go for a win win. So just, I know we're going to get through it. That's a very comforting thing to both men and women, but particularly to women, which is, I know we're going to get through this together. We'll figure this out together. But first, let's have a Venus talk. Now, Venus talk is her time primarily to talk about her emotions and feelings. And for him to not say, okay, now it's my turn. That's the controversial factor here, is men always want to jump into their feelings. As soon as you jump into your feelings, she's going to go further into her feelings. And now you've got these people mirroring each other, escalating into attention. So the key is to calm everything down without saying calm down. You know, when a man says calm down to a woman, you're just putting gasoline on the fire. It's the stupidest thing in the world. And yet we do it because we think it's going to work. It doesn't work. It never works. Calm down is push it down, push it down. So what we need to do if our partner is upset is to be calm within ourselves. Now, some women might be hearing this and saying, what's my husband who gets all upset? Yeah, so stop asking questions and say, okay, let's take time. Let's take a time out. I want to first, I'm the Venus here, so let's do a Venus talk where I'm going to express some of my feelings about this. And all I need you to do is listen and understand. So that's it. So she gets a chance to talk and talk about her feelings. Then he says, now we have a mars talk. Let's try to figure this out. But you can't have a mars talk if he still emotionally upset. That's the man. Man has to come to this thing as a grounding force of, okay, let's be logical. But I'm telling you, logic is like a sword that goes into the heart when a woman is emotional. And if a man is emotional and she's logical, it will be a sword into his heart and then his estrogen will go higher, his testosterone will go low. And that's dangerous for men. Let me just say this. When men are angry, their estrogen levels are higher than their testosterone. What increases estrogen is talking about your feelings. High estrogen for women will help them to eventually relax and calm down. But first they kind of go through a wave of expressing what's inside. It's like carrying a big purse. They gather all the things out in the purse and they're upset about this and upset about this. And what are your other concerns? That's another major issue when it comes to making decisions. All right, well, let's talk about this. Let's have a Venus talk. Because I want to really understand your point of view first. When you have a gender understanding, it makes sense to see, okay, who needs the estrogen right now if you don't have this understanding? It's like, well, why do you get to go first? And why are your feelings more important than mine? Or some women would say, why is your logic more important than my feelings? Feelings will be if you're stressed. Feelings will be non rational. Okay, let's just get that. You can't make a real rational decision or a compassionate decision, a wise decision, or have something you get after 35 years of marriage wisdom. This is not a big deal. Let's just, let's look at reality here. Okay, so, oh, by the way, you said the magic phrase. I want all the women to listen to this. This is the million dollar phrase that can cut down arguments. Men can't say this unless it may be appropriate at times. But the main thing this disarm a man instantly. Let's say you're upset, he told the kids they can go out and play and you want to tell them it's really not safe to do that. We need to have somebody watching them. We don't know if somebody's going to take them away, whatever it might be or they're going to catch this thing. So he's doing something. She's upset about it. This seems counterintuitive, counter logical, but it works. She says, so, honey, I just want to talk to you immediately. His stress level is going to go up. Anytime you say to a man, I want to talk to you, or, we need to talk. I'd like to talk to you. I like to. Is a good phrase, by the way. We need to talk is not such a good phrase. I want to talk. Not such a good phrase. We have to talk is not such a good phrase. Honey, I'd like to create some time to talk. I'd like softens it. Okay? That's the first thing. Introduction with I'd like to. Because that's preference. It's not demand, it's preference. Then you say, this will only take a few minutes. That's a really disarming thing to a man. And then you say, this is not a big deal. Now, maybe inside you, our child's health and happiness is big deal. But as soon as you say, it's a big deal, he's gonna make it a big deal. He's got to. Now hold up a spear. There's a tiger. I'm gonna stand lot. You know, it's fight or flight. You want to keep everybody out of fight or flight. And so the phrase is, I just need to talk for a little bit, or I'd like to talk for a little bit. It's not a big deal. I want you to understand my point of view. And then let's reconsider what we're doing here so that it's not a big deal. It's that magic phrase. And you as a guy, as you can imagine that your wife's upset with you, and she says, now, look, Eric, it's not a big deal. I just want to talk to my feelings for a few minutes, and we can consider what to do. Boom, you're disarmed. It's relaxing. And yet what women will sometimes say to me, but what if it is a big deal? All the more importance of saying it's not a big deal. Because, you know, we know now in science that when somebody is upset, we have these mirror neurons and they will mirror back. We're like monkeys. Monkey see, monkey do. If you feel it, then I feel it. If I can't trust you, then I don't trust you. It's an immediate thing. And this goes back a long time. I mean, science tells us there's mirror neurons, but there's a whole Thing with men where if you're going to trust somebody, you're going to shake their hands and look in their eyes and say, okay, tell me you'll do this. And if you can look in somebody's eyes, hold their hand, shake their hands and feel safe, then you know this person is being real with you. But if you look in somebody's eyes and you shake hands and you say, so you really do this for me? Or is this the deal and you don't feel comfortable looking into their eyes, into the soul, that's the mirror neurons are saying, watch out, watch out, watch out. So it's a magic phrase. It's not a big deal. Add that to let's do a Venus talk. Let me just process my emotions so I can open my heart, take responsibility so I can open my heart because I don't want to turn you off. You know, and then let's have a mars talk and discuss logically, what are the consequences? Why do you want what you want? Why do I want what I want? How important is this to me? How important that is this? And let's find a compromise or win win solution.

I like this, John. The reason I look for little diffusing things like that is that frankly, you've diffused a lot of tension and arguments in various times in my life. And you know, I really like what you were talking about before, real basic stuff. But, you know, I know that if I'm sitting around with a bunch of my friends and I'm kind of low, then, yeah, one of my friends is likely going to check on in on me and he's going to go, hey, Eric, how's it going? What's up? And I'm going to go, it's all good. Nothing, nothing's bothering me. And he's going to take me literally and go back to doing whatever and let me process. And then I know equally that if my wife is out with her friends and she's a little down, they're going to ask her what's wrong. And she's going to go, well, nothing. And then they're going to go, no, no, no, really, honey, what is it? And it's a cultural difference, right? And I really value that. And I remember hearing this from you one day and I was with my first wife, Amanda, and we were driving along in the car and I had a lot going on. I mean, I had a lot going on. I look at it now compared to a worldwide pandemic and being locked in my house. And the truth is I had nothing going on. But back then, it felt like I had a lot going on. And so I was kind of quiet in the car, and she started asking me, like, what's wrong? And I said, nothing. And then she started doing something which I think works incredibly well in certain environments. Like, one. But this is what she did. She started listing off all the stuff that might be wrong. You know, is it, this, is it that? Is it, this, is it that? And exactly what you're describing happened to me. I started feeling anxiety and tension, and all this stuff started coming up in me. And what was beautiful is that because you'd taught us about this, I turned to her and I go, really? And she goes, what? And I go, really? You're listing off every worry that I have in the world. Right. And she busted out laughing. Fight averted. Fight, conversation averted. And then we had a similar reversal, just again, based on.

Can I interrupt you? You were able to bust it because you had a sense of humor with it. You didn't. You just. Really. That's the humor of it. Yeah. And.

But the sense of humor came from awareness that you'd given us.

Right?

So I had a similar. I had a similar situation where Elise and I were out for dinner one night, and at dinner, she just. She just started in on me, John. I mean, holy. It was years ago. She's like, everything was wrong. This was wrong. And that was. But then this other thing wasn't really wrong. It was just something to keep track of because we were in Sweden. And then there was this thing over here in Sweden where we could get the shawl that she really wanted, but the shop in Estonia had it in blue, and she thought that would be good. But, you know, you work too much. You work way too hard. And then, by the way, I think we. And I did what you said. I just listened. I just. I just listened. But then there's this one moment where only a few minutes ago, she'd said that I worked too much. And then suddenly she says this. She goes, and I don't think you take your work seriously. And I'm like, the courtroom drama lawyer in me wants so badly to point out the inconsistency, the lack of logic. But, John, I didn't. I did what you said. I just listened. And I let it all come out of her. And I watched her get happier and happier and happier while I felt this thing coming up in me. But I held on. I did exactly what you said. And then walking out of the restaurant, I turned to her and I go, how was Dinner for you? And she goes, that's one of. That's one of the best dinners we've ever had. And I'm like, okay. And she goes, how was it for you? And I go, I just want to know if you'd like to have a divorce like I want. It was the worst dinner in the world for me. But I said it with humor, and she busted out laughing. She goes, what do you mean? And I said, well. And I described it to her, and now that it was all, I pointed out the two inconsistencies, she goes, you're going to tell people this story on stage, aren't you? And I go, damn right I am. She says, they're going to think I'm insane. And I go, no, because everybody goes through this. And I think that that humor that you mentioned, like, if we can observe it and instead of autopiling it our way through the standard argument process, if we can sit there and go, oh, she's doing this because she's low on estrogen. How does she get estrogen? By talking out her stuff. That's great. Or he. What's going on in him? He needs testosterone. Well, me talking about all my stuff is not going to do that for me. That consciousness is super helpful. And then maybe having a sense of humor helps a lot.

It helps a huge bit. You know, you tell those stories. I have so many stories you remind me of, so I have to tell one other one. Just backing up what you just said. But I remember when I first learned this thing about when I was, like, distant, my wife would ask questions, so I would get close. And then. But the same thing happened to me is with. We'll call him Harold. We were moving into our new house. Minna from Mars was doing really, really well and so forth. And Harold did the electronics, but he never finished it. And so nothing was working in my house. You know, speakers were supposed to be in different places and so forth, and the TV wasn't set up and all that. And Harold got sick. And she kept saying, when's Harold gonna fix this? I said, I'll call him again. And he's sick, and he's sick. And I would be so annoyed during the day that I, you know, nothing was working with Harold. And it. That night, I'm lying in bed and I'm very distant because all day long I was frustrated about Harold, and I finally forgotten it. You know, just. I'm now ready to go to sleep. And she said, what's the matter? I said, nothing. And she says, is it Harold. Harold.

I just did the best I could to forget Harold.

Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, this little story helps women to kind of understand why men are always saying to women, one of the mistakes we make as men, and we don't do it intentionally, but we say to women, just forget it. Don't worry about it. It's no big deal. Because that helps us, you know, so we instinctively tend to go into what works for me will work for you. And that's. Sometimes that works, but many times that doesn't. And then the add on to your dinner, your dinner story, I just love, because there was this time where I said, okay, I'm a therapist. I listen to women, I ask questions. They always feel better later. Going to go upstairs today, and Bonnie's in a bad mood. I'm going to get her to talk, and I'm going to really be the super best listener ever. And she went on for like an hour. And I'm just thinking, how could this woman love me? All these complaints about her life and me and everything seemed like nothing was okay for her. And then at the end, I said, so, would this be a good time for me to tell you how I feel? And I was ready to blast her, quite honestly. You know, my reactions were all in there. I'm the lawyer guy, you know, every complaint she had, I'm ready to give a counter complaint or rationalization or something. And defensive, you know, we're warriors. That defensiveness comes up unless we understand what the real solution is. So. And I said to her, I said, so, Bonnie, would this be a good time for me to tell you how I feel? And she says, no. I'm like, even more upset. What? I listened to you for an hour. You're not gonna listen to me? I said, so. So would this be a good time? She says, no. And I said, oh, well, when would be a good time? She says, I don't know. I just want to bask in the sunshine of your love. That's her version of that was the best dinner we ever had. Then she went on to make my favorite dinner. Had a wonder. She was singing. I thought we were in a Disney movie. Bluebirds around the kitchen and so forth. We're with the children. And what I watched is her happiness. You know, she was loving her life and loving me, even though it didn't make sense at the time. My anger was starting to go down. It didn't go down completely, but it was going down, down, down. And I still was feeling a need to separate, to disconnect, not Separate, but disconnect. And that night, I'm going to bed, rolled over, and she goes over to her drawer, picks out some sexy outfit, lights her down. She puts it on. I think, what is she doing? What is she doing? How could she want to have sex with me? I don't want to have sex with her. But then she got into bed and. And of course, as soon as that hand went up my thigh, everything changed. We had delightful sex. And the next morning, I feel this little person coming close to me. And she says, are you awake, John? I said, yeah, I'm awake. She says, maybe this would be a good time. What was it you wanted to tell me about your feelings? There was nothing. No complaint, nothing in my mind. And I realized in that moment the most important thing for men is not to complain back, but it's to feel that we are loved and successful. And certainly if you're having a good sexual relationship, that makes a huge difference. But if you don't, there's other ways a woman can appreciate a man and let him know he's successful. It just takes a little more time than putting your hand on his thigh.

Yeah, John. She clearly was a relationship ninja.

Yeah, absolutely.

Very, very smart.

I guess, since you know my personal life and you put it in a. I don't know that everybody knows. My wife died about a year and a half ago. And even though I'm rather happy in my life right now, I'm actually still feeling a bit broken. When I get into my teaching thing, I can do that really well. But the grieving process, she is. Was a relationship ninja. She taught me so much how to bring out the best in a man and in the grieving process. And, you know, maybe this is even relevant to what people are going through when they're at home. Often if you're being triggered by being together all the time and not having these other sources of support in your life, which you would normally have, then you can start to feel trapped. You can start to feel like your dream of a happy marriage is over. And that's kind of a grieving thing. And grief is something we all need to go through at times when we feel disappointment, loss, when things happen and they die. You know, my wife died. It was devastating for me. But you feel the emotions, and you go through the emotions. And I, particularly, in my books, I talk about feeling, particularly two or three. You never stay with one. If you're just sad, you want to also shift gears and let yourself feel either regret or take some responsibility or shift into anger, shift to fears, concerns. Usually the motion we feel the easiest is just the top. It's just a surface level. It's a defense reaction. For example, when men are angry, really behind that, they're afraid. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't be angry. You know, that you defend yourself when you feel threatened. But they're so into the anger, they don't realize that there's also the fear of losing love, the fear of being rejected, the fear of not being good enough. So you shift gears. So I was sad, and I let myself feel fearful that I just, you know, I failed her. I didn't help her. I couldn't save her because I felt, you know, I'm in the health and wellness, and I couldn't save my wife of dying of ovarian cancer. It was really tough. And then felt my regrets. But once I go through it, you feel underneath all negative emotions. If you feel them, there's always a desire. You get to feel my desire for her, to help her, to love her, to have her in my life. And coming back to your desire lets the energy flow. And then I could feel my deep, deep love and how much I missed her. And that love heals the wound. When we have a loss, there's a wound and it needs more love to be healed. And to a great extent, that's an inside job. If we want to be successful at this time, when our upsets come up, we need to not look to our partner to solve the problem. We need to look to our own inner healing work. And journaling feelings, whether it be man or woman, is really, really helpful to go through. I call it the feeling letter technique. And this is actually asked for a magic thing to avoid arguments. This was for Bonnie and I saved our relationship. At times we would have arguments. We didn't understand all these gendered things to sort of avoid escalating. But when we did escalate, we would take a timeout and we both write out our emotions. And even as a man, writing out emotions helped me because, you know, expressing emotions to someone where you're trying to get them to change produces estrogen. But if you're analyzing your emotions and you're a man, it actually helps you to realize to let them go. It increases testosterone. If you're writing this letter in order to come back to a place of love, you're solving the problem. So you're acknowledging these strong emotions of anger, of disappointment, of sadness, of fear and regret. Those are four levels that I see are very relevant to healing. Then getting in touch with what you want. And when you get after you've released the emotions, what you want is usually, I want you to love me. I want to be a better partner. I see how I made mistakes. I'm so sorry. And then you write out what you want to hear from your partner. You don't have to go to them. You imagine what do you want them to say to you? And you write out what you want them to say to you, apologize to you. And then you look at how that would make me feel. That would make me feel loving and safe and whatever. Now go back and give love to your partner. Don't show them the letter. You don't have to, like, put all that out on them. The whole thing is, what do I need to do to come back to a loving place? And, you know, so many times I would want my wife to say things to me and apologize to me or whatever. So I would just first express my feelings in a letter and then write out the apology I want to hear from her. How does that make me feel then? I feel good enough. I feel loved. I feel caring. Well, that's who I am. So why don't I just go out and be more loving and caring, trusting that if I can give her the things that she needs, that's the best thing I can do to make our relationship better, Rather than trying to change her, nurture her, give her what she needs. And she had the same attitude towards me. And ironically, our whole love story started out with the minute from Mars book, But the later books actually evolved and more relationship skills. Because what I saw in the beginning is because of my background and, you know, as teachers, we teach complete accountability whenever there's a problem. How did I contribute to that? And I think my being a monk for nine years helped a foundation which is, you know, my happiness comes from inside. Most people don't have that direct experience. So if I'm unhappy, I can go back and find it, then reflect on how could I do that situation differently to bring out the best in her? So I did that for about six years. And there's a lot of the Minute from Mars ideas to improve our communication. Then she turned around feeling so safe because I made these changes, and she started saying and doing stuff that made me a better person. And here's another little technique for that that will be very helpful when you're cooped up with somebody all the time. All your partner's bad habits, Remember those little resistances they're going to compound. You know, they're doing it all the time, you know, in a sense, if I was with Bonnie right now, she'd be complaining. I'm messy. I leave the lights on. Your shoes are in the den. Why don't you bring them and put them away? Why can't you do that? You know, she's. She's like this organizing, neat person. And I'm not okay. So my tendencies could create irritation in her. So what she learned to do, and this was an ongoing thing in our marriage where she would say to me, because our house is rather large and long, you have to turn on a lot of lights to get through it. And so she'd say, John. She'd look at me with upset. She says, you forgot to turn out the lights again. How many times do I have to tell you? Now she gets so upset about the lights and the lights. Not a big deal, but it's just that she's. You know, you live with me for years. Why can't I change? You know? So there's that frustration that happens. And she look at me and of course, when I hear that, that's a stress message. So what do men do when they get a stressful message? Forget it or feel bad in your testostero and goes down. And somehow when you. We just have to know this principle. When you resist your partner, they will continue that behavior to a great extent and flip that around. If you resist your partner's feelings, they will resist and have more of those feelings. That's when I explained this to women. You know how you don't want a man to change how you feel? Well, man doesn't want you changing his behavior, but he does want to make you happy. So you have to motivate him. But not from a place of he has failed you, but a place of acceptance and appreciation of what he does. Right? So Bonnie. Bonnie figured it out. So she. She said to me one time, and only took a couple times, she said to me, she came in, I was watching tv. She says, oh, John, I was just going to the living room and the lights.