What Your Mother Couldn't Tell You and Your Father Didn't Know: Advanced Relationship Skills for Better Communication and Lasting Intimacy - Hardcover

John Gray

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060171626 ISBN 13: 9780060171629

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1994

Synopsis

Is it really possible to be in love forever?

New York Times bestselling author John Gray will show you how in Mars and Venus Together Forever

This essential resource guide contains relationship skills that will help you and your mate sustain a lasting relationship that only grows richer with time. Mars and Venus Together Forever educates the different sexes on:

• What your mother couldn't tell you and your father didn't know
• What women need most and men really want
• How men and women think and feel differently
• The language barrier -- men speak "male" and women speak "female"
• The seven secrets of lasting passion
• And much more

Filled with lively anecdotes, revealing exercises, and profound common sense, Mars and Venus Together Forever will help men and women explore new frontiers in their relationships, communicate effectively with each other, and discover the secret of "happily ever after."

About this title

About the Author

John Gray, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading relationship experts, and an authority on improving communication styles for couples, companies, and communities. His many books have sold more than fifty million copies in fifty different languages worldwide. John lives with his wife and children in northern California.

From the Back Cover

In his runaway year-long number one New York Times bestseller, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, John Gray showed us how we can improve relationships with the opposite sex by understanding, accepting, and respecting the differences between men and women and strengthening communication. His insights into gender differences and his practical advice struck a chord with millions of readers and saved many thousands of relationships.

Now, in his provocative and important new book, What Your Mother Couldn't Tell You & Your Father Didn't Know, Gray answers the questions that our parents could not about relating and communicating with the opposite sex.

Times have changed. The old ways of relating, which may have worked for our parents, are definitely out-of-date and sometimes counterproductive. Relationships today require new skills to achieve lasting fulfillment. Having a husband who brings home a paycheck or a wife who maintains a nice, clean home is no longer enough.

John Gray draws upon his extensive work with singles and couples in his seminars to point us in a new direction. He promises--and delivers--the necessary information for creating and sustaining loving and mutually fulfilling relationships. He offers a new seed that, when planted and watered, will grow into a relationship that is not only loving but lasting.

By teaching relationship skills that address contemporary individuals' and couples' needs, John Gray offers practical ways in which to enjoy and celebrate the differences between men and women in peace and with passion.

Reviews

The author of bestselling Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus proposes that "New skills must be learned if a man is to feel needed and appreciated by his mate.... New skills are required [for a woman] to remain feminine and also be strong." In an easy combination of personal anecdotes from his own marriage and ideas culled from the professional seminars he conducts, Gray delineates the skills he considers necessary to make relationships thrive. According to him, no models exist for today's marriage partners, whose roles are often the reverse of the traditional or are altered by the wife's higher earning power. So Gray explores sexual differences and other potential points of conflict in an approach based on traditional values. To whit, "Men must learn to use their ancient hunting skills of silently watching and waiting when listening to their mates." At 'em, boys. 500,000 first printing; $350,000 ad/promo; first serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild split main selection; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, not reviewed) offers more of what he calls ``advanced relationship skills,'' a delightful term that says all that need be said about the author's hyper-instrumental, connect-the-dots approach to thinking about human relationships. Pull-quotes--perhaps indicating that not even Gray expects people to actually read the rest of the text--appear on nearly every page: ``Men must learn to use their ancient hunting skills of silently watching and waiting when listening to their mates'' or ``Fire gazing is the most ancient and potent of male stress relievers; when men today stare into the TV, they are, in effect, mindlessly looking into the fire.'' (This raises the question of whether there were beer commercials in Peking Man's first barbecue.) Gray does cover some of the same turf that Deborah Tannen does about differences between the way men and women speak and listen. And it's not all horse chips and piffle. But there comes a point when it's reasonable to ask whether all those horrid Greek myths full of rage and dismemberment and blindness weren't a better way to think about relations between the sexes than self- help books. (First printing of 500,000; first serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild split main selection; $350,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Advice on staying in a relationship from the author of the best-selling Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (LJ 5/15/92).
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Once upon a time, untold ages ago, men and women were peaceful partners in a hostile and dangerous world. A woman felt loved and respected because each day her mate went out and risked his life to provide for her. She didn't expect him to be sensitive or nurturing. Good communication skills were not a part of his job description. As long as he was a good hunter and could find his way home, relationship skills were not required for a mate to be desirable. As providers, men felt loved and appreciated by women. While surviving was difficult, relationships were comparatively easy.
Men and women existed in different spheres. They greatly depended on each other in order to survive. Food, sex, children, shelter, and security motivated them to work together because the fulfillment of these basic needs required specific roles and skills. Men assumed the role of provider and protector while women specialized in nurturing and homemaking.
It was a natural separation. Biology had determined that a woman gives birth and hence feels a great responsibility for raising children and creating a home. The man honored and respected her role by agreeing to take such dangerous assignments as venturing into the wild to hunt, or standing guard to protect her and their young. Although men would often be out for days in the freezing cold or blazing sun before making a kill, they were proud of these sacrifices because they greatly honored the female, the life giver. And because a man and woman's interdependent partnership provided the basics of survival and security, it automatically generated mutual respect and appreciation.
While the men were out hunting, the women would sustain life at home. Women greatly valued the opportunity to love and nurture their children and maintain domestic harmony without having also to provide and protect. A man's assistance in making life safer, easier, and more comfortable caused him to be a hero in her eyes. As long as both partners fulfilled their basic tasks, men and women felt quite content emotionally. Century after century, the challenges of survival remained paramount, and the division of labor between men and women remained fundamentally the same.
Now, though, life has changed dramatically. Since we are no longer utterly dependent on each other for security and survival, the rules and strategies of our ancestors have become outdated. For the first time in recorded history, we look to each other primarily for love and romance, not survival and security. Happiness, intimacy, and lasting passion are now requirements for fulfilling relationships.
To succeed in today's relationships, we must learn new lessons that our ancestors and parents simply could not teach us. What your mother couldn't tell you and your father didn't know is how to satisfy your partner's emotional needs without sacrificing your own personal fulfillment. This new agenda can be accomplished only through the practice of advanced relationship skills.
To succeed in today's relationships, we must learn new lessons that our ancestors and parents couldn't teach us.

Times Have Changed
The social and economic changes of the last forty years have enormously affected the traditional male and female roles that have been in place since the beginning of civilization. Women leaving the home and entering the workforce has greatly diminished men's traditional value to women. Increasingly independent and self-sufficient, contemporary women no longer feel the same need for men to provide for or protect them.
A modern woman charts her own destiny and pays her own bills. When in danger she can pull out her Mace or call the police. Most important, she now has much more control over when to have children and how many she wants. Until the discovery of the birth control pill, and the widespread availability of contraceptives, women were utterly biologically determined to have children and be dependent on men. No more.
We are just beginning to comprehend the changes in relationships that have resulted from the widespread use of birth control and the following sexual revolution. We are living in a time of dramatic transition and sexual tension.
In a sense, we could say that all men are out of work. They no longer have the job they held for countless centuries. They are no longer valued and appreciated as providers and protectors. Although they continue to do what they have always done, it suddenly isn't enough to make their partners happy. Women require something else, something more than their mothers did.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060171626
• ISBN 13: 9780060171629
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 427