One thing that women are really good at doing is changing, and in large part, our motivation to change comes from perceived criticism by those around us. Have you ever been told by a boyfriend that he didn’t like your absolute favorite shirt?
As much as you may have loved that shirt, most women would at least stop wearing it around him.
Why? Because for a woman our instinct is to adapt, and we view criticism as the invitation to do so…even if we reluctantly change, we often still change.
The masculine responds differently though.
Try to recall the last time that you criticized a man. Did he change his behavior right away? Likely not, and herein lies another difference between men and women.
As a woman, because we react to criticism in one way, we think that when we criticize a man he’ll react in the same way, by changing.
But guess what? He doesn’t.
He doesn’t change his behavior because he evaluates information in a totally different way than you do.
In the past, a woman’s very survival depended on her ability to adapt to constantly changing circumstances, so naturally we’ve become quite good at this.
A man will take your criticism and then evaluate whether or not there is any truth to it before ever acting on it.
And honestly, he may never act on it, because he may not see the effort required to change as worth the pay off.
But don’t worry, not all hope is lost!
What a man truly does respond to is your ability to appreciate him for who he is. We’ll learn more about how that is woven in and out of criticism.
In next weeks blog I’ll show you how you can give your man the appreciation he really wants and why your appreciation has the power to transform the way you relate to one another.
To your authenticity,
Love, Christine