Book Critique: The Relationship Handbook, George S. Pransky, PhD, Part 3 of 15

George S. Pransky's book, The Relationship Handbook: A simple guide to satisfying relationships (ISBN 0971198802), is a lesser-known, self-published book that contains a number of strong insights into building a strong marriage. This book is worth reviewing as a supplement to my book, Dragonslayer, while working to overcome the disease of Gender Role Reversal.

Previous chapters: 1-A Fresh Start, 2-Compatibility

Chapter 3: Communication

Pransky's Take

If a relationship is off track, communication is, at best, like brushing your teeth right before you eat candy.

Pransky states that, "Communication is a pipe through which feelings pass." In other words, if you feel positive, your relationship will be uplifted and vice versa if you feel negative.

Pransky uses a similar analogy as Willard Harley's book His Needs, Her Needs. In Pransky's example the currency is feelings. Each time you communicate positive feelings you make a deposit, while negative communication requires a withdrawal. The stronger the feeling, the larger the deposit or withdrawal.

The Sigma Male Says

Positive vs. negative communication is a no-brainer. As we all learned from Thumper in the movie, Bambi, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Recognize, however, that if you're experiencing marriage problems, saying nice things to your wife like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. Taking positive ACTION is relationship triage. In my book, calls this simple skillset Dragonslaying. The best way to communicate care and concern is to slay your wife's dragons—recognize and be willing to take care of her problems.

Dragonslaying is automatic money in the bank.

Next up: Moods

Are Men and Women Really Different?

According to research:

Nine out of 10 prison inmates are men

Among people who are homeless, men outnumber women by at least three to one

Men are 10 times more likely to commit murder than women are

Men are more likely to show up at the low end of distributions of IQ scores—they are more likely to be mentally retarded—than women

Men are more likely to abuse and abandon their children and less likely to take care of their aging parents than women

On psychological measures of undesirable characteristics, men outscore women on measures of cruelty, closed-mindedness, hostility, narcissism, and self-indulgence

Men die earlier than women—about five years earlier on average

Men show greater variability on many characteristics than women do—more men score at the extremes of distributions than women do

On average, men are taller than women, but men show more variability around the average height than women do. We also see this effect for birth weight

(Source)

Professor Mark Leary of Duke University states that the reasons are complex but include elements of evolution, biology, and culture.

Society today wants us to believe that evolution and biology only play a role in each gender's physical differences—that the social and psychological differences between men and women stem from culture alone. This is not accurate!

Different does not mean better or worse, superior or inferior. The sum of these gender differences allows us to create a union that is stronger than the individual parts. The sooner we acknowledge the differences between men and women without prejudice, the sooner we will be able to get our relationships back on a healthy track.

 

Bookend Your Habits

As I discuss in Dragonslayer, good character by itself does not guarantee a happy marriage. However, strengthening character can turbocharge the speed in which a man assumes the Sigma Roles. Therefore, working to improve yourself still make a lot of sense—as long as you don't neglect the three Sigma Roles: (Protector, Provider, Presider).
Developing a good habit is a pretty simple process, as I've mentioned previously. Why then, do so many of us struggle when it comes to adding new habits to our repertoire?

I've noticed that when I follow a set, positive routine in the morning, the rest of my day is more likely to go well. I've also discovered that when I end my day with a set, positive routine, I'm more likely to be successful the following day.

I call this Bookending: creating a set of routines that hold a block of time in check. Imagine your morning and evening routines as a pair of bookends that hold the rest of the day together. The bigger your bookends (your morning and evening routines), the better they hold your books (your daily activities and habits) in place.
If you're having a hard time developing mid-day habits, it's usually because there are no bookends to sandwich them between—or your existing bookends are too far apart. To correct this, first analyze the bookends that you already have in place. For example, what signals the end of the morning and what leads to the start of your afternoon activities? Most people have a lunchtime ritual that moves them from morning to afternoon.

Think of your day as an extra long shelf. It is easier to manage several smaller sets books than it is to control a single, lengthy row of them. The more bookends you put on your shelf, the easier it is to add an extra book (a new habit or activity) and hold it in place.

Does your day lack routines that allow you to effectively control multiple blocks of time? If so, develop a new pair of bookends. When you do, it will become much easier to add additional positive habits to your book collection.

In summary, when working on developing a habit, first figure out which block of time will best support it, a block of time that is held together by a pair of bookends: one that starts a process and one that wraps it up. You'll discover that bookending is a much more stable method of building habits of character.

How To Apologize

In life no matter how hard you work at maintaining a good relationship, you are still bound to make mistakes. When you error, learning how to apologize quickly and effectively will help get things back on track.

However, as Lifehacker's Heidi Grant Halvorson points out in a recent blog post, most people make an apology about themselves by saying things like:

"I didn't mean to..."

"I was trying to..."

"I didn't realize..."

"I had a good reason..."

A Sigma never plays the victim. To make your apology meaningful, Halvorson makes the following suggestion:

Recognize the difference between a casual friend/stranger and a close friend/ partner

While a casual acquaintance or stranger can be happy with an offer of compensation ("I'm sorry I was a jerk and I'll make it up by being nicer later"), your wife prefers empathy ("I'm so sorry that I didn't appreciate all of your effort. You must have felt awful, and that's the last thing I want.").

When you express empathy, your wife feels valued or understood and your trespass will be more quickly forgiven.

Remember, it was your mistake that caused the injury and hurt. Being truly sorry means that you understand exactly how your actions affected your spouse.

Is the Joke on You?

Yesterday I wrote about a degrading congratulatory wedding card. Today as I traveled across Europe, I discovered another gem:

 

It dawned on me that these types of messages are nothing new; lately I've just been paying closer attention because of my work on The Sigma Male. In fact, now that I think about it, I've can remember seeing this type of knick-knack for as long as I can remember. So what—if anything—has changed?

When my father's generation of Alpha men looked at these messages, they did so with a wink and a nod, in a sense telling their wife, "Thank you for all that you do for me. I wouldn't be who I am without you." But they didn't take to heart internalize a message that they should somehow be subservient to their wife—they didn't believe it in the least! After all, the chauvinism of the Alpha Male dictated that they were better than women, so how could a woman tell them what to do?

Today's Modern Men are no longer chauvinistic—they believe that women are their equals. So if the genders are equal, why do Modern men sheepishly grin and accept that they should stand beneath women--that their wife is the boss and they are a servant? The rooster plaque above says it all:

Today's men believe they are nothing more than a barnyard king. The rooster can strut and crow all he likes—as long as he remembers that at any moment the ax might drop on his neck. 

Sigmas are able to employ same wink and nod of their fathers—without then chauvinism because they understand that there is no such thing as subservience when a true leader is present.

Hence the two smiles in the picture!

Where Do You Stand?

I ran across an interesting congratulatory wedding card this week. Here's the front of it:

 

Of all the wedding toppers I've seen, this one "takes the cake." What makes it even worse is the interior:

I might be accused of taking this obvious "joke" too seriously, but I'm certain that any man who knows "where he stands”—at least according this card's definition—isn't laughing; nor is his wife.

If you've read my book, The Sigma Male, you know that the following wedding topper better represents a successful marriage—where a husband really understands where he should stand and his wife admires and respects him:

Leading the dance!

Shame on anyone who congratulates a new couple by inviting them to pursue a path that will only end in unhappiness.

Book Critique: For Women Only, Part 10 of 10: Saying "I Love You"

Book Critique Part 10, For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men, Shaunti Feldhahn

Part 10. Men want their wives to know how much they love them.

Feldhahn’s Take

This was the number one response of men. Men aren’t confident in their ability to express this, but they love their wives dearly. Men want to show how much they love their wives and long for them to understand this fact.

The Sigma Male Says

Men do love their wives dearly and much of their frustration is that they don’t feel that their wives know it. There is one, foolproof way to let your wife know you love her. Start acting like a Sigma Male, a man who Protects, Provides, and Presides. Implement the changes that will make it impossible for her not to know how you feel about her.

When you're a Sigma, showing your wife you love her becomes as easy as actually opening your mouth and saying, "I love you." She'll believe you because your words are supported by your actions.

Earlier Posts: Part 1: Disrespect, Part 2: Anger, Part 3: Insecurity, Part 4: The Burden of Providing, Part 5: Sex, Part 6: What Sex Means to a Man, Part 7: Visual Stimulation, Part 8: Romance, Part 9: A Woman's Looks

Note: Feldhahn's book, For Couple's Only, is actually a compilation of two books: For Women Only and For Men Only. In this series, I analyze the first. The summaries of each point were pulled from this post, by Jim Burns.

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Dr. John Alexander is an expert on marriage relationships and the author of The Sigma Male: What Women Really Want. To learn more about the Sigma Roles in marriage, visit his website, subscribe to his blog, “like” his page on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.