Men vs. Women: The Science Behind Our Differences

Well guys, welcome to this episode and as well as  to this podcast. Today we're going to talk about marriage. Specifically we're going to talk about  what women want to learn or need to learn about the inner lives of men, and as well as what men  want to learn about inner workings of women. Now marriage is very important and relationships could  be complicated for a lot of people. We're made as relational beings by a relational God. Our God  is a triune God. Meaning one God in three Persons and

so we learned that from the Scriptures, we  learned that also through research. And today I'm very blessed to have in this studio for you guys  an interview and a conversation with people that I just met this weekend but I actually met them  before through their books, Shanti and Jeff. Thank you for being with us at this marriage conference  and for agreeing to share your thoughts with our audience. It's really a pleasure. It's been so  much fun. We've really enjoyed hanging out with you guys. A

nd so we want to get to know a little  bit about where you guys come from, but first I wanted to let our audience know, most of you guys  probably have seen these books somewhere or you probably have read them. I know I have, when I  was a younger person getting ready for marriage, trying to understand women. So I picked of course  the one "For Men Only." So that I can learn about women and definitely there was a lot of insights,  a lot of of revelations that came into to me. And then last year

as I was studying for the marriage  series and of course I was doing what every pastor does is Googling statistics on marriages.  Something that we're going to talk about in the next episode and I came across, I think your blog  came up first. And I started to dive in deeper and I was like, oh wait. I know this, this lady. I  read her books. I didn't know she had married stuff too. And so I started go diving deeper and  you have a lot of resources on your websites. I went through pretty much eve

ry resource for the  leaders. I've downloaded all of them, and so and started going through them and yeah, a lot of my  things that I used to say about marriage I'm like, "Oh wait. That, that's not true. That's not true,  that's not true," and so it's really a powerful impact. I mentioned today to our church, I  prepared a whole sermon called "Unnecessary Unhappiness In Marriage" based on your research.  And I didn't preach that message though. I was like, you know what. I don't think it's fair 

because it's really the whole message is just ripping off from what they studied. I was like,  I think they need to come and teach that to our church, and so I'm really blessed that you guys  were able to come and share to our congregation and to the marriage conference. But could you  tell us a little bit how you started? How you started in this research about marriage and where  this whole began for you? You want to tell? Yeah, I mean I'll jump in. That's great. Yeah  we have very different b

ackgrounds than many people who are in kind of a relationship  space or marriage space because you're usually talking about a psychologist right or maybe a  pastor, a therapist and we are so not that. We actually have analytical backgrounds and Jeff  is an attorney. I started out as an analyst on Wall Street and had no idea that basically I  was building up a skill set that God was going to do a right-hand turn and I would use that  in a very different way. And so we ended up, we say we're sort

of semi-confused husband and  wife who end up suddenly doing tons of social research and finding out all these fascinating  things that we didn't know about each other. Well and our skill set basically fed into all of  that. You know as a lawyer, I like to understand things and ask questions and try to turn the kind  of facets a little different. What am I hearing? And that's what we used all through this. And  I have to say, I think I was the reason why we started down this path. Stop. Shaunti

was frankly  just confused after 10 years of marriage with me, that she was like, are all guys like him? And  that kind of just started the ball rolling, and when we'd be out with couples, Shaunti would  ask questions. I asked the other guy, like okay tell me how you're feeling. This actually, believe  it or not, this whole thing started because I was writing a novel and one of the main characters in  the novel was a guy. And I realized, I don't know how to put thoughts in his head. Like I had t

o  say what my main character was thinking right. I couldn't just say what he was doing but I don't  know what a guy would be thinking. How many years have you guys been married now? 29. 29 years. See  I didn't even hesitate. You're good, you're good. I got that right away. You did, absolutely. So  here was the thing that was interesting. When we'd be out with these couples and Shaunti would  ask the guy in the couple, and he would be saying some of the things that I had been trying to  tell her

. And the spouse in that couple, the wife would look. And no matter how long they had  been married, whether it was 6 months or 20 years, and she'd say, are you kidding me? And me and  the other guys would look at each other and go, what is it you didn't know about this? Because  we assumed as guys that our wife or the women in our lives understand what's going on inside of  us and as a result they're intentionally trying to make us crazy. But that's not the case.  Then the research that you guy

s did, this is not like a Facebook poll research. Can you tell  us? Just before you guys hear about some of the things they're going to share, I want you to know  they didn't just Google this stuff or just did a Facebook post. Could you tell us a little bit  about just the research? What goes into that? The amount of funds you guys also spend on that? Yeah,  so for 20 years, so we've been doing this social research for 20 years and we've done 12 of these  big studies. And the way that we describ

e them, the easiest way to describe it is that we just do  tons and tons and tons of interviews with average people. Like I'll hit up the guy next to me on the  airplane or whatever, just asking them questions. But then it transitions into, okay we've heard  a lot of things that's like, wow really. And so then we do a big National Representive Survey. It  creates for us a hypothesis of something that we might not understand and we want to test out. And  so we create a hypothesis. We say, I've he

ard this a lot. I think this is true. And so then we do a  big nationally representative survey and so that is across all ages, racial backgrounds, religious  backgrounds and this is nationally representative in the US. But then in some cases we then take  it globally. So like I've done the same kind of research in Mexico for example, in Singapore, in  England. And so to be able to just sort of go, is this, we're trying to get universal truths here.  And so that, in order to get really robust da

ta, it actually costs quite a bit of money. We've  invested over $850,000 in the research over the last 20 years in order to be able to bring you  the data and say, this, this isn't our opinion. Well and here's the other point is that you can  always run these surveys, if you don't have the right questions or if you've crafted the questions  in such a way or design them to get the answers you want. That's not an effective amount of way to  conduct research either. So the psychometrics, the way t

hat you are designing your survey questions  matters. And so for us, I'm a lawyer by training, she's an analyst by training. We had not been  you know steeped in survey design, and what God did was He brought a partner for us during the  first 10 of these, 11. Well actually just until the last one. So yeah, the first 11. 11 surveys.  An individual who was a believer in the faith, and he felt that it was his calling to assist us.  And he was a PhD statistician and the former head of survey design

for the United States Census  Bureau. So this is someone who knows what he's doing. He helped teach us, train us and prevent  us from asking some of the questions we really wanted to ask because he'd just say, you can't  ask it that way. You can't. You got to love accountability. It's just it's like you know. But  we did, we learned a lot about it. And now many books that you've written, so we want to dive in  into what we need to know about the inner lives of men. Men are seem to be, I know a

lot of times  we think men, women are hard to understand but I think it's a lot harder to understand men.  You know the Bible says for husbands to love their wives and for the wives to respect their  husbands. And in your book you know you highlight that men value respect more than love. Why is  that? So the easiest way of explaining that, well first and let me just say by the way, we  are going to be making some generalizations here, okay. And there's always exceptions, right like  if we say 80

% of men felt that way. By definition, 20% didn't, okay. So the key is to use this as a  starting point. What matters to your husband, what matters to your boyfriend. Even what matters to  your son, right like there's so many applications of this. And so one of the things that we found  about the reason why, gosh why does God say, husbands love your wives and wives respect  your husbands, right like in Ephesians 5, like why that really clear distinction? It turns  out I think it's because one of

the things that we found over the years is that men and women  tend to have two very different sets of primary insecurities running under the surface. And we  tend to find statistically somewhere around 75 to 85% of women and 75 to 85% of men. The women's  question tends to be, am I lovable? Men's question tends to be, am I able? So for women, we tend to  question, am I lovable? Am I special? Am I worthy of being loved for who I am on the inside? Well  guess what, a husband showing love to his

wife, that answers that question really well. But men's  question tends to be different. Where it's not, am I lovable? It's, am I able? Do I measure up?  Am I any good at what I do on the outside. Not on the inside? Not necessarily. And so it's like  this thing I did for my wife, like I want to be a great husband, I want to be a great dad. Like I  want her to see that I'm you know doing well as a father for example. But I'm really not sure  I know what I'm doing, and I'm hoping nobody finds out.

And there's this deep self-doubt about  are they any good at what they do. And so hey, guess what. A wife showing her husband how much  I appreciate you, how much I respect you. But you also have a very particular way that a wife can  do that because I would assume that knowing this, you know a wife should just come to her husband  and say, I respect you. But you're saying that's not really? she tried that. So I'm the guinea  pig usually in a lot of these things as she's learning some of the st

uff. And she for about two  weeks. Because I'll interrupt you. When it comes to wives though, I know hearing this information,  I know that coming to my wife and telling her, I love you, solves the problem. Right. And then also  reminding her, like you even say that letting her know that I will choose you again, I'm happy to  be married to you. And especially in the conflict, giving her a hug pretty much solves the problem in  this regard. So you would think that a wife would come to a husband a

nd say, "Hey I respect you. I  honor you. You're a man of God," will solve that but it does not. It actually doesn't. You know  it's, we're looking for some magic words and those aren't it. So for the longest time when Shaunti  would try to find what are the words that hit you, Jeff? And she would try them out, like, I so  respect you. And I'd go, okay, you know. I know I think I get what you're trying to do but those  words don't kind of hit me the same way as I love you does for her. So we did

, I went on a quest.  I'm like, doggone it. I'm going to figure out what you can say to your husband that has that  same impact that I love you does. And believe it or not, we found it and it is the words,  thank you. Thank you? Thank you. For most men, I can't remember the number. it was something  like 87%. Can't remember the number right this second. But for most men, hearing thank you has  the same emotional impact on him that I love you tends to do with women. Because it's saying, it's  spe

aking directly to that insecurity right. That question where it's saying. Am I able? Yes, like  I noticed what you did. That's the first thing, right. I noticed this thing you did on the  outside. I noticed this thing you did with our kids as a dad, for example, and it was good  and I appreciate it. And this, saying thank you has all of those notes to it. If I can jump in.  Please. One of the things about when Shaunti wrote the book. The brilliance of it in my mind was that  the things she was s

haring from having pulled out of guys and able to write down in the book, were  things that us guys, why we always say, guys we're just simple. But what we're actually saying is  I don't know how to explain what's inside of me, so I'm just going to say, I'm just simple. But the  fact of the matter is she was able to find words for the things that me and other guys were feeling  all the time but couldn't articulate to a woman in a way that a woman could understand it. And so  I would have guys co

me up to me all the time and say, I can't believe what your wife did. I thought  it was just me. Because we as guys, we don't sit around generally talking about our inner lives and  feelings. We might talk about being depressed or discouraged at work or something like that. But  it's hard to get even down below that as to why am I discouraged at work? Why am I depressed?  Why do I feel less than in my marriage? And all of a sudden there were words for it, and  I could say, that's me. I really do

. I, I need this. And then she gave the women simple steps  and prescriptions to take to what hits the guy, the same way I love you does for her. You know  I remember about 2 years into our marriage and my wife worked at the local dealership, and I  took a whole Saturday to pretty much my acts, my love language is acts of service. I love to  do stuff. Not feel, go for a walk. That's not the way I feel loved. I love to do stuff. So I took my  wife's car without her knowing and I swapped from my c

ar. I detailed her car myself, then I brought  my car back. I literally cleaned the house. I mean I did everything in the house. I mowed the lawn,  washed the dishes. I did everything. And so I'm expecting, I'm not expecting worship. At least  what Sarah did to Abraham, you know the lord. At least you know be called lord or something  you know like. I mean I spent about eight hours that day to just, I just wanted her to at least  I don't know, just get on her knees and worship God for a great hu

sband that she had. And my wife  walked in. She didn't notice anything. She didn't even notice her car being washed and deep cleaned.  She eats dinner and I'm sitting and I'm literally. My, I'm waiting for that. She's not saying  anything bad but I'm like, girl you don't realize what I just did. I'm fishing and I feel bad. I'm  fishing for a compliment. I'm waiting for that, and all she wanted to do is go for a walk in  the park. And I said, I'm not going to the park with you. And she's, like wh

y? I was like,  I'm tired. She's like, why are you tired? What did you do all day? And that's when the  straw broke the camel's back and I was like, I can't believe you didn't realize that. I'm like  and I did all of it for you. She's like, oh okay. And so when I heard you mention that yesterday,  I was like. I was like babe, exactly you know. I, all needed was thank you. Eight hours of work, all  I wanted is that thank you. It was that awareness of what you had sacrificed. Well and this is, oka

y  so this is one of the things, when we do marriage events like what we did with you guys yesterday.  One of the things that we often will drill into a little bit for the wives is to recognize that  we naturally, naturally will say, I love you, right. Like it just sort of comes out of us and  we do things that we hope he'll find to be loving. And we don't realize that at the same time we  might be you know questioning, what did you do all day? Or we might be telling him what to do or all  these

things that make him think you're saying, you're not able. And all he wants in most cases  is for you just to notice what he did for you. So that we can learn and sort of train ourselves to  not just notice it but to say thanks for that and to acknowledge it. Because we do generally tend  to notice some things and we just don't think to say it. Like it just doesn't come out naturally.  It's kind of like, I'm also thinking about my, when that happened, I started to think about my  wife. When I n

oticed she dressed really beautiful, she's attractive. I have the thought. It never  comes out of my mouth. Yes, same exact thing. And so when you were mentioning that yesterday, I was  thinking about that. I'm like so many times we're driving in the car and I'm just beholding her  beauty. I just love her, just don't say anything. I'm like, I feel it. The fact that I love her.  She knows that I love her but the thing about it is that but to vocalize it. This is where the  miracle happens to her.

She feels loved when it's vocalized versus when I'm feeling. So some numbers  interestingly. So one of the experiments that we did a number of years ago, one of the big studies.  We asked people to do a series of things and to try a series of things over the course of 30  days. Like we were experimenting and sort of doing prepost testing and figuring out what mattered.  One of the things that we asked everybody at the beginning was how often do you think you actually  say these sort of affirmin

g things? That you notice that she's beautiful or that you notice  that you know he detailed the car or whatever. How often do you say, thank you or whatever. And  the average person, the average guess was, oh I think I say about two or three times a day. Okay  so that's what we tend to think about ourselves. Then we told them as part of the experiment they  had to actually say it once a day at least. Like they had to and log it, like yes I did. And so  once people actually had to log it. They r

ealize, oh my gosh. It's actually that I'm saying it out  loud two to three times a week. Like we literally just don't verbalize these affirmations as often  as we think we do. You know I tell my wife all the time, I said, people compliments are like  gum to me. I chew it and I have to spit it out, but I'm like your compliment is my bread. I'm  like I live off of that stuff. That's a great way of putting it. And so and she has been such  a great, you know now we matured, it's been you know 12 ye

ars since that incident and so where  she acknowledges those things. And then also I'm trying to be more verbal with honoring her and  speaking things that you know I'm like, well, you know I don't want to feed the monster.  You know like keep saying these nice things, she's going to want more, appetites going  to grow. But well what we don't realize is that it's not the monster you think it is  because what's going on under the surface, and this by the way is a big misunderstanding  with women

about men. Because we think you look so confident in yourself and so we think  we're going to be feeding that big ego, and are you kidding me, he needs to be taken down  a peg or two, right? He needs to humble himself. To humble himself and my job is to do it, right.  And instead actually what we tell women now, whether I'm doing a women's event or the books or  a marriage event, is to say, you've got to realize he doesn't have an ego the way you think. He has  a deep insecurity under the surfac

e. And there's this longing to know that he's done well for you.  And so that changes everything. When you stop thinking of it as he's so confident and realize  that's just a mask, and that instead there is this deep desire to know that he's pleased you. And you  mentioned that yester that men a lot of times have this almost like an impostor syndrome. We appear  one way. Yeah, it was something, I think it was 85% of men depending on the survey because there  were several different surveys. But a

nd sort of it circled around that number. But 85% in general of  men feel this level of self-doubt. Now there are some that apparently don't but this is very, very  common. And so a wife can help by thanking him, acknowledging him for what he does or what he did.  Now the woman's insecurity, Jeff, what does that look like? How different is that compared to men's  insecurity? You know this one was fascinating because we wrote the book "For Men Only" about  we call it a straightforward guide to th

e inner lives of women. And I didn't think that there  was going to be any real surprise in this area because I have heard and most of us have heard,  if you watch television any length or any amount, that it's important for women to hear I love you  from their husband. That they need, they want to feel loved. That's not a surprise. That's not a  big surprise to most guys. What was the surprise was how easy it is for her to not feel loved. So  even if you are in a great relationship, a great mar

riage and the question doesn't really from a  guy standpoint come up in my mind. If Shaunti and I are having a disagreement of some sort, I don't  kind of think, well maybe I think she's displeased with me at the moment. But I don't think, I don't  question her love okay for me. For women the, I guess the numbers were 82%. When you have certain  occurrences in your relationship. The conflict, the emotional, the feeling like he's displeased.  All of a sudden this insecurity inside her, that one t

hat Shaunti talked about at the  beginning, am I lovable for who I am on the inside? All of a sudden while that may be dormant  most of the time, it kind of moves from the back part of the brain to the front part. And what that  does is create a level of discomfort among her, among the woman, in the woman. And that level  of discomfort comes out sometimes in actions, where for us guys we find could be or it could  be something like she's crying and I don't know what to do with this. Everything s

eemed fine  and now all of a sudden this. So we as guys tend to throw up our hands and say, I'll never  understand women. I'll never figure them out, and so we kind of give ourselves an out. We say,  they're so complicated. It's such a complex issue, so therefore why bother. I'm just going to have  to live with it. Instead of let's say that you know your car is doing something unusual. It  sounds something in the engine. If you have any sort of mechanical aptitude at all, you look  at it and you

go, I'm going to solve this. I've got to figure this out or I'll take it to someone  who does. We do that with lots of other things in our lives. But with our wives and with women,  we tend to just go, I'm never going to get it so why bother? But you know what we found from  the research is we can get it. We can learn how they're wired and then what to do about it. So in  those cases where she has this, it's easy for her to feel unloved because of some disagreement,  because of something that h

as occurred in the family. What we need to do is simply reassure her  of our love. And now there's lots of different steps and different ways that you can do that. And  one of the ways that you guys keep highlighting, first time I read this it made sense because my  wife would ask me this question, and this was the question she would ask me. If you had a chance,  would you marry me again? And I always told her, what a dumb question. Right. I said, I already  made that mind 13 years ago you know

like or 10 years ago. And I was like, why are you keep  asking? I mean I was like I would tell you if I change my mind. I didn't. So to me it just felt  like why are we asking? Let's just move forward, let's not look. And when I read that in a study,  how important that is that they need to be and I want you to unpack that thought of how to help  women's insecurity to feel more loved. How do we do that? How do we answer that question? I'll  let a woman answer that one. Well here because here's a

ctually what's going on okay. So this  is actually unpacking it for that 82% of women. Here's actually what's happening is that you  think as a guy that the act of getting married, it's like okay we're good, right. Like she knows  she's is permanently loved. I feel permanently loved. Let's move on to the next changes. And I  love her, I didn't stop loving her. Right. And so here's what often because that is how you feel,  right. Like I don't question whether my wife loves me. That's pretty commo

n amongst men. And you  don't realize there is no switch in a woman's brain that gets flipped to the, oh now I feel  permanently loved, position. Because her question, that am I lovable question, that doesn't go away  just because you got married. any more than your question of, am I able, goes away just because  you're a fantastic salesman or whatever. Those questions are deep down inside. You could even  say, if I am putting on my Bible reading hat okay. If I'm doing women's leadership program

s, I don't  go necessarily into the Bible readin,g but if I'm putting my Bible reading hat on and I look at what  God says when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden. And He says this is what you're going  to be living with from now on. Look at what He says the insecurities are for the men. He says you  are going to feel like you are toiling the ground by the sweat of your brow but that the thorns  and thistles are always rising up against you. You're always going to feel and wonder, am I ab

le?  You're going to try, you're going to do but it may not feel good enough. And what's hers? Hers is you  are always going to feel that your desire is for your husband and you're never sure of his love for  you. And so the issue for most women, again it's not a 100% but for most women that question, am  I lovable? Doesn't go away in marriage. It morphs to, would he choose me all over again? Am I really  lovable? Does he really love me? Which is why many men have had their wife come up and say,

do you  really love me? And he's like, what, of course I do. That right there, just like yours is, both  insecurities. These are fantastic opportunities, understanding this inner need in your spouse is a  fantastic opportunity to speak to the deep places in the heart and make your spouse feel incredible  cared for. So if a woman says to a man, thank you, to help calm down his insecurity. What can a man  say to a woman to help her with her insecurity? It is, I love you. I'm going nowhere. We're 

in this together. And I'm so glad I married you. Exactly. So here's an interesting thing.  As Shaunti was sharing that about the you know the Genesis account, I was reminded of a podcast  that I had listened to over the last six or six months to a year. And they were talking about  this longitudinal study that Harvard University has been conducting since the 1930s of Harvard  graduates. But not all Harvard graduates but a certain cohort. And over the last 90 years they've  been talking with, in

terviewing these people, these graduates of Harvard University for you  know every five years. And they would ask them certain questions. Well they were at this one  point asking these 80 years olds, men and women who had graduated and they've now built up you  know 60 years of a relationship questioning, talking with these people. And they ask the men,  now in their 80s, if there was one thing that you say that you would have done differently, you  would have liked to have done differently over

the course of your life, what would it have been?  Almost all of them said, I wish I would have been less concerned about my career and how I was  do doing things. They asked the women what was the one thing and they said, I wish I would have  cared less about what other people were thinking about me. Whether I was lovable. For the men, it  was what they were going to do. For the women, it was am I lovable. And it's in us as humans.  It's the way God wired us or as a result of the curse, but it

's there. What about when it comes  to a space, men, if Shaunti you can help us to understand, is there some kind of brain damage  when it comes to men and women. When it comes to us wanting to run and disconnect when things get  too intense in a conflict? Yes. Can I share what we would often do just from our own personal life?  Sure, absolutely. When we're having that heated moment of discussion. Shaunti thinks relatively  faster than me, so she can verbalize an articulate what's going on insid

e of her. For me so she'd  say, so what are you thinking? And I'd say, I don't know. And I'm like, how can you not know  what you're thinking? And all I know is I'm upset inside here but I can't find the words to tell  you what's going on inside here. So as a result, as a self-protective measure for me, I withdraw.  I don't want to talk. So she is talking to my back as I'm walking away in frustration because I can't  communicate. I want to but I can't, so I leave. So this is, okay so here's what

's going. You said  a man feeling. Yes. Mike drop. Well this is and I can't remember the numbers, we have a chapter  about that. But it is 80 something percent. It's a pretty high number and here's basically what's  going on realistically in most men's brains, again not all. But in most men's brains there's actually  a different brain structure and I spent quite a bit of time like talking to neuroscientists  and trying to understand what they were telling me because it's very complex. And so thi

s is an  oversimplification, but in general, for the female brain, the way that God wired us is we have a  lot of connections between the hemispheres of the brain, in particular to the verbal centers. And so  what that does is it makes it very common amongst women, not all but very common that when we're  in the middle of a conflict and what's going on, we're processing verbally. We're trying to think  things through by talking it through, okay because that's how we try to figure out what's goin

g on  and what we're feeling, and trying to understand ourselves, and trying to understand our spouse.  And it's literally because of the structure of our brain that that is a very, very common dynamic and  it helps us to work it through. For men, it turns out it's exactly the opposite. I mean really, it's  an astounding thing that the human race survived if you think about it, right. And so it turns  out for the male brain, that actually a lot of the connections are within the hemispheres rathe

r  than across the hemispheres. And so what happens in again not all but many men's brains is they  actually have to pull away and process internally. That's the way that the male brain is generally  wired to have to sort of instead of thinking things through by talking them through, men tend  to go underground. And they do this internal processing and it's kind of like an internal chess  match. You know how you're playing chess and you have to think like, if I do this then this has  to happen o

ver here you know. And so men will go process internally. Sometimes that can happen  for days, and then he's able to come back and talk about it. And so when Jeff is getting away and  I'm talking to his back. It looks uncaring to me. I mean it does. It looks like you don't care, and  what is happening is often the reverse. He cares. He wants to be able to engage and he knows, there  is no way that I can talk this through and I'm going to say something wrong. And I need to figure  out what I'm fe

eling right now because I love you, and I don't want to like damage the relationship.  And there's this urgency of needing, feeling like the need to get space so I can process this and  then come back and talk about it well. But when we're like, talk, talk. You know trying to get  him to talk. We're actually preventing exactly what we want. Which is for him to come back and  be able to talk about it. What do we do? So, yeah. There is a way to work this. There are  a number of things to do. So on

e of the things though that was so encouraging to me as a guy  when I heard this, because again, I'm not sitting around with a bunch of dudes and saying, so do  you take time to process when you and your wife are fighting? You just don't talk about these  things. Instead I thought I was defective. I thought that there was something wrong with me,  that I couldn't process these things the way she can and I thought there's just something wrong.  And it was you know it's that impostor complex. It's

insecurity. I wasn't good at it so therefore  it felt. And sometimes the wives will even make the men and say, why can't you talk about it? You  don't love me. Don't walk away. So what we have to do is work with what we got, and what we got is  the fact that she knows that I need space. I need time to work this through. But she also what I  know about her is that she's going to feel unloved by me walking away and that's going to hurt. So  what I have to do is something along the lines of this,

and I'm going to say, when I say this I'm  confident in what I'm saying because we tested this on the survey. And it was 95% of women said  that if my husband, boyfriend will do something like this, it will help immensely. And so we're  in the middle of this disagreement, I'm feeling stirred up but I can't articulate why, or what we  need to do or how I need to handle it. So instead if I can say something like, Shaunti, I'm so upset  right now and I got to get some space. I got to go think this

through but I want you to know we're  okay. Wow. [Sigh of relief] And then that allows for me and my verbally processing brain to know  okay, we're okay. That's what stirred up the most, and we'll be able to come back and talk about it.  Now that is the caveat. You do actually have to come back at some point. And preferably not after  three days. One woman said, if I have to chase him down after two days, all that goodwill is out  the window. I remember our first fight that I will never forget f

or the rest of my life. It  was a year and a half into our marriage and I don't even remember what how the fight started. I  know it started about 2:00 p.m. I was at church, my wife already was at home. It was over text  message, which those are the worst fights, over a text message. And I got home, and we  already were giving cold shoulders and we were so immature in our first year of marriage.  And usually by 700 p.m. already I'm usually considering the possibility I could be wrong  because I

love my sleep. And so and but this time I was stubborn and I remember, I'm like no. I'm  going to, I'm going to prove this woman right and she's going to have to agree that she's wrong. And  so 9:00 p.m. comes and you know and she's talking and now I'm defensive. And then about 9:30 we're  already going through sleep and then we have this silence. You know both of us are in the same bed  and then you know turn around, and then I don't want to give her the pleasure of even hearing my  breathing.

I'm trying to like I don't want her to know even I'm alive. So you know and then you  know of course she was hits me, are you there? Mhm. And what happened is that I on accident  fell asleep. I was so emotionally exhausted, I didn't know I'm capable of falling asleep. I  was so tired that around 10:30 I fell asleep. So I wake up to I thought my rib was broken. It  turns out that I wake up and my wife she just, I mean she just she wakes me up. She didn't try  to assault me or anything, she just w

oke me up, and now for the rest of the two hours we're  arguing about how I was able to fall asleep. When in reality she's so hurt and you don't care about.  We forgot about the argument now. The argument is about how I responded and so we finally came  to the mutual agreement. We didn't solve it which was this was my first experience of going  to sleep mad but how we resolved it is we said, hey, we're so on the edge right now. Let's just  go to sleep and tomorrow morning we'll wake up and we'll

go and let's hear each other out. So  we went to sleep, next day went to Starbucks and then we both apologized and we came to the  conclusion. Till this day I don't remember what the argument was about, but that needing of  space. If I was given the permission to have space without feeling like I don't care  because that's what I felt and secondly, if I would have also assured her instead  of falling asleep, I wouldn't get my ribs fractured. Well believe it or not they've,  scientists, research

scientists, neuroscientists have actually studied the use of energy in the  brain and have found that for example in these emotional conflicts, that literally the process  of trying to process it makes us exhausted because our brain is working at this intense, basically  this intense speed. It's just using a lot of extra energy. So believe it or not, that's actually a  physiological response that you had. Well in the conclusion I do want to address the difference  in men and women when it comes

to sex. Okay, yep. So from your research, what did you find out  about men when it comes to how different they are from women, and what do women need to know? So  okay we literally just finished a research project and a brand new book on this topic, and so it's  even beyond what we have in these books. Although we started there and then we just added to it  and so, okay can I just give you the, one of the, a couple of the most interesting like pieces of  the puzzle? Of course, please. The one o

f the most important misunderstandings that we need to cover  right up front is that we women misunderstand what physical intimacy means to our husbands often,  and now again this is not 100% right. But this, I can't remember what the numbers were but it was  a pretty high percentage of the men and here's basically the misunderstanding. We as wives think  of physical intimacy in our marriage as being primarily a physical need for him. That's kind of  the category that we put it in. You know it's

a physical need. It's a physical urge. When you've  been running around with little kids all day, sleep seems like a physical need right. And when  we asked the men, you know tell me what's the importance of this in your life? What we heard  from the men had absolutely nothing to do with a physical, absolutely nothing. What we kept  hearing from them was this enormous emotional need that they couldn't really get met any other  way. And it's the need that every man has to feel that his wife desi

res him and that she wants him.  And if a man feels that his wife desires him, it gives him this sense of confidence right,  this sense of well-being in all, actually in all the other areas of his life. Not just in the  bedroom, and so and if he doesn't feel desired, it's like the reverse. Almost this I must be  so undesirable I can't compete with her pillow, right. And so for a lot of women, that's our  big misunderstanding. For men, do you want you want me to keep going? Keep going. Okay. The 

misunderstanding that men often have is actually this and this is, we leaned into this a lot in our  most recent research. For most men and this is, statistically this was I want to say it was around  80%. I'm not remembering the number exactly right now but somewhere in that ballpark. For most men  there is a sense for their, about their wives I should say, that there's something wrong here  because like I want her, why doesn't she want me in the same way that I want her. And it's because  hon

estly we misunderstand that there are actually different types of desire and different types of  physiology around sexual desire. And most of us, especially men, we see like the Hollywood version  of where you feel like this sense of hunger and you rip each other's clothes off and you know  you go at it. And you think, that's not what it looks like in my house. Something's wrong,  like something's broken. I'm not desirable because my wife doesn't do that to me. And for  the most part, what we fo

und is a lot of women, while that Hollywood image there, they're  questioning themselves because I don't feel the way those women in the movies do. Something  must be wrong with me. So they're getting it from a cultural you know kind of you know feeling that  they're less than. So basically both the husband and the wife often think the wife is broken.  Okay and so the misunderstanding here, again this is not everyone but this is again in the 80%  range. I'd have to look at the numbers, but what'

s happening often is there's two different types of  desire. And what you see in Hollywood, that I'm hungry for you kind of desire. You could call that  initiating desire. And that desire, that feeling is you feel desire and you do something about  it, okay. You pursue it. But there's a completely different type of desire and it's called receptive  desire. And 73% of women have receptive desire, where the physiology is exactly the opposite. And  instead someone with receptive desire, you don't f

eel that sense of desire upfront. You choose  to get engaged with your spouse in that way. You choose to try to begin some intimate because  you love them you start an intimate process, and as your physiology starts being stimulated.  Now assuming that this is a relationship of goodwill etc, okay. But as your physiology starts  getting stimulated, then the person with receptive desire then eventually starts feeling that sense  of hunger desire that their spouse may have felt 10 minutes ago. And

so that's the misunderstanding  that often happens with husbands which is it has nothing to do with you think it's that she doesn't  want you. That is not the issue at all. She literally has a different physiology than you.  And so here's the key for a lot of husbands is recognize she's making a decision to get engaged  with you, okay. And she'll know it's going to be good and she loves you and you know her physiology  will be stimulated, but she's making a decision. Guess what she's making the

decision based on? How  she feels about you and the relationship the rest of the day, and so that is why the old joke is you  know sex begins in the kitchen, right. Like it's how you treat your wife and the closeness that she  feels with you at other times during the day is usually what she's making the decision based on.  And so if you're not close, if you haven't talked to her, if you haven't engaged, she's not feeling  close and she's not going to be as excited about making that decision late

r. Now I need to say up  front because we'd spent a lot of time and money on this research project that that is the majority  of women, like I said 73% of women. But there's actually the opposite where we actually there is  a cohort of women who are the initiating desire. I think it was almost 10. I think it was actually  almost 24% were higher desire but I think it was 9% or 10% that were the initiating desire as  well. And some men aren't the initiating desire, some men are that receptive desi

re. So they  are exceptions. Could you also just briefly touch on men being visual. Sure. How that comes  pretty much naturally and they have to pretty much fight not to. Yes This is honestly, if I  can be honest. This is the most controversial topic that Shaunti and I deal with. Yeah, well  it's controversial and here's the reason. I'll just be really honest is because men and women's  brains are wired so differently that women don't understand it. Even the way you were talking about  physical

intimacy. I'm as a man listening to it, I was like Lord that's messed up. Why did  you allow that you know? You know like it's almost like God on purpose allowed somebody to be  completely opposite of us so to challenge us. So that for a husband for example, think about one of  the reasons perhaps why if you are a husband who is desiring to be connected intimately with your  wife and yet she's hanging back because you don't listen to her. Guess what? It's an incentive  to listen to her. It's an

incentive to love her like the way that you're supposed to and so  it's a, yeah it's definitely. It challenges us to try to figure out what the other needs but  in terms of the visual thing, here is one of, here is the biggest misunderstandings. The biggest  thing that a lot of women don't recognize about men and vice versa. So it turns out that the the  way that the male and female brains again tend to be wired. There's actually a function in the male  brain that doesn't exist in the female bra

in, okay and so and it has to do with visual stimulation  for like sexual images for example. And so what happens when a man sees a woman for example or  who let's just say you see an image in a movie of a woman who's not dressed in very much. You see  some sort of an image like that. What happens in the male brain is there's a part of the brain  called the nucleus accumbens and it's the part of the brain, it's in the midbrain. So it's not  the thinking centers. It's sort of back here, and it's

the part of the brain that lights up when  you are are hungry and you haven't eaten all day. And so let's just say you walk into the room and  you see food and you're like, whoa I want that. It's not a thought. It's a biological pull. That's  the nucleus accumbens lighting up, okay and so it's this biological response. When a guy sees a  woman who is sort of presenting a sexual image of some kind. His nucleus accumbent lights up and he  automatically has a draw to want to look at that image and

then a millisecond later. So that's back  here. A millisecond later his cortical centers, the thinking centers at the front of the  brain, they then kick in and he goes, no, no, no, don't. you know like honor your wife, or  honor God, or honor that other woman or whatever and so he chooses to sort of pull that thought  down. So there's a little bit of an intrabrain war okay. Temptation, choice, temptation, choice,  okay. And so the temptations we face aren't sins, right. It's what we choose to d

o with them, with  anything okay. So you have a temptation and a choice, and it's an interbrain war okay. For the  female brain what happens when. And this is really disappointing for a lot of guys who spend a lot  of time at the gym. I'm just going to tell you honestly what happens. For the female brain when  she sees the equivalent image of an attractive man, her nucleus accumbent stays dark. And instead  what lights up from the beginning is the cortical centers, and she thinks to herself, he'

s an  attractive man and that's kind of it. There's not this intrabrain war and so she for most  women, now this is not all but for most women, they literally have never experienced that  temptation, choice, temptation, choice with this particular issue. Other things, sure. Like  you know I really shouldn't have eaten that lava cake that you fed us at lunch today, however but  that's an example with this visual thing. Women haven't experienced it so we don't know that  men do, and men don't real

ize that for women it's different. So they think that woman at the  office that wears those tight outfits or whatever, she knows exactly what she's doing. Actually no,  she doesn't. She just knows she looks attractive. She doesn't know that there is this interbrain  war and so this is one of the reasons I think why when you look at what God talks about in  the Bible of things like taking every thought captive out of reverence for Christ for example,  that there are things that all of us have to

do that with. But for wives it is so important for  us to recognize that this is an issue that our men are facing every day in this culture. And I  would want to know that. Some women don't want to know this. They're like mad that I talk about  this. But I think if you love your husband and you want to support him, to be aware that this  is there. And candidly as a mom I am like a mama bear about this. I'm so glad I knew this about our  son so we could be right on top of like okay we're going to

have a filter on the internet and all  this other kind of stuff. Can I share. Because when I first time read about this in your book  when I was a young man, I just became freed I think about 16 or something from pornography. I  was addicted to pornography and that temptation would still be there. And sometimes the idea of  being tempted made me realize, oh my goodness, I'm a pervert. Because when I was, when I  was first like struggling with an addiction, I knew I was a pervert you know becaus

e when  you're addicted no matter it's just bad. But then when the temptation was there and I was like what  is wrong with me? And so I would pray, I said God, deliver me from the temptation. And then when  I remember I came across your chapter on that, and I was like oh wait. I have a brain problem.  It's my brain. And I'm like, wait so this doesn't, I just need to, first of all temptation is not  a sin and you mentioned that in your book. And I was like okay so that means pretty much I need  t

o now turn my eyes away. I need to not feel like just because I saw that or that came across  me that I committed sin. No. Now I have the opportunity like you said, make a choice. And that  was so liberating. I'm so glad. Well and the thing is what Shaunti has been able to communicate with  all of these things is that we're all in need of compassion from others. We had talked about this  and we were doing a Q&A at a church. This was many years ago, and one woman stood up and said, I read  that p

art in your book about the visual nature of men and I realized I could never trust my husband  again. And there was just this sadness. And you saw all the men just go. And she said, if he has  these thoughts that are running through his head, I can never trust him. And so Shaunti in it was  just God's wisdom said to her, do you have a son by any chance? And the woman said yes. And she  said, when your son is married, would you want his wife to say the same things about him? And it  was, oh no. A

nd we're not saying that we're giving men license to say it's all okay. It's just boys  being boys. It's absolutely not. It's not. Hence the choice. You called to make that choice. That's  right. Job said he makes a covenant with his eyes. And the key but the key is for me, my heart is to  help women understand men and how to love their men well. And the the key for this is this is such  a big part of so many men's experience day to day and many wives have no clue about it. And they  don't reali

ze how much their husband is trying to honor them. And so if a husband is struggling  and yet is trying to make the good choice, the appropriate response is gratitude, not  condemnation, right. That he's trying to work on this in this culture even if he doesn't  always succeed and that can be hurtful. But it is, and it is needs to be expected that he  is going to be, we are called to this, we are called to purity by our God. And so there,  for all of us we have these choices that we have to make

. And yet I want and I hope and I pray that  what this leads to for women is to have a sense of compassion and gratitude and closeness with their  husband. Where he feels like he can raise these issues and ask for prayer and say, can we put  that filter back on the internet you know. Without feeling like she's going to think that he's a  pervert. You guys were so generous with your time and sharing these things. I think this is  going to help a lot of people in the Bible says, we shall know the

truth and the truth will  set us free. Sometimes it's that ignorance, not knowing. We love, we care, we just don't  know and when we begin to know this information, it begins to now we have a choice. We still that  doesn't automatically make us good husbands or wives, but it gives us the proper tools. And I  think learning all of this and you know me being married now for really only 13 years, it made me  realize the need for the Holy Spirit. And when I read the fruit of the Holy Spirit and I'm

looking,  I'm like man, that's exactly what marriage is a great opportunity for the Holy Spirit to develop  that. One time I was you know this whole idea of hugging my wife. I'm not a big hugger. I'm not  very emotional like that. I thought I was a hugger when we were dating, so when we got married just  kind of forget and so I would put reminders of my wife. That's so good. That's good. But then I just  still would forget and the whole flowers and you know you don't, you don't tell me that you

love  me. My wife would kind of remind me about that. And I just felt like a, like man, everything I  do is just never enough. And one day I remember I walked into our garage, I still remember this  prayer and I said, Lord, I'm tired of trying to be a good husband. I just feel like I'll never be  good enough. And so and I remember I told the Holy Spirit, I said, Holy Spirit I'm going to quit  being a good, trying to be a good husband. And I'm going to focus on You to help me and also I'm  going

to train in godliness and longs suffering, kindness, compassion, focus more on You. And I  started to experience Holy Spirit reminding me, giving me the grace, hey Vlad there's Alberton,  they have good flowers. You know go get some flowers. You know like hey, give her a hug for  a little bit longer. And I started to notice the transformation and it's almost like God was far  more interested to develop me as a Christian man, as a Christian. And that's spilled into a marriage  because I cannot be

a good Christian without being a good husband to my wife. And that takes a  form of death to self and then that takes a form of trusting in the Holy Spirit. People who  think they can do it without the Holy Spirit, I sometimes don't know how they can do that because  we're so opposite. And if somebody wants to learn more about your ministry and these two wonderful  books and a lot of other books, where they can find more information. So the easiest thing,  if you're interested in the research,

if you're interested in the books or if you're interested in  our blog. We have a weekly blog. We spend a lot of time and effort and money creating and equipping a  blog each week with this kind of information. Just go to shaunti.com. Shaunti.com and you can see  all of it there. And I will say, we love sharing this like we did with you all. Oh yeah doing the  marriage conference and that kind of thing. It really is just one of the most, it restores my  faith in the humanity because so many time

s we see on social media, we hear in the media all of  these things of how much we dislike each other as people. When we are sitting and you know meeting,  you know we never met you before up until you know this weekend. This is the hope for our world.  It's the people that we get to engage with and we get to see that weekend after weekend around  the country and it's just magnificent. Thank you. So guys, I hope that you would encouraged,  inspired, challenged and maybe a little bit angry, unhap

py, but this is why we need the Lord. And I  hope that you take advantage of these resources. All of that information will be pinned right below  this video. I promise you it will be life-changing because as you grow in understanding you will  also have an opportunity to grow in love. And God wants our marriages to be better, God wants  our relationships to be better and it's really important that we understand, not assume that the  person that you're loving is exactly like you. But they need to

be loved. It's kind of like this. You  know if you go to Russia or Ukraine for example, and you're speaking English. You know you have  all the right intentions but people will not understand you, why? Because you speaking a  different language. So think of the opposite sex in generally they're speaking a different  language. So you want to learn that language so you can have the best communication with them,  loving communication and so God bless you. Don't forget to hit like, subscribe, and l

et us know  in the comments what stood out to you and what was the most surprising difference that you  learned from this interview. Until next time.