I am going into the studio in the next couple of weeks to record “The Guy’s Airbag: A Relationship Pre-Crash Course.” Here the gist:

What if you had an airbag for your relationship? What if when things went really wrong, or even as a safety measure against a crash, you had solid skills and tools designed to help you ? I picked this title because I want to help you prevent a fatal relationship. I see them all the time.

All too often, men and couples come to counseling after they’ve been through what amounts to an auto accident in their marriage or relationship, and never had the skills and tools to know how to keep it alive.

Maybe the relationship is on life support, or maybe an affair has damaged a marriage to the point of irreconcilable differences.  Everything seems to be held together by a string, and it didn’t used to be this way. 

Worse, I see men start new relationships with the same faulty thinking that got them into trouble the first time. Maybe you know somebody like this. Maybe this is about you.

I’ve polled a number of women friends of mine (both professional therapists and not) to find out the answers to three important questions about the differences between men and women in relationship. Here is the first question and the answers I got to it. A big thanks to my friends who were willing to participate in my unofficial survey. Parts 2 and 3 are coming soon.

1. What do you see as the three biggest problems men have in intimate relationships? What about the top three that women have?

My goal was to try to get better marketing information, but also to understand the issues that I work with from another perspective. I want to help men to understand what they are up against from the women they love, and how to better understand them and reach them.

For the first question, women answered communication several times as being one of the biggest problems that men have in relationships. They also reported that being vulnerable, being too analytical/thinking, honesty, letting go, and being afraid to show emotions for fear that their women will think that they are weak. Men, according to my friends, also want to fix everything instead of just validating.

As for the women themselves, women reported that the biggest problems women have in relationship include: nagging or repeating things to their man (which makes them not heard anymore), overly emotional, and impulsive reactions. Women also reported that their problems include being open and not afraid that they may scare their man away, creating an equal partnership and feeling misunderstood. Also, women reported that they try to force their partners into communicating instead of easing in to it. One of my friends talked about the idea of a “mythical mate,” a fantasy partner that women think will automatically read their minds without them needing to tell their man what they want and need.

Overall, some very interesting answers, both as a therapist and as a man in a relationship. I hope you can find some valuable ideas here, and maybe you see yourself in some of these answers.

We’ll look at questions 2 and 3 in future posts, so stay tuned.

Jason