Why all the talk about male-female differences?

I used to wonder why all the talk about male female differences.

Then I got married and now I understand why.

My husband and I are very slowly reading through the book entitled Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs together. Recently we read a section where Eggerichs uses an extremely simple but effective analogy.

He says that it as if men and women have sun glasses and hearing aides through which they filter everything they see and hear. Women have pink ones and men have blue ones. Because of these sight and sound filters, even though they experience the same events, they are perceived differently. He goes on to give a few examples of situations in marriage where partners feel hurt and misused but the other partner doesn't see it due to their filters, but that any person of the same gender would totally understand.

As my husband and I read through the examples we can both understand the person of our own gender, and because of the book, begin to understand the person of the other gender. Looking at other people is always safer, not apt to produce an arguement, not so emotionally ladden, as looking at our own disagreements.

But it is beginning to help us see things differently.

I used to get so upset at my husband regarding behavior of his that I interpreted to mean that I was not important to him, that he didn't love me. Then I would act crabbily and he wouldn't fee respected. I'm now starting to reframe his actions and see them differently. It's about understanding that he thinks differently than I do and choosing to believe the best of him.

The bottom line is men and women really ARE different.