How to Communicate Effectively with Your Partner: Insights from Mars and Venus

How to Start a Conversation with a Man

The more a woman tries to engage a man in conversation, the more he may resist. Trying to force him to talk is not the best method, especially if he is withdrawn. Instead of asking, “How can I get him to talk?”, a woman might ask herself, “How can I achieve greater intimacy and closer contact with him?”.

If a woman has a need to communicate more with her partner (and most women do), she has the right to try, but she should also understand and accept that sometimes a man is ready to participate in a conversation, and sometimes he instinctively withdraws.

Sensing his readiness, she can, instead of asking him a bunch of questions or openly forcing him to talk, tell him how much she appreciates him and how grateful she is, even if he just listens to her. At first, she might even hint that he doesn’t need to say anything.

For example, Maggie said, “Jeff, could you listen to me for a bit? I’ve had a tough day and I want to talk about it. Then I’ll feel better.” After sharing her feelings for a couple of minutes, she stopped and said, “I’m really grateful for your attention to my feelings. It means so much to me.” Such appreciation inspires a man to pay even more attention.

Without this kind of feedback, he might lose interest in what his partner is saying, as “just listening” might mean “doing nothing” to him. He doesn’t understand how valuable his attention is to her. Most women instinctively know how important it is to listen to someone. However, expecting a man to know this without some training is like expecting him to behave like a woman in this situation. Fortunately, when a man receives gratitude from his partner for listening, he begins to understand the importance and value of the conversation and learns to appreciate it.

When a Man Doesn’t Want to Talk

Sandra and Larry had been married for twenty years. One day, Sandra demanded a divorce, but Larry wanted to save their marriage.

“How can he talk about continuing our married life?” she exclaimed. “He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t feel anything for me. When I need to talk to him, he always walks away. He’s cold and heartless. He’s been like this for twenty years. I’m not going to forgive him, I’m not going to stay with him. I’m so tired of trying to break through his coldness.”

Sandra didn’t realize how she had contributed to her own problems. She blamed only her husband. She thought that for twenty years she had done everything to have a warm relationship, true intimacy, and full communication. And Larry just resisted her efforts.

After hearing about the similarity between men and rubber bands at a seminar, she burst into tears, and in her tears, there was so much willingness to forgive her husband for everything. Sandra realized that “his” problem was actually “their” common problem. And she realized how she had contributed to its emergence.

“I remember, in the first year of our married life,” she said later, “I was very open, talked about my feelings, and he walked away. And I started thinking that he didn’t love me. After this happened several times, I stopped trying. I didn’t want to feel that pain again. Not knowing that at other times Larry was quite capable of listening to me, I didn’t give him a chance. I put on armor. And I wanted him to take the first step towards me.”

One-Sided Conversations

Sandra’s conversations with her husband were mostly one-sided. Usually, she tried to engage him in conversation by asking question after question. Then, even before explaining what she actually wanted to talk about, she would get upset and angry at her husband’s typical responses. When she finally got to expressing her feelings, they were always the same. She was upset that Larry was so closed off, taciturn, as if he didn’t love her.

Their one-sided conversations went something like this:

• Sandra: How was your day?
• Larry: Fine.
• Sandra: What happened?
• Larry: Same as usual.
• Sandra: What are your plans for this weekend?
• Larry: I don’t know. What about you?
• Sandra: Do you want to invite friends over?
• Larry: I don’t know… Do you know where the TV guide is?
• Sandra (sadly): Why don’t you talk to me?
• Larry (silent).
• Sandra: Do you love me?
• Larry: Of course, I love you. I married you.
• Sandra: Some “love”! We’ve even stopped talking. How can you just sit there and not say a word? Do you not care about anything?

At this point, Larry would usually get up and go for a walk. When he returned, he would act as if nothing had happened. Sandra would also act as if everything was fine, but inside she would push her love and tenderness deeper. Outwardly, she was the same loving wife, but inside, bitterness and resentment were gradually accumulating. From time to time, all this would boil over, and then she would start another one-sided conversation, asking her husband about his feelings. And each time she became more convinced: he didn’t love her. And so it went for twenty whole years, after which Sandra decided that she no longer wanted to live without warmth and sincere closeness.

Learning to Support Each Other While Being Yourself

At the seminar, Sandra said:

“For twenty years, I tried to make Larry talk to me. I wanted him to open up, become sensitive, vulnerable. I didn’t realize that I was missing a person who, with his support, would give me the opportunity to be like that. I really needed this. Over this weekend, my husband and I talked about our most intimate feelings more than we had in twenty years. I feel so loved! This is what I missed so much. I thought that Larry should change. But now I know that both he and I are fine. We just didn’t know how to support each other.”

Sandra always complained that Larry didn’t talk to her. She convinced herself that his silence made true intimacy impossible. At the seminar, the woman learned to share her feelings without waiting and demanding that her husband do the same. Instead of being indignant about his silence, she learned to appreciate and gratefully accept this silence. And as a result, Larry began to show more willingness to listen to his wife.

Larry himself learned the art of listening and began to practice it, trying not to think that he was making a great sacrifice. A man can quite be taught to listen, and this has a much greater effect than attempts to make him more open and sensitive. Learning to listen to a loved one and feeling their gratitude for it, he himself will automatically begin to open up in response, increasingly needing verbal communication with them.

This happens gradually when a man feels appreciated and thanked for his attention, and is not resentful for his silence. You don’t need to force him to talk – and he will naturally start doing it himself. But first, he needs to feel accepted for who he is. And if a woman is still not satisfied with what she has achieved, then she has forgotten that all men are from Mars!

Excerpt from John Gray’s book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”.