RELATIONSHIPS : When Couples Feud, It’s Gender That Can Cause Sparks

The dramatic fall of the crystal chandelier to which Oliver and Barbara Rose were desperately clinging in last year’s divorce film, “The War of the Roses,” marked the end of a vicious battle that took the war between the sexes to rare heights of physical violence.

If you couldn’t relate but still found yourself cringing, it may be because most of the real-life battles between men and women take place on a quieter front--in a war of words and silences misinterpreted often enough to make couples wish they could occasionally cut loose as the Roses did and throw things at each other.

What many couples don’t realize is that they bring basic gender differences to the table every time they negotiate, says Bobbi Nesheim, a psychotherapist who practices in Fullerton and San Clemente. The male-female stereotypes that feminists have fought against for so long contain grains of truth that shouldn’t be ignored by couples having trouble communicating, she says.

When Nesheim counsels couples, she often finds that it helps to point out ways in which male-female differences condition what they say--or don’t say--to each other.

Once you acknowledge that generalizations about male vs. female tendencies don’t fit everyone, Nesheim says, you can see that in many relationships, conflicts arise because a woman is more likely to respond emotionally or intuitively while a man reacts intellectually. The woman also feels more comfortable expressing her feelings than her mate, she wants to talk more than he does and she’s more interested in exploring issues than resolving them.

Among those with whom Nesheim has found it helpful to discuss gender differences are the Rev. Robert M. Boyer and his wife, Lesley, of San Clemente.

As rector of St. Clements by-the-Sea, an Episcopal church in San Clemente, “Father Bob” has learned that “most of our days are spent repairing miscommunication that has occurred.”

He encourages his parishioners to spend more time talking things through with their mates. However, he admits, “I give this advice to everyone, but I have a terrible time doing it myself.”

Bob, 48, and Lesley, 47, have been married two years. Lesley, who has two grown children from a previous marriage, is still adjusting to her role as stepmother to Bob’s boys, ages 15 and 11, who live with them.

When the Boyers married, Lesley, a former elementary school teacher, agreed to stop teaching and take over the family finances as well as the day-to-day responsibilities of caring for the children and home.

“All my energy is centered outside the home,” Bob explains, “and I’m caught with the old-fashioned idea that women will take care of things at home.”

Lesley was happy to do that in the beginning, but step-parenting proved a bigger challenge than she anticipated, and she soon found she had a lot to discuss with Bob at the end of the day.

However, Lesley explains, “When Bob comes home, all he wants to do is be . I want him to sit down and listen.”

With Nesheim’s help, Lesley is learning to give Bob some quiet time to unwind before she shares the frustrations of her day. And Bob, who describes himself as a “compulsive worker,” is learning to make more time for his family and to regularly set aside time with Lesley to discuss family matters.

The Boyers say that discussing gender differences with Nesheim has helped them understand the conflict they face when Bob comes home expecting a quiet household where the day’s problems have been solved and instead finds Lesley eager to talk about her feelings and concerns.

“Women do a lot of sharing for the sake of sharing, not with the expectation that a problem’s going to be solved. But a lot of the time, men are not pleasured by the process of talking; they want results,” Nesheim says.

For example, a woman tells her husband about a fight she has had with her mother. He wants to call instantly and confront his mother-in-law, but that makes his wife angry at him too, because she is still trying to work through her feelings and isn’t ready to act.

“He wants to solve her problem. She just wants to share it and get his empathy,” Nesheim notes.

Conversations between men and women may get derailed because men tend to prefer mulling things over privately before taking a position, while many women prefer to think aloud, says Joe Tanenbaum, author of “Male & Female Realities: Understanding the Opposite Sex.”

Without recognizing these differences, men tend to misinterpret what women say and women tend to find men remote and unresponsive, says Tanenbaum, a Costa Mesa expert on interpersonal communication who deals with gender differences in his seminars on relationships.

Men also tend to be more literal in their use of words than women, Tanenbaum notes. For example, he says, there’s the age-old conflict between men and women over commitment. When men hear that often-intimidating word, they think confinement--Webster’s defines it as: 1) being committed and 2) official consignment of a person to prison--while women see commitment as the beginning of growth and discovery.

Assuming that you know what your partner is thinking--or that your mate approaches life the same way you do--is bound to cause problems, says Tanenbaum, who often gives talks in the workplace to help people bridge the “gender gap” in their professional as well as personal relationships.

Tanenbaum says couples can overcome the “gender gap” by recognizing that their partner is acting on natural impulses rather than deliberately hindering the communication process. Then they can feel compassion for each other and begin some give and take.

“Ask questions instead of making assumptions,” he suggests.

A woman who has a need to talk might ask, “Can we discuss this now?” Or a man who needs to resolve things might ask, “Can we get to the bottom line?”

“You can invite each other to try another way of communicating. Part of your gift to each other is to trade off,” Tanenbaum says.

The partner who is feeling strongest at the moment should put the other’s needs first, though sometimes both are so vulnerable that this can’t be done. That’s when couples need time apart and supportive friends of the same sex with whom they can talk so they can return to each other fresh and ready to listen.

“Be more willing to hear that what the other person is saying is the truth to them ,” Tanenbaum advises. “There is another point of view as legitimate as yours. The difficulty is that both genders think the other has the advantage. But nobody’s in control. We just see things differently.”