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Have you ever had an issue you feel really hurt about but just cannot get your point across to your man? Leaving you frustrated about why he doesn’t understand the problem.

Most of us have, we have the circular argument about reactions and emotions to a situation but he just doesn’t get it.

We then go to ask a female friend “why doesn’t he understand my problem?” and your friend doesn’t need facts and figures, she immediately understands your problem and empathises with you emotionally.

Think of it this way .. men think in black and white but women think in all the colours of the rainbow .. and probably a few colours that don’t exist as well.

Sometimes to understand an issue we have to look at an extreme example .. talk to a Muslim man about polygamy, as to non-Muslims it’s just an exaggerated form of adultery.

The conversation goes something like this:

1. How can you love two women?

2. They have everything they need, what I provide for one I provide for the other.

1. But can you love them both the same?

2. No but as long as when I am with one wife she feels loved that is what is important.

1. But what about her feelings of jealousy toward the other wife?

2. Why should she be jealous, she has everything she needs.

1. How would you feel if your wife could marry two men?

2. She cannot, only men can marry more than one woman.

1. Just try to imagine it, how would you feel knowing your wife left your bed and went to her other husbands bed.

2. Is she legally married to him?

1. Aarrrggghhh … how would you FEEL .. jealous, hurt, angry?

2. But she cannot marry two husbands.

1. OK we’ll try this a different way .. let’s imagine we live in an alternate universe where women can marry two men but men can only have one wife. How would you feel?

2. Are my needs being met?

The conversation just goes round and round in circles but what we do see is that men generally talk from a practical black and white persepective, whereas women generally talk from an emotional one.

Men are concerned with physical needs, housing, food, clothing, etc and even physical needs.

Women are more concerned with the emotional ramifications of such an arrangement. As women we would emotionally put ourselves in that situation and woosh .. all the feelings of jealousy, betrayal and anger sweep over us.

This is all just happening in our minds but we can feel what it would be like to be in the situation. Try it, imagine being in a physically abusive relationship or being raped .. can you feel the fear?

Men can’t, they react to what is immediately around them. Of course they can imagine a situation but they don’t create a dream like cloud of emotion and mentally wander about in it.

This is why men do not react well to floods of tears and a four hour fight about not putting their golf clubs back in the right cupboard.

In the great scheme of life whether he puts the toilet seat down or always leaves his jacket on the table is not an emotional issue.

The fact that we have asked him not to do it a hundred times, for us is an emotional issue. It is all tied in with how he treats us .. in other words, how he feels about us.

He thinks in practical terms, in black and white, so this is why he doesn’t understand the problem. Try explaining it in black and white terms without talking about how it makes you feel all the time.