What Your Mother Couldn't Tell You and Your Father Didn't Know: Advanced Relationship Skills for Better Communication and Lasting Intimacy

by John Gray Narrated by George Guidall

Overview

The rules of relationships have changed.

In our generational movement toward wholeness, women want to be more than mothers and homemakers and men aspire to loving relationships rather than simply being warriors and work machines. The age-old distinctions between male and female roles have blurred, and the rules of relationships have not yet caught up, creating confusion and frustration.

Our parents couldn't teach us what they didn't know. As children, the lessons we learned from the adult relationships around us did not prepare us for our current adult love interests and challenges. Today, men and women expect relationships to enhance the total quality of their lives, meeting both their practical and emotional needs. And, when the need for individual fulfillment clashes with the desire to have a lasting relationship, couples often resort to divorce.

With the extensive experience gained through his seminars, Dr. Gray has discovered several keys to happiness within relationships and shares this information with listeners. Through the development of relationship skills that address contemporary needs of individuals and couples, John Gray offers practical ways to enjoy and celebrate the differences between men and women and create long-lasting, fulfilling relationships.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The author of bestselling Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus proposes that ``New skills must be learned if a man is to feel needed and appreciated by his mate.... New skills are required [for a woman] to remain feminine and also be strong.'' In an easy combination of personal anecdotes from his own marriage and ideas culled from the professional seminars he conducts, Gray delineates the skills he considers necessary to make relationships thrive. According to him, no models exist for today's marriage partners, whose roles are often the reverse of the traditional or are altered by the wife's higher earning power. So Gray explores sexual differences and other potential points of conflict in an approach based on traditional values. To whit, ``Men must learn to use their ancient hunting skills of silently watching and waiting when listening to their mates.'' At 'em, boys. 500,000 first printing; $350,000 ad/promo; first serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild split main selection; author tour. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Advice on staying in a relationship from the author of the best-selling Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (LJ 5/15/92).

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170037148
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/21/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Once upon a time, untold ages ago, men and women were peaceful partners in a hostile and dangerous world. A woman felt loved and respected because each day her mate went out and risked his life to provide for her. She didn't expect him to be sensitive or nurturing. Good communication skills were not a part of his job description. As long as he was a good hunter and could find his way home, relationship skills were not required for a mate to be desirable. As providers, men felt loved and appreciated by women. While surviving was difficult, relationships were comparatively easy.
Men and women existed in different spheres. They greatly depended on each other in order to survive. Food, sex, children, shelter, and security motivated them to work together because the fulfillment of these basic needs required specific roles and skills. Men assumed the role of provider and protector while women specialized in nurturing and homemaking.
It was a natural separation. Biology had determined that a woman gives birth and hence feels a great responsibility for raising children and creating a home. The man honored and respected her role by agreeing to take such dangerous assignments as venturing into the wild to hunt, or standing guard to protect her and their young. Although men would often be out for days in the freezing cold or blazing sun before making a kill, they were proud of these sacrifices because they greatly honored the female, the life giver. And because a man and woman's interdependent partnership provided the basics of survival and security, it automatically generated mutual respect and appreciation.
While the men were out hunting, thewomen would sustain life at home. Women greatly valued the opportunity to love and nurture their children and maintain domestic harmony without having also to provide and protect. A man's assistance in making life safer, easier, and more comfortable caused him to be a hero in her eyes. As long as both partners fulfilled their basic tasks, men and women felt quite content emotionally. Century after century, the challenges of survival remained paramount, and the division of labor between men and women remained fundamentally the same.
Now, though, life has changed dramatically. Since we are no longer utterly dependent on each other for security and survival, the rules and strategies of our ancestors have become outdated. For the first time in recorded history, we look to each other primarily for love and romance, not survival and security. Happiness, intimacy, and lasting passion are now requirements for fulfilling relationships.
To succeed in today's relationships, we must learn new lessons that our ancestors and parents simply could not teach us. What your mother couldn't tell you and your father didn't know is how to satisfy your partner's emotional needs without sacrificing your own personal fulfillment. This new agenda can be accomplished only through the practice of advanced relationship skills.
To succeed in today's relationships, we must learn new lessons that our ancestors and parents couldn't teach us.

Times Have Changed
The social and economic changes of the last forty years have enormously affected the traditional male and female roles that have been in place since the beginning of civilization. Women leaving the home and entering the workforce has greatly diminished men's traditional value to women. Increasingly independent and self-sufficient, contemporary women no longer feel the same need for men to provide for or protect them.
A modern woman charts her own destiny and pays her own bills. When in danger she can pull out her Mace or call the police. Most important, she now has much more control over when to have children and how many she wants. Until the discovery of the birth control pill, and the widespread availability of contraceptives, women were utterly biologically determined to have children and be dependent on men. No more.
We are just beginning to comprehend the changes in relationships that have resulted from the widespread use of birth control and the following sexual revolution. We are living in a time of dramatic transition and sexual tension.
In a sense, we could say that all men are out of work. They no longer have the job they held for countless centuries. They are no longer valued and appreciated as providers and protectors. Although they continue to do what they have always done, it suddenly isn't enough to make their partners happy. Women require something else, something more than their mothers did.

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