What Was He Thinking?

Mike Bechtle Dr.

Description

Relationship and communication expert Mike Bechtle offers women an insider's guide to the puzzling male brain. Simple and practical, this book provides women with a roadmap for better conversations and improved relationships. Bechtle explains how men think, act, communicate, and grow in relationships, and even offers tips for communicating in a toxic relationship. Wives, girlfriends, mothers, daughters, friends, and coworkers will find real help within these pages.

Sujets

• Dating

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 06 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493430048
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Half Title Page
Other Books by Mike Bechtle
Evangelism for the Rest of Us
How to Communicate with Confidence
People Can’t Drive You Crazy if You Don’t Give Them the Keys
Dealing with the Elephant in the Room
The People Pleaser’s Guide to Loving Others without Losing Yourself
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2016 by Mike Bechtle
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Spire edition published 2021
Previously published in 2016 as I Wish He Had Come with Instructions
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3004-8
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.
Dedication
To Lucy I prayed that my son would find a wife who would bring him joy. You far exceeded my expectations and brought us unexpected joy as well. What an amazing gift you are to us!
Para Lucy Yo oraba que mi hijo puede encontrar una esposa para traerle alegría. Tu has excedido mis expectativas bastante y trajiste alegría a nosotros también. ¡Que regalo asombroso tu eres para nosotros!
Contents
Cover 1
Half Title Page 1 a
Other Books by Mike Bechtle 2
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Dedication 5
Introduction: Talking into Thin Air 9
Part 1: The Care and Feeding of a Man 23
1. Men Are from Earth, Women Are from Earth 27
2. What He Wants You to Know 41
Part 2: How He Thinks 53
3. Gray Matters 55
4. Men Are Just Tall Boys 67
5. Man on a Mission 79
Part 3: How He Acts 91
6. Why He Can’t See Dirt 93
7. Your Knight in Rusting Armor 105
8. Unconditional Like 119
Part 4: How He Communicates 137
9. Do Guys Even Have Feelings? 139
10. The Silent Partner 153
11. Conflict without Combat 167
Part 5: How He Grows 183
12. The Lone Ranger in Relationships 185
13. Turning Two into a Team 199
14. Relationship Red Flags 211
15. Strategies for Happy Endings 223
Acknowledgments 237
Notes 241
About the Author 245
Back Ads 247
Back Cover 251
Introduction
Talking into Thin Air
Y ou’re driving somewhere with your man. It’s about dinnertime and you’ve had a long, exhausting day. You’re thinking it would be nice to stop somewhere for dinner instead of having to go home and find the energy to prepare something (even if he helps).
So you say, “Would you like to stop for dinner someplace?”
He replies, “Not really.”
Based on the differences between how men and women tend to process information, you might be hurt by his response. Doesn’t he care about how tough my day was? Why is he being so inconsiderate? Why does he get to decide what we do?
It’s possible that your interpretation is accurate. Maybe he doesn’t care and he is inconsiderate. But more likely he didn’t realize what was behind your words. He heard a question asking his input, so he shared an honest response. Maybe he’s equally exhausted and wants to retreat to the safety of home instead of fighting a crowded restaurant. Or maybe he’s a little concerned about finances and feels like it would be better to save money.
You feel like he should understand what you need and want. He feels like he answered your question so there is no need to explain things. Same words, different interpretation. The rest of the evening can become tense because of unspoken expectations and emotions.
It’s a language barrier—two people using the same words but not connecting. If we assume that the other person shares our exact meaning and understanding, we’re setting ourselves up for frustration.
Age or position doesn’t matter:
Teenage girls begin dating without any understanding of how guys think. All they know is what they observe from experience. So they think they understand and wonder why it’s so challenging.
A new manager comes in and his actions seem to contradict what he says. But you can’t challenge the boss, right? So all you can do is try to figure him out.
Newlyweds learn quickly that their new spouse doesn’t fit the image they expected and wonder what happened after the ceremony ended.
Moms wonder why their sons are so radically different from their daughters and how to make sense of their perspective—especially during their teen years.
When you want to develop a new skill, you take courses, read books, or attend seminars to learn new perspectives. If you want to improve your communication skills with men, it’s worth the investment of time and energy to make it happen.
It’s time to begin that journey.
Everybody’s Different
I’m a morning person. I generally wake up before sunrise, and I’m fully awake within about five minutes. Give me a cup of coffee to start my day, and I’m at my freshest. I’m mentally at my best. By 9:00 at night I have trouble forming multisyllable words or walking upright. When my head hits the pillow, I’m usually asleep in seconds.
My wife, Diane, tends to be a night person. Her job often gets her up early by necessity, so she’s learned to function in the morning. But she naturally operates best later in the day or early evening. It often takes her a lot longer to go to sleep because her mind hasn’t settled down yet.
We discovered the problem about two weeks into our marriage. We had settled into bed for the evening, and I was dropping off to sleep when I heard the four words that men dread: “We need to talk.”
For her, it was a logical time. She had been thinking about an issue all day long. As a young husband I panicked because I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care. So I told myself, Don’t fall asleep . . . don’t fall asleep . . . while she described the situation. She assumed that her new, caring husband would be happy to talk through the issue. I really was interested, and I really did care. She kept talking, and I kept dropping off.
She was talking into thin air.
We had to do some damage control after that. But because of it, we realized that we’re different. Part of it is the morning/night person scenario, but it’s more than that. There are real differences between us, just because she’s a woman and I’m a man.
Those differences can cause some challenges in communication when we don’t understand them.
The Reality of Differences
“I don’t get it,” a friend told me. “I just don’t understand men.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“When we were dating,” she continued, “I was the most important thing in his life. He pursued me. He brought me flowers. He would call me for no reason. He left notes on my windshield while I was at work. He surprised me constantly, and he won my heart. So I married him.”
“Then what happened?”
“I found out where he got the flowers,” she said. “He would stop by the local cemetery and take them off of graves.”
“And that bothered you?”
“Of course!” she responded. “He acted like it was a wise, practical choice because the flowers had done their job, and they would just go to waste and get thrown away. I told him it was disgusting, but he just didn’t get it. He’s such a good man, and this seems so out of character. What was he thinking?”
That’s the big question: What is a man thinking?
The answer isn’t a simple one. The only thing we can say for sure is that what a man is thinking is different from what a woman is thinking. We can debate the topic all day, but we know from experience that men and women aren’t the same.
In the past few years, there has been a lot of emphasis on equality in the workplace. Women have never had the same opportunities as men, and legislation has opened those doors—and rightfully so.
But the transition has been challenging. The message came across as “men and women are the same.” It sounded good to minimize differences so everyone would be treated equally. Men and women would dress professionally and sit around a conference table and commit to treating each other with respect. The doors were open, and opportunity was available to everyone.
But then they started talking to each other. And the collective response was . . . “Huh?”
With the best of intentions, people try to make equality work. They want to treat working relationships, marriages, dating, and friendships with the respect they deserve. People care about each other and want to build the best into the lives of others.
But “equality” is different from “equal.” There are differences between men and women. The place it shows up most clearly is in how we communicate. Women can’t figure out men, and men can’t figure out women. The solution is not “fixing” those differences but rather understanding them.
We can legislate behavior. But trying to change the innate differences between men and women is like voting on which direction the sun moves across the sky. We can cast our vote, but we’ll still be frustrated if we picked the wrong direction.
There are plenty of books that debate gender roles and societal issues. This isn’t one of them. It’s simply a guide for women to understand, from a man, what goes on inside the male mind. The more a woman knows about what’s really happening in there, the easier it will be to use that knowledge to connect effectively with the men in her life.
I’ve talked to women who were frustrated because their attempts to connect were like trying to c