Understanding how men and women are different can save a relationship because it helps give us fair expectations of each other. The last two weeks I’ve looked at the five modes of a guy and the five types of guys. Breaking down how a man works is pretty easy. Women… are more complex – shocker. I’ve often heard it joked that women are complicated, but I wouldn’t say that as much as they can be very different because they have two extremes: Women can be the most loving and welcoming people you can ever meet or the meanest, most vindictive, “I will ruin your life” people. They can be very passive or the sneakiest, mean people in the world. Guys are more consistent (aka average) while women have more variety and how they act can change depending where they are. These differences are also related to how women can be described, which is different than how guys were described in the last lesson (i.e. The Jerk, The Douchebag, The Loser, The Decent Guy, The Awesome Guy). Where guys are divided on how caring or uncaring they are; women are divided based on meanness.
If you asked my wife, she would likely say that I fit more on the female’s list because I’ve said some hurtful things. For instance, early in our relationship we were sitting on the couch and she started putting nail polish on her toes – we were clearly past the honeymoon phase at this point. For whatever reason, looking at her feet, I said, “Looks like someone won’t be a foot model.” Now, I thought I was hilarious… she didn’t. I thought it was a safe joke because she had no intention of becoming a foot model and even if you are a foot model that’s not a title to celebrate: “I’m a foot model because the rest of me is too ugly for a camera.” Telling my wife/then girlfriend she’d never be a foot model was… not smart. I think she heard me say she had hideous monster feet, so why bother putting nail polish on her deformed toes; lock them in itchy wool socks prison. Where I was trying to be The Awesome Guy, she interpreted me as The Jerk. I wanted to make her laugh and ideally she would tease me back: “We can be the ugly feet couple,” because teasing to a guy is all about bonding and is an important way for developing trust. Unfortunately, that moment destroyed trust for both of us and as any guy knows, this situation has come up a few times when she’s been angry. To me, if she was hurt, it wasn’t because I was mean; I didn’t read my audience.
Even now 15 years into our relationship we have our moments. Fortunately, we’ve grown and things I say that don’t land well typically just lead to an uncomfortable moment and not massive conflict. For instance, my wife recently said, “Blah, blah, blah, my mom is nicer than me,” and I replied, “That’s true.” I thought I was being a good listener… nope. Here’s how the conversation went:
- Wife: (hurt) You’re not supposed to agree with me.
- Me: Why wouldn’t I? It’s a true statement, and I’m affirming what you said.
- Wife: Yeah, but you’re not supposed to agree.
- Me: I can’t disagree with you. That’d be a lie. Your mom is nicer than you just like she’s nicer than me. That’s just fact. It’s not meant to be offensive.
- Wife: But you still shouldn’t agree.
- Me: My mom is nicer than me and your mom is nicer than my mom. Those are just facts. Your mom is too nice, and she gets taken advantaged of for it. I wouldn’t want you to be that nice just like I wouldn’t want my mom to be that nice. My mom put her mom in a retirement home because she didn’t want to live together. They both knew that would ruin their relationship. Your mom is living with her mom and constantly gets hurt.
- Wife: I get what you’re saying, but I still don’t think you should have agreed.
- Me: So for our next anniversary, I shouldn’t give you a card that says, “Thanks for not being as nice as your mom.”
- Wife: (half joking) If you even remember to give me a card.
- Me: I was a day late!
The main problem for my wife is she has a hard time not assuming I’m mean because she can be mean. This isn’t to say she’s a mean person; she just has a mean side that was perfected growing up with her sister who was also mean. For instance, I was talking to her the other night while she was in the shower and I left the door open three inches behind me. When I shower, I like to leave it open like this because it reduces the steam and allows the cat in, which he only does with me (because he knows I’m awesome). If I close the door, the cat loses his mind and if I only leave it an inch, he’ll open it with his paw, which is impressive. The fact he needs the door open that wide isn’t – he’s a chunker. When my wife noticed I left the door slightly open she complained about it and how I do always do that. She then confessed she’ll purposely leave the door fully open when I’m in the shower, which is done part joking and part payback. From what I’ve found, payback is more likely to be a female thing. My wife is an incredibly thoughtful and kind person… most of the time. But if you can be incredibly thoughtful you can also come up with ways for payback. Since I’m not that thoughtful, I also don’t spend time coming up with schemes to hurt her (not that I would want to hurt her because I know she’ll hurt me more). I’m also guessing that payback is more of a female thing because they’re more likely to remember things that guys forget about or didn’t even notice. At the same time, I’m not doing any payback to my wife because as a guy I don’t want to mess her. I want her to be happy… and her anger scares me. Women don’t seem to get scared of their husbands; it’s more annoyed, frustrated, and angry. Why? Because we’re not mean. We’re more thoughtless, crass, blunt, selfish, etc.
Being mean is a natural result of women being drawn to perfection and keeping things fresh and new (e.g. they typically love to redecorate or have a new outfit). It’s not a criticism; it’s an observation of patterns I’ve found, and there are always exceptions. This meanness, however, is part of the reason I categorize women in a different way than men. Where I categorize men as The Jerk, The Douchebag, The Loser, The Decent Guy, and The Awesome Guy, with women I use the following list. That being said, you can grade either gender to the other’s standard if that’s helpful. I’m easygoing… because I’m a dude.
- Always mean
- Only mean at home to their husbands, daughters, any step sons (women are seldom mean to their own sons), mom/mother-in-law, and themselves
- Only mean to their husband and themselves
- Only mean to themselves
- Easygoing (A rare group)
The most common pattern of priorities I’ve seen with women is they’ll will put their kids first, then everybody else, then the husband, and then themselves. When the husband complains that she’s not very nice to him or doesn’t give him enough attention, she’ll justify it that she treats him better than she treats herself. Even though this is likely true, the guy feels unloved because she treats everybody else better than him, which hurts. Logically, the people you love the most are the people you treat the best, which means to a guy they’re not very loved. To a woman, however, her thought is make everyone happy even at your own expense and if your husband is supportive, he’ll understand that and join in the sacrifice to make life easier for her. This difference in thinking isn’t to say one gender is better than the other. It just means we’re different and that can make us balanced or drive each other crazy.
This week may you consider how you balance your partner out.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)