[HitmanLV]

Any kind of overbearing behavior like that makes for a poor companion. Goes the same for a man or a woman. I agree with you.

The fearfulness I speak of is the fear of being hurt and the fear of financial loss on the part of men, as an obstacle for finding a compatible mate.

I'm no fan of adultery but as I said, a weak man will be diminished in the eyes of his mate. Women gravitate toward strength - nothing wrong with that.

As far as communication goes, I think it's valuable but also overrated. I had a male friend who (against my advice) took his bride's badgering about communicating better and more often and openly. Well, that's exactly what he did and she found out quickly that it was the last thing she wanted. A guy very open with his emotions, and who is very expressive with his companion about them, without a fair amount of judiciousness, will repel.

Women say they want it. They don't know what they are getting themselves into. A man who 'expresses himself' about as much as her girlfriends do is not something women find all that welcoming, in practice.

[Amity]

A man who 'expresses himself' about as much as her girlfriends do is not something women find all that welcoming, in practice.

Heh. Hubby will never be that, no matter what his communication skills - he just doesn't think that way. When I speak of communication skills I don't mean talking more - I mean developing more of an awareness of what you actually say, and of learning to make sure you're heard.

If someone is raised on a "shame-based" family that depends a lot on unspoken rules, they may not know that what they're saying is not what they mean, or that you actually have to articulate certain things for the other person to understand where you're coming from (and quite often, when they realize what they actually mean, they also realize they don't believe what they're saying...).

Some families literally teach their kids to not notice that they're regularly contradicting themselves - that they're saying two things that can't both be true, and that they're trying to function as if both are true. And they raise the kids to NOT say what they mean. Learning communication skills doesn't mean to give up judiciously considering your words - it means developing an awareness of how your words will sound to someone without your pre-conceived notions.

Can't be always sure you're understood by everybody, but in terms of marriage you can at least learn to speak much the same language, or to develop systems of feedback so you're alerted to the fact that communication has failed to occur. :p