I think it’s pretty safe to assume that probably there was a time this past week that we did “something” that caused our spouse to either say or think, “Why did he/she do that?” I can’t tell you how many times in our marriage that I (Steve) did something (that I thought made perfect sense) and Cindy would have a perplexed look on her face and say, “What on earth possessed you to do that?”

It was at that moment (when my brain was forced to engage) that I realized I didn’t have a clue why I just did what I did. I was in the moment. It occurred to me to do something without stopping to calculate the consequences of my actions.

Let me site a real life example of how a man develops his thinking process (Wives, I encourage you to take notes): When I was about 12 I wondered what would happen if I took a whole box of caps [for a cap gun] and hit them with a sledge hammer. I never “thought” that the force from the explosion of about 500 caps would propel the sledge hammer [with lightening speed] into my head, thus rendering me momentarily unconscious, and leave me with a ringing in my ears that lasted a week.

Of course, the logical female question is, “Why would he do that?!?!” The logical male response: “That was awesome!!! I’ll bet it hurt.” Wives, if you’ve ever wondered if your husband has suffered brain damage, ask him if he ever tried this. It could answer a lot of questions. It certainly has for Cindy.

This past week I (Steve) had the opportunity to interview Bill and Pam Farrel about their book, Why Men and Women Act the Way They Do (Published by Harvest House) and it brought to light some things we ‘d like to pass along to you this week. We hope what they share will help you understand your spouse a little better and bring some growth points to your marriage.

The Farrel’s use an analogy that makes perfect sense. They say Women are like spaghetti and men are like waffles. Bill says this means “men process life in boxes.”"If you look at a waffle, you see a collection of boxes separated by walls. The boxes are all separate from each other and make convenient holding places. That is typically how a man processes life. His thinking is divided up into boxes that have room for one issue and one issue only.

When a man is at work, he is at work. When he is the garage tinkering around, he is in the garage tinkering. When he is watching TV, he is simply watching TV. That’s why he looks like he’s in a trance and he can ignore everything else going on around him. Social Scientists call this compartmentalizing—putting life and responsibilities into different compartments.”

“A man will strategically organize his life in boxes and then spend most of his time in the boxes he can succeed in. This is such a strong motivation that he will seek out the boxes that work for him and ignore the boxes that confuse him or make him feel like a failure.”

Pam then explained how women are like spaghetti: “Women process life as if it were a plate of spaghetti. It has individual noodles that all touch one another. Each noodle intersects a lot of other noodles, and following one leads you to others seamlessly.

That is how women face life. Every thought and issue is connected to every other thought and issue in some way. Life is much more of a process for women than it is for men. Since all her thoughts, emotions, and convictions are connected, she is able to process more information and keep track of more activities.”

This is where Bill says, “Men need to create a box in our waffle that is designed for listening to our wives because our wives are going to want to hook their lives to us and we don’t understand that process. That’s because we as men don’t have that need. I don’t have to share the details of my life with Pam to feel like we’re connected. But Pam needs to share the details of her life with me in order to feel connected.

Just the process of listening to our wife and discovering who she is causes her to connect to us. And the upside of that is that when we do this, we look better to our wives; we sound smarter to our wives. It really pays off in the relationship when we just learn to do this.”

It’s important to note that Bill says, “And for every man this is a learned skill. We aren’t born with the ability to do it. It’s a skill we choose to learn in the context of our relationship that will cause our wives to then connect to us and appreciate the fact that they’re married to us.”

On the other side of the spectrum, because it comes so natural to our wives “to link together the logical, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs of an issue conversation is effortless.” Pam offers some advice to wives: “Take it down a notch. We often times have unrealistic expectations of our husbands. It’s important to communicate clearly with our spouses. This means the next time he asks you what you want for your birthday, don’t say, ‘Well, you should just know. We’ve been married all this time and you should know me by now.’ The reality is, THEY DON’T!

Instead, try this: ‘I found a web site that has several things I like and I’ve put them in a saved file. And here’s a catalog where I’ve dogeared some pages that have some things I like.’ When we do this everybody wins. Your husband feels successful and you get what you want.”

The Farrel’s have a lot of other great ideas and suggestions to help in better understanding why we act the way we do. You can find more of their resources by going to their web site at www.masterfulliving.com.

Remember this week to work toward a better understanding of each other. Because, as the Farrel’s say, “When we really understand the heart of each other it’s easier then to believe in each other and step in there to be a support to one another.”

God Bless,
Steve and Cindy Wright