Why Mars and Venus Collide audiobook

A very validating book, and an incredibly fast read. Explains how men and women deal with stress, with real-life examples that ring so true. Talks about the BIOLOGICAL and biochemical differences between men and women, and for me, learning that some things are biological changes my perspecive a lot. Here are some excerpts I liked from the book:"Being aware of our innate biochemical differences frees us from the unhealthy compulsion to change our partners and eventually leads us to celebrate our differences.""Men tend to work best on projects rather than routines, since routines have no clear beginning or end. When a man is tired, a domestic routine is rarely a priority, as it is for a woman.""When a man takes action to support a woman's needs, she feels supported and her stress goes down. But the opposite is true on Mars. WHen a woman does LESS for him and allows him to do more for her, his stress is lessened. A man's stress is reduced when he feels successful in meeting her needs.""Men feel needed and women need to feel they are not alone. Just as a woman is happiest when she feels she is getting what she needs from her partner, a man is happiest when he feels successful in meeting her partner's needs. This is an important distinction.""Just as women need to blet go of expecting men to be perfect, men need to let go of expecting women to think we are perfect. Together we have learned tha our life does not have to be perfect for us to connect and support each other.""The real reason women are tired today is not because they have too much to do. It is b/c they are not producing enough oxytocin to cope with stress."Anyway, there are a definitely more points in the book to share, this is just a glimpse as to what this book talks about. I highly recommend it to everyone, just so you understand the opposite gender that much more. Read the Introduction of the book first...(don't skip it) b/c that's what hooked me in.

It took me so long to finish with this book but to be honest I didn't want it to finish at all because it certainly was an adventure for me and I loved every bit of it. Coming to the book it's obvious from it's title that it deals with Mars and Venus issues but totally brilliantly. Every word I read seemed real to me as a Venusian and as far as I have checked (with my husband) to a Martian as well. The author has mixed psychology with scientific facts with medical facts and that made a totally convincing recipe...Stress has really an enormous effect on all of us but we keep ignoring it, the author teaches us to stop ignoring and start coping and develop new strategies to deal with it.The two books I read so far from this Author's have planted in me one big principle that if I get out only with this it would be too satisfying which is that, most collisions between Mars and Venus is due to that both genders do not understand each other well because they don't know what a "Man" is and what a "Woman" is both in their psychological make up and their biological one.... Just understanding that solves 85% of the problems ( My estimation).Collisions are inevitable between people especially between couples since there is extra intimacy in the latter. But knowing how to deal with those collisions renews your love each time and makes the couple stronger than ever and deeply in love even at times of hardship. It teaches both couples to trust each other and respect each other in many thousand ways. Once there was a man who had a goose which laid golden eggs, he had to wait each day to get one golden egg, it was tiring to him and he got impatient,so he decided killing the goose to take all the golden eggs out, he found none!This is from the Seven habits book of Steven Covey's but I liked to put it here to add something which this book says between the lines but not out loud that: " Your goose is what's important to you because only it can give you golden eggs".... which means if you ever wanted to change anything in your spouse or wanted anything else from him/her don't forget that he/she as a person is more important than the result you want to get.... this way neither you would want to change your spouse nor you will try but I most certainly ensure you that you will get what you want from him/her. Keep your goose and care for it for the sake of the goose not for the sake of what you want!I can go on but I will just recommend it to all married couples but my advice is let it be after a period of your marriage ( like lets say 8 months to 1 year of marriage) to get the chance to have real collisions and then start analyzing ;) . As for myself I will continue read all the Mars and Venus series . Goodreads to you all ...

Setelusnya, sukar sekali untuk saya menghabiskan pembacaan buku ini. Bukanlah disebabkan naskhah ini terlalu berat isi kandungannya, namun mungkin kerana saya belum biasa membaca buku perihal sains psikologi dan hubungan kemanusiaan.Buku ini hakikatnya banyak memberikan fokus perihal bagaimana mahu memperbaik hubungan suami isteri apabila masing-masing mengalami tekanan kehidupan.Namun sejujurnya, saya berupaya memperoleh banyak input tentang apa sebenarnya yang membezakan antara lelaki dengan wanita dari pelbagai sudut serta bagaimana mahu menghadapinya dengan baik, terutamanya apabila berhadapan dengan teman-teman yang berlainan jantina dalam gerak kerja, organisasi, persatuan, dan masyarakat.Pentingnya mengetahui perbezaan yang lahir sama ada dari sudut fizikal, mental, mahupun psikologi ini adalah supaya masing-masing dapat memahami dan menerima antara satu sama lain, tidak akan sesekali menyalahkan sesama sendiri, saling menyokong dan membantu, serta berhasil mengekalkan kebahagiaan.Tambah menarik, pengarang bukan bersembang kosong perihal perbezaan ini, bahkan disokong oleh beberapa fakta sains dan psikologi daripada pakar-pakar yang disebut nama dan jawatan mereka dalam bahagian pendahuluan naskhah ini.

MUST READ!The cover have explained its content approriately I must say. Just to make it clear, Mars in the title refers to men while Venus refers to women, therefore, the title itself is self-explanatory. Why do men and women fight? Its focus, romantic relationship between these two.It starts by explaining about different hormones that make men and women feel good. Different hormones ---> different needs = different train of thoughts = different ways to cope with stress. I don't know if the hormonal things is exactly true. To be honest, it's overly simplistic, but perhaps, adequate to explain the differences.The best part about this book is, it doesn't only state the different needs of men and women to feel good but it also explains on how to do it. How to make your partner happy. Better yet, I honestly think the tips are not only applicable to romantic relationships but also to your families and friends. Yay! I've tested a few tips on my not so romantic friends during this short period of time, I honestly think they work. Give me some more time to experiment and perhaps I shall write an extra notes when I'm ready? Deal.This book is different from many other motivational/self-help books I've read. I mean, have you tried reading any of them? Let me give you an example.E.g. How To Be Successful ; 1. Time Management ; Time is gold. A succesful person always know how to manage time. Many current leaders and of times long gone said their successes are mainly due to proper time management.... (Yada yada yada. They keep on blabbering about the importance of time management, etc etc but they never teach you how to properly manage your time. $+#?@-;#+)This book is different. The tips are practical, logical, easy to do and adjustable according to situations. More importantly, they seem to show immediate results. So, let's not blabber too much. You should really go and get this book.

John Gray's books still hold lots of ideas about sex roles that I don't relate to, or am somewhat uncomfortable with, but this title seems to carry some scientific thoughts on the different ways that men and women handle stress that can lead to misunderstandings. But I'm guessing that no matter how many books I read about male-female relationships, they will continue to baffle me :-)

I really enjoy John Gray. He is my favorite author and teacher on relationships. By learning the differences between men and women , it is so much easier to keep a healthy relationship. this book is about how men and women act differently to every day stress. I have most of his books and never been dissapointed. He is great.

This book is the best! I feel so much happier and less stressed!!! Jared has seen and benefitted from the dramatic lessons I've learned that are contained in this magic book :) I have a little bit left to go, but as soon as I'm done I think he will read it too.

Why Mars and Venus collide; John Gray might just be my favorite at the moment! 😍This book focus more on stress and how our hormones are related to internal stress. Men and women deal with stress differently and therefor it’s hard for a man to comfort or help a woman dealing with stress and vice versa. Men and women also often get stressed about completely different things. We can’t always help someone from the opposite gender the way we want to be helped but customize our ways depending on the person. Women get less stressed by oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone” while men get less stressed by testosterone. That and more we learn here in this book. (It’s heavy generalized, yes, but it’s based on scientific studies so worth reading anyway.) Although the criticism these books have gotten I have to say that I feel that there IS definitely a feminist perspective in this. It’s heteronormative as hell which is ofc a bit outdated but for heterosexual women and men, and just those who are close friends or family with women or men, I think these books will help tremendously! I learned a great deal from this book and since the chapter on hormones was my favorite one in his other book I read I was very happy to see a whole book on just that topic. Very interesting as always, well written. The only downside again would be that it’s a bit messy because it’s constant repeating and therefor feels like he’s “blabbering”. 4/5! ✨✨✨✨

I received this book as a goodbye present from the SEA Client Development team and the, then, newly established SEA GFO team at UBS Singapore. Actually I think Alvin picked out the book as he knew of my struggles since moving to Singapore and that not all reasons why I was to embark on a geographic and industry move (into non-profit) were professional. Also, he was just about to get married himself and might have consulted this book in the weeks and months before ;-)Since 2012 I have become good at noting in Goodreads when I read a book, but this wasn't my practice back then. I must have read the book in 2012, maybe 2013. The reason why I write a review years later, is because I added a bunch of post-it stickers and this review is a way for me to understand whether the book is more than a series of platitudes (which is how I remember the book) and actually resonates with me today. So the following review will focus on the stickers I made and my re-reading of the respective pages. What follows is: page number of sticker, sticker text and then today's thoughts. Here we go:28 - What a woman wantsI can see why I put this sticker. There is a long list of the many benefits of being in a relationship. Having exited a 16+ year relationship the year before, I had been craving for a new relationship and had been unsuccessful in Singapore. Seeing all the reasons on a list why a woman wouldn't want me was exactly what I wanted to hear to reaffirm my quest.50 - repetitive "By understanding our differences..."It still bothers me to this day when books repeat themselves. I recently finished "No-Drama Discipline" and this exact reason was why I gave the book four stars, although I considered the content to be five star-worthy.66 - Angela "to give to their partners with strings..."Angela was the person I was with for 19 years. She often said and used the idea of "quid pro quo". The book states that "When women begin to feel that are not getting enough in their relationships, they tend to give to their partner with strings." It hurts me to think that I might have been less giving and loving than she deserved.80 - Angela Saphannee EctomorphThe book states that ectomorphs (a body type) experience increased feelings of anxiety or worry at low oxytocin levels. For Angela I would say this is true. For Saphannee, whom I do not know very well, my gut tells me this is true as well. They need to increase their oxytocin levels to cope with a long to-do list.98 - Increasing oxytocin making a woman feel goodThis sticker is on the list of "One Hundred Ways for a Woman to Create Oxytocin on Her Own". At the number one spot is "get a massage" and although I might not give complete body massages regularly, I do give hand, foot, arm, leg massages very often (almost daily, I would say). However, variety spices things up and if out of ideas, there are plenty ideas here.109 - no textAnother list, seems almost the same as before: "One Hundred Ways a Man Can Raise a Woman's Oxytocin Levels"162 - NoteThis is yet another list for when communication has broken down: "What a Man Should Consider During a Time-Out"191 - no textA new chapter starts on this page called "Using the Venus Talking Points" with the talking points following in a list. The idea being, that when using these points during a conversation, the oxytocin levels increase and stress is being reduced.194 - no textThe point on page 194 is that you should "use the venus talking points many times before you decide if you want to keep using them." as the author swears that this style of questioning has helped millions. By practising many times the questions are internalized and might not be necessary in the future.195 - no textWhen you're not defending yourself, feeling bad, fixing something, judging, the brain is free to focus on listening. This is the purpose of the venus talk - allowing the woman to talk and the man to listen.203 - 1,2,3,4 Do training to become coachFour sources of inner strength are listed: yourself, spiritual and inspirational support, your priorities and individual therapy or life coaching206 - Isolation is starting to put pressure on me! Do regular networking!I remember seeing the importance of becoming more pro-active in networking as my success of finding a new partner wasn't setting in.207 - Find a coachThe first text that I underlined: "If you are looking for parental support and you can't get that support from your parents for whatever reason, then find a therapist. A therapist or relationship coach is a more appropriate way to nurture your needs and make up for what was missing in your childhood." Having completed a life coaching seminar in the summer on 2012, I was probably feeling that I still had some unsolved issues. As of this writing and being very happy in my relationship, I do not have these urges anymore.208 - no textI highlighted a whole paragraph with "Me & Angela". It starts like this: "When you do not have meaningful work in your life, you will expect your partner to make your life more meaningful." This was definitely true, or rather almost. I didn't have the expectation, but I realised that when I moved to Singapore (without her) that whatever meaning I had had in my life was gone.218 - Watch out! Don't do this!There is a list of things not to say. The list seems rather silly and I don't know why I would think that I would potentially make these kind of comments.226 - no textAnother list of "Mars & Venus in the beginning and later". This is a fun list with many "crimes" I have committed myself.232 - so trueI highlighted the following paragraph: "Men love to give in their way. Men endure the hardships and sacrifices required to succeed in the work world so that they can provide the needed support for their loved ones. Under the grip of stress, a man forgets the real reason he is working so hard. Without a partner or a family to care for, his life is empty. To protect and serve his wife and family gives his life meaning and purpose.So true :-)