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How Many Small
Misunderstandings Lead To
Big
Problems

Article by Dr. John
Gray

How Many Small
Misunderstandings Lead To Big
Problems

By Dr. John Gray, taken
from http://www.marsvenus.com/

The secret for creating lasting love and
romance is in learning how to solve little
problems, which most often grow out of a
series of simple misunderstandings.

When we think about failed relationships, we
often focus on what big problems occurred that
drove a happy couple apart.

But surprisingly it is most often a long list
of small issues that in the end created those big
problems and created a breach between once loving
partners.

That said, if couples can learn to address
the small stuff well, then the big problems become
much easier to handle.

Whether we stop to consciously acknowledge it
or not, our feelings are hurt by each small
misunderstanding. Over a short period of time
those small hurts become like a physical bruise.
It can heal if left alone, but when the same spot
is poked at again and again, that bruise has no
chance to heal.

Don't blame yourself for this, and don't
blame your partner.

We can hurt each other's feelings with little
or no awareness that we have done so. To
facilitate healing, we can learn to accept
imperfection by practicing forgiveness. At the
same time it is wise for us to learn from our
mistakes.

It can help men and women greatly in their
forgiving of each other when they learn that as
men (Martians) and women (Venusians) they tend to
speak and think differently. Those differences in
communication styles often create communication
gaffs in which no offense was meant, but offense
was taken. Feelings are hurt
unintentionally.

When a man doesn't have the information to
understand how what he said created a problem, he
thinks something is wrong with his partner for
feeling hurt. After making a series of small,
basically innocent mistakes he stops caring about
correcting his actions because he doesn't
understand what he is doing wrong. Then bigger
problems start to emerge from small missteps.

In a similar fashion a woman can become
frustrated with her partner and she will start to
close down in her desire to reach out to him after
many misunderstandings. She begins to doubt that
she can ever get what she wants from the
relationship. She might be holding expectations
that her man will communicate deeply with her much
like her girlfriends.

Here's a simple example: A
man comes home and his wife doesn't seem to
appreciate him and how hard he worked all day FOR
HER. So he stops caring as much about doing all
the little things he did in the early stages of
their relationship.

His lack of interest in doing little things
for her encourages her disinterest in him. The
warm feelings they felt for each other begin to
noticeably diminish and the relationship starts to
feel more like a burden than a blessing.

A second example: Both
partners come home after a long day, and she says,
"Do you want to go out for dinner?" He responds to
her words thinking she is asking him what he wants
to do. He says, "Let's just stay in and have
leftovers." She was probably really thinking, "I'm
too tired to cook and I want to go out for
dinner." But she didn't say that and he didn't
figure that out. He was tired too. She hears his
remarks about "stay in" and may take that to mean,
"You are no longer special to me and I don't care
if you want to go out or not."

For the average male this is all a mystery.
He didn't know he was supposed to be a detective
to figure out what she wanted. On Mars you don't
suggest or ask, you declare. If she had said, "I
don't want to eat at home, let's go out," that he
would have heard and understood clearly. But she
didn't say that, and he did not understand what
she really meant. Later that night when he
attempts to get close, she rejects his overtures.
Her acting cold to him then closes down his heart
a little more in all his feelings toward
her.

As we said at the start, it's most often the
small stuff. Like the beat on a drum, the small
misunderstandings keep going, all too often to the
wrong rhythm. The lack of warm loving feelings
between partners leads to an increasing air of
tension that intensifies with each misstep. Now
solving the inevitable big problems that arise in
shared lives becomes increasingly
difficult.

Much of the success of the Mars-Venus
paradigm comes from giving couples the tools to
cure this essential breakdown in communication.
Dozens and dozens of small wounds add up over time
to hurts that are often too large to heal. At the
root of the problem is that men and women
instinctively communicate in different ways. This
inability to clearly communicate with words our
true feelings to our partners can lead to many
simple misunderstandings that grow into big
problems.

_________________________________________________

God
bless your marriage and family.

Jim
Stephens

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Stephens
The Marriage
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