Quotes from John Gray

and hold her. Another woman would have instinctively known what Bonnie needed. But as a man, I didn't know that touching, holding, and listening were so important to her. By recognizing these differences I began to learn a new way of relating to my wife. I would have never believed we could resolve conflict so easily.

The success of a relationship is solely dependent on two factors: a man's ability to listen lovingly and respectfully to a woman's feelings, and a woman's ability to share her feelings in a loving and respectful way.

You probably know stories of couples who never fight or argue and then suddenly to everyone's surprise they decide to get a divorce. In many of these cases, the woman has suppressed her negative feelings to avoid having fights. As a result she becomes numb and unable to feel her love. When negative feelings are suppressed positive feelings become suppressed as well, and love dies. Avoiding arguments and fights certainly is healthy but not by suppressing feelings.

The closer we are to someone, the easier it is to bruise or be bruised.

He is stressed by the unsolved problems of his day and finds relief through forgetting them. [...] She, however, wants to find relief by talking about the problems of her day.

Their (men) sense of self is defined through their ability to achieve results. They experience fulfillment primarily through success and accomplishment.

As this pain comes up also focus on the love you feel for him/her. Focus on the love. Love feels good, love is expansive. Love is open and accepting. This love you feel is healing the pain of your loss. One day soon your pain will go and only the love will remain.

Most men are not only hungry to give love but are starving for it. Their biggest problem is that they do not know what they are missing.

A woman has within herself the ability to spontaneously rise up after she has hit bottom. A man does not have to fix her. She is not broken but just needs his love, patience, and understanding.

One of the most difficult challenges in our loving relationships is handling differences and disagreements. Often when couples disagree their discussions can turn into arguments and then without much warning into battles. Suddenly they stop talking in a loving manner and automatically begin hurting each other: blaming, complaining, accusing, demanding, resenting, and doubting.

It is not enough to merely be authentic in sharing yourself; to succeed in dating you need to consider how you will be interpreted as well.

After learning , please be realistic. Give yourself a permission to keep making mistakes. We must also give ourselves the gift of understanding that we can't remember everything we learned at once

woman is like a wave. When she feels loved her self-esteem rises and falls in a wave motion. When she is feeling really good, she will reach a peak, but then suddenly her mood may change and her wave crashes down. This crash is temporary. After she reaches bottom suddenly her mood will shift and she will again feel good about herself. Automatically her wave begins to rise back up.

A woman should not behave with a man as if she is exclusive or intimate if he is still working through issues with other women. And she should not mistakenly believe that if she listens sympathetically to him, he will become convinced she is the one for him.

Men rarely say "I'm sorry" because on Mars it means you have done something wrong and you are apologizing. Women, however, say "I'm sorry" as a way to say "I care about what you are feeling.

Make a goal to stay confident today. The world believes in you when you fully believe in yourself

Aman thinks he scores high with a woman when he does something very big for her, like buying her a new car or taking her on a vacation. He assumes he scores less when he does something small, like opening the car door, buying her a flower, or giving her a hug. Based on this kind of score keeping, he believes he will fulfill her best by focusing his time, energy, and attention into doing something large for her. This formula, however, doesn't work because women keep score differently.

Martians talk about problems for only two reasons: they are blaming someone or they are seeking advice. If a woman is really upset a man assumes she is blaming him. If she seems less upset, then he assumes she is asking for advice.

Some couples fight all the time, and gradually their love dies. On the other extreme, some couples suppress their honest feelings in order to avoid conflict and not argue. As a result of suppressing their true feelings they lose touch with their loving feelings as well. One couple is having a war while the other is having a cold war.

To feel better, women talk about past problems, future problems, potential problems, even problems that have no solutions. The more talk and exploration, the better they feel. This is the way women operate. To expect otherwise is to deny a woman her sense of self.

When men and women are single for a long time, the differences are sometimes not as defined.

To receive support we not only have to teach our partners what we need but we also have to be willing to be supported.

A man assumes that her sudden change of mood is based solely on his behavior. When she is happy he takes credit, but when she is unhappy he also feels responsible. He may feel extremely frustrated because he doesn't know how to make things better. One minute she seems happy, and so he believes he is doing a good job and then the next minute she is unhappy. He is shocked because he thought he was doing so well.

What you feel, you can heal.