Gray John. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

What a Man Needs a Woman to Accept
A woman needs to accept a man's instinctive tendencies to focus all his energies into one big thing and minimize the importance of the little things. By accepting this inclination, it will not be as hurtful to her. Rather than resenting him for giving less, she can constructively work with him to solve the problem. She can repeatedly let him know how much she appreciates the little things he has done for her and that he works hard and attentively. She can remember that his forgetting to do the little things doesn't mean he doesn't love her but that he has become too focused on big things again. Instead of fighting him or punishing him, she can encourage his personal involvement by asking for his support. With more appreciation and encouragement a man will gradually learn to value the little things as well as the big. He will become less driven to be more and more successful and begin to relax more and spend more time with his wife and family.

REDIRECTING ENERGY AND ATTENTION
I remember when I first learned to redirect my energies into the little things. When Bonnie and I were first married, I was almost a workaholic. In addition to writing books and teaching seminars, I had a counseling practice for fifty hours a week. In the first year of our marriage, she let me know again and again how much she needed more time with me. Repeatedly she would share her feelings of abandonment and hurt. Sometimes she would share her feelings in a letter. We call this a Love Letter. It always ends with love and includes feelings of anger, sadness, fear and sorrow. In chapter 11 we will explore more deeply the methods and importance of writing these Love Letters. She wrote this Love Letter about my spending too much time at work.

Dear John,
I'm writing you this letter to share with you my feelings. I don't mean to tell you what to do. Ijust want you to understand my feelings. I am angry that you spend so much time at work. I am angry y that you come home with nothing left for me. I want to spend more time with you. It hurts to feel like you care more about your clients than me. I feel sad that you are so tired. I miss you. I'm afraid you don't want to spend time with me. I am afraid of being another burden in your life. I am afraid of sounding like a nag. I am afraid my feelings are not important to you.
I'm sorry if this is hard to hear. I know you are doing your best. I appreciate how hard you work.
I love you,
Bonnie

After reading about her feeling neglected I realized that I truly was giving more to my clients than I was to her. I would give my undivided attention to my clients and then come home exhausted and ignore my wife.

When a Man Overworks
I was ignoring her not because I didn't love her or care for her but because I had nothing left to give. I naively thought I was doing the best thing by working hard to provide a better life (more money) for her and our family. Once I understood how she felt, I developed a plan for solving this problem in our relationship. Instead of seeing eight clients a day I started seeing seven. I pretended that my wife was my eighth client. Every night I came home a hour earlier. I pretended in my mind that my wife was my most important client. I started giving her that devoted and undivided attention I would give a client. When I arrived home I started doing little things for her. The success of this plan was immediate. Not only was she happier but I was too. Gradually, as I felt being loved for the ways I could support her and our family, I became less driven to be a great success. I started to slow down, and to my surprise not only our relationship but also my work flourished, becoming more successful without my having to work as hard. I found that when I was succeeding at home, my work reflected that success. I realized that success in the work world was not achieved through hard work alone. It was also dependent on my ability to inspire trust in others. When I felt loved by my family, not only did I feel more confident, but others also trusted and appreciated me more.

Now a Women Can Help
Bonnie's support played a big part in this change. In addition to sharing her honest and loving feelings, she was also very persistent in asking me to do things for her and then giving me a lot of appreciation when I did them. Gradually, I started to realize how wonderful it is to be loved for doing little things. I was relieved from feeling that I had to do great things to be loved. It was a revelation.

WHEN WOMEN GIVE POINTS
Woman possess the special ability to appreciate the little things of life as much as the big things. This is a blessing for men. Most men strive for greater and greater success because they believe it will make them worthy of love. Deep inside, they crave love and admiration from others. They do not know that they can draw that love and admiration to them without having to be a greater success. A woman has the ability to heal a man of this addiction to success by appreciating the little things he does. But she may not express appreciation if she doesn't understand how important it is to a man. She may let her resentment get in the way.

HEALING THE RESENTMENT FLU
Women instinctively appreciate the little things. The only exceptions are when a woman doesn't realize a man needs to hear her appreciation or when she feels the score is uneven. When a woman feels unloved and neglected it is hard for her automatically to appreciate what a man does for her. She feels resentful because she has given so much more than he has. This resentment blocks her ability to appreciate the little things. Resentment, like getting the flu or a cold, is not healthy. When a woman is sick with resentment she tends to negate what a man has done for her because, according to the way a woman keeps score, she has done so much more. When the score is forty to ten in favor of the woman, she may begin to feel very resentful. Something happens to a woman when she feels she is giving more than she is getting. Quite unconsciously she subtracts his score of ten from her score of forty and concludes the score in their relationship is thirty to zero. This makes sense mathematically and is understandable, but it doesn't work. When she subtracts his score from her score he ends up with a zero, and he is not a zero. He has not given zero; he has given ten. When he comes home she has a coldness in her eyes or in her voice that says he is a zero. She is negating what he has done. She reacts to him as if he has given nothing, but he has given ten. The reason a woman tends to reduce a man's points this way is because she feels unloved. The unequal score makes her feel unloved, she finds it very difficult to appreciate even the ten points he can legitimately claim. Of course, this isn't fair, but it is how it works. What generally happens in a relationship at this point is the man feels unappreciated and loses his motivation to do more. He catches the resentment flu. She then continues to feel more resentful, and the situation gets worse and worse. Her resentment flu gets worse.

What She Can Do
The way of solving this problem is to understand it compassionately from both sides. He needs to be appreciated, while she needs to feel supported. Otherwise their sickness gets worse. The solution to this resentment is for her to take responsibility. She needs to take responsibility for having contributed to her problem by giving more and letting the score get so uneven. She needs to treat herself as if she has the flu or a cold and take a rest from giving so much in the relationship. She needs to pamper herself and allow her partner to take care of her more. When a woman feels resentful, she usually will not give her partner a chance to be supportive, or, if he tries, she will negate the value of what he has done and give him another zero. She closes the door to his support. By taking responsibility for giving too much, she can give u