For over 13 years i’ve been working with couples and individuals to help them with their relationships, self esteem, stress and other related issues. When i do relationship therapy, one of the most common things i hear from both men and women is that “they don’t understand each other.”

That’s because men and women communicate, think and behave in different ways. Their brains are wired differently, and helping men and women understand this will lead to better communication and relationships.

Lets start with the basics. Scientists believe that our species developed language about 250 thousand years ago. And that the reason why men and women talk and behave differently is because their brains evolved in different directions through daily use over these past quarter million years. Our brains haven’t really changed all that much.

Men were hunters and thought about ways to effectively stalk, kill and transport home the food for the family group or tribe. Men’s hunting required creativity, cleverness and physical endurance….And not much talking; just taking care of business. While the men were away, the women worked in groups for safety while gathering berries, nuts, and other plants for food and tools and took care of the children.

Women talked much of the time while doing their chores and improved their relationships within the group of women. At the end of the day when the family came together in the cave, hut or wherever, scientists speculate that there was probably not much discussion between men and women. What they probably talked about were a few shared interests like eating, food, security, what the kids were up to, sex and sleep.

Does this sound familiar? So here we are now… and generally speaking, when women talk to both men and women, much of the goal of their ”old brain” is to establish a good relationship to insure safety, protection and survival of themselves and future children.

When men talk, their “old brain” is striving for higher status and dominance over other males to have greater access to women for breeding rights and continued success in their ability to take care of the business of getting food and protecting their assets and the family. In the next clip i’ll be talking about specific differences between the way men and women communicate and think so maybe you can understand your partner better.

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