Tuesday November 27, 2018

 

Few things can be more confusing than the relationship between a man and a woman. Men don’t understand women and women don’t understand men. We know how each other will act and react, we just don’t understand why. To make matters worse, men are relationally illiterate while most women are far more knowledgeable about conducting a relationship.

 

Advantage, Women

 

The moment a baby girl comes into the world her training on becoming an adult and being in a relationship begins. Most girls are given baby dolls to play with, then Ken and Barbie dolls. Their first cartoons are romantic stories and when they become teenagers they begin watching romantic movies and reading romantic stories. By age 18 they have their wedding, family, and their whole life planned out.

 

Disadvantage, Men

 

 When boys are born, seldom are they trained on how to be in a relationship. Boys are trained to compete and to triumph. Boys are schooled on the rules of the game, on how to score points and on becoming winners. Boys grow up with a ball in hand, playing sports, and watching superhero movies. For this reason, in most marriages, men are relationally immature because they were never prepared for adulthood much less for a romantic relationship. Women on their wedding day come to the altar and say “yes I do” and know exactly what they are talking about because they have it all planned out.  Men say, “yes I do” but have no idea what they just committed themselves to but with a little luck in five or ten years they just might figure out what their commitment at the altar really meant.

 

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and morein knowledgeand depth of insight… – Philippians 1:9 NIV

 

Understanding each other

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is this relational inequality that wreaks havoc on most marriages. The solution to the problem is not to change the way men and women are brought up. No, the solution is to learn through love to understand each other’s upbringing and to understand through love that women are far better prepared to be in a relationship than men are. It is to learn through love that men have been trained to operate in the framework of rules, scoring, and winning. The goal for women is to realize that it is not realistic to expect men to meet all their relational expectations of marriage. And the goal for men should be to mature relationally. In other words, the goal in any relationship between men and women is to seek for the sake of love, to understand, more than seeking to be understood.