Why Men and Women See the World Differently – The Roots of Our Differences - video Dailymotion

Rich Heller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKqrthAGvs0 For thousands of years, men and women had distinct roles in society, shaped by survival needs. In the past 100 years, rapid social and technological change has forced both genders to adapt, sometimes in ways that have strained relationships. This episode unpacks why men prioritize goals while women prioritize connection—and how these differences, instead of driving couples apart, can actually make marriages stronger.   Want to go deeper? Our men's groups are launching soon—visit richinrelationship.com to sign up.  Follow us on social media for more relationship advice: Facebook -  https://www.facebook.com/richinrelationship/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/richinrelationship/  Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/richinrelationship/_created/ Tiktok -    https://www.tiktok.com/@richinrelationship LinkedIn -  https://www.linkedin.com/company/rich-in-relationship Website - https://www.richinrelationship.com

Transcript

00:01Today in Rich in Relationship, we're going to unpack why you and your partner may have

00:06the same goals, but you kind of go at them in a different way.

00:10Sometimes it even feels contrary.

00:12Men would normally harvest more than a woman, but now a woman can harvest just as much as

00:17a man.

00:17A woman can produce just as much as a man.

00:20We need to be watching out to our families.

00:22We need to be prepared to be warriors when a warrior is called for, and we need to be

00:26gentle lambs when it comes to our family.

00:30Welcome to another episode of Rich in Relationship, and today we're going to talk about why men

00:38and women see the world differently or the roots of differences.

00:42And in the last episode, we talked a lot about the feminine side and feminine and masculinity,

00:47and I'm making a real effort here to honor some of the choices people are making about

00:53how they express themselves, whether they're expressing themselves to the masculine, to

00:58the feminine, or what we're now coming to know as non-binary.

01:02And so forgive me if I flip between the talking about men and women and talk about masculinity

01:08and femininity.

01:09I'm kind of stretching my own brain is what I'm doing.

01:12And if it's straining yours a little, forgive me if I, if you, if I'm getting it wrong, let

01:17me know because I'm looking to grow here.

01:19I'm looking to really embrace and understand what's happening in my ecology, right?

01:25I'm embracing my feminine side.

01:26I want to understand my ecology and I want to connect.

01:29And this is what this episode is all about.

01:32How these two approaches show up so differently.

01:37What is the root of the difference between you and your partner?

01:41Why does she always want to talk about feelings?

01:43Why does he always want to work instead of focusing on us?

01:49You know, a lot of guys I work with feel like they're constantly missing the mark in

01:54their relationship.

01:55They're trying so hard.

01:58And a lot of the women that I work with feel like they've done everything they can to let

02:05their guy know what they feel like is going on.

02:08And they don't understand how their guy just doesn't get it.

02:10And we're going to explore that in depth in this episode.

02:15Last episode, we talked about masculine and feminine sides.

02:17We kind of, we touched on some of what we're going to talk on today in the last episode.

02:21It's going to be a little redundant, but you just got to get, if you're somebody who's been

02:25following this all the way through, great.

02:28If you're just tuning in for this episode and you didn't hear the last episode, you're going

02:31to be a little lost unless I rehash.

02:34So for those of you who listen to every episode, there's going to be some rehashing.

02:38Here's the deal.

02:39Well, society is changing faster and faster and it has changed super quickly.

02:47And that change started really in the 1920s.

02:50But the truth is that human beings emotionally haven't, have not kept up with the changes.

02:58And I'm not just talking about, you know, having a cell phone as opposed to having a hardwired

03:02phone or having no phone at all.

03:04I'm talking about the pace of life.

03:07I'm talking about the rapidity with which, um, quality is being achieved.

03:13And that requires a lot of emotional shifting and changes.

03:18It's kind of like this thing that we see in corporations.

03:21We've all been around corporations where they talk about inclusion and they do a great job

03:25of talking about inclusion, but they don't actually incorporate it very well into their

03:29structure, into their systems.

03:32Uh, there's still a lot of institutionalized exclusion.

03:35However, you want to think about that, whether it be on a class, whether it be on sex, whether

03:41it be on race or whatever.

03:43And so there's this process going on where the language is out of sync with the action and

03:49that's happening everywhere in society, not just on the corporate level.

03:52It's happening in many partnerships.

03:56In fact, I would argue that in a healthy partnership, when two individuals are changing and growing

04:03the way that they're saying things is changing and the way that they're hearing things is changing.

04:08And so when two individuals are changing and growing rapidly, the level of communication

04:14and redefining terms needs to be upped with frequency.

04:19Otherwise there's misunderstanding.

04:21And what most of us slip into in our relationships is we take the communication and the relationship

04:28for granted or getting that people change, forgetting that society is changing rapidly, forgetting

04:35that the societal changes ride individual changes.

04:39And if we don't keep our relate, if our relationship doesn't keep up with that communication stops

04:43working and that's why people like me have a job, sad, but true.

04:47So today we're going to talk about the history of that.

04:50I mean, I want you guys to get how different things are.

04:54And actually, I think there are a lot of movies that do a good job of this, but not always

04:58such a good job of this because the problem with movies is they try and take historical

05:03material and relate it to us in a way that we can receive it.

05:07And so if they spoke in the language of that time of history, or if they spoke in the understanding

05:13and concepts of that time in history, we might not get it or it might not excite us.

05:19And so what happens a lot when we're watching historical movies, this happens all the time

05:22for me, I'm watching a historical movie, something set in the seventies, which is actually a time

05:29I was alive, but it's being, the movie's being produced for someone who was maybe born in the

05:35seventies or eighties and didn't live through that time. And the languaging and the way people are

05:40talking to each other is much more current. It really, it may have some of the jargon of the seventies,

05:45but not the actual language and feeling of the seventies because the emotional evolution

05:51of individuals and society in the seventies was different than the emotional evolution

05:56of individuals and society today. And for us to, to watch a movie and enjoy it, it has to be

06:03mostly phrased in our terminology, terminology and language. The reason why we no longer have

06:10medieval movies where people go the and vow and your highness and speak in the language of that time

06:16is people couldn't watch it. And so even historical movies tend to be couched in the language of our

06:23time. All right. So what I want to illustrate for you is what it was like then and why on the inside

06:31masculinity and femininity, feminine, the expression of masculinity and the expression of femininity or

06:38being a man and being a woman haven't changed or kept up with the times that as well as they could.

06:45And that's kind of our mission here is we want to get you thinking about this. We want to get you

06:49challenging yourself. We want to get you, if you a guy to lean into your femininity more,

06:54if that's something you're not already doing. And if you're a gal leaning into your masculinity in a

06:59way that doesn't contradict or subvert your femininity, we want to like create parity and

07:05balance within ourselves so that we have relationships that are based on parity and balance.

07:10So it's only been a few generations since the big shift began in our society. Like for thousands of

07:16years, men and women operated on survival based roles. Really? I keep saying up to the 1920s,

07:22it might even be the 1900s. Uh, but the truth is that for a long time, it was, I'm going to eat what

07:33I kill today. I'm going to make enough money for today. I may put away enough money for the future,

07:37but it's going to be scraping and saving there. There was not the kind of luxury

07:45that we have today. Um, and let me give you an illustration. All right. The reason why I keep

07:50going back to the 1920s is I think the great depression was the cultural and financial wake

07:57up call for society in the great depression. People were like dying of starvation. Um, and yet

08:04there were incredible resources available. Society was producing food and automobiles and technology

08:15and things for people to use and clothing, like the basic necessities were being produced at a rate

08:20unseen in the history of mankind. And yet there were people living in homeless camps and yet there

08:28were people starving. And yet there were people who were willing to work and could not work.

08:34And this was like a huge wake up call. We were like, Oh my God, we can't ever let this happen

08:41again. So now since the great depression, our society has had, we've had recessions and we've

08:49seen people struggle. We have still have ongoing homelessness. We still have people living in

08:54tents, but not the huge tent camps. There were people living in central park in New York city in

08:58huge camps and nobody was stopping them because they had no place else to live. And it was recognized

09:03that this was a problem that needed to be solved. Now we have that happening on a smaller scale.

09:09We have setbacks, we have economic downturn, but we do pretty much ensure that at least in this

09:16country, in the United States of America, everybody eats. That's not happening in the world. It could,

09:21sadly, it could happen in the world and it hasn't yet without getting political.

09:25All right. So the big shift from the twenties to now was we need to revamp production of food,

09:34clothing, shelter. Uh, we need to, the, the big thing was that every American should have a house

09:41and two chickens in every pot and two and a half kids, uh, you know, and everyone should be able to

09:46work. That was like the goal from the, from the end of the depression through let's call it

09:53the sixties, huge shift, great accumulation of wealth, huge shift in society. And with the

10:02means of production, the role of men and women changed in a survival world where you're living

10:10in a tent camp, you, your wife and kids are just imagine you're living in a tent camp in a park,

10:15you, your wife, and your kids, and you're having trouble getting food. You're going out to work.

10:21You might be working one day a week. If you're lucky, your wife, her safety in that tent and your

10:28kids, their safety in that tent is predicated on two things. It's predicated on your ability

10:34to kick ass or to have allies will help you kick ass. And most alliances in cultures are built by the

10:44feminine side, as we talked about in the last episode, right? This is, this is where you really

10:48get to imagine. We're not talking about caveman crap. We're talking about real life here. Caveman

10:53stuff. We don't even know how real it is. So like we've made up a story about cavemen based on how we

10:57live today. If you looked at tent communities, women are building a network of safety for their

11:03children and themselves. They're bringing in alliances for the men, men who have the same,

11:09who have shared goals, at least in similar values, if not the same values and safety is created in that

11:15environment. And if a fight breaks out, it's the man who goes out and fights, not the woman.

11:22If food needs to be cooked, it's the woman who manages the food and makes sure that it's distributed

11:28appropriately and that everybody eats. The woman who makes sure that the tent is comfortable,

11:32the man who makes sure that there's something that she can provide comfort with, right? In a survival

11:38environment, that's how things were cut up. Whether you like it or not, whether it's good or bad,

11:43whether that's sexism or not, really doesn't matter. That's how it was during the depression,

11:48right? Really. And everything that we have comes out of that experience. The mindset of actually,

11:54my grandparents came out of that experience. My parents were impacted by that. And even my

11:57generation is impacted that. My kids are impacted by the impact of all of them through me to them.

12:03So society ramps up production. It sets up systems so that we can have recessions,

12:09but not depressions. We hope. Fingers crossed that'll never happen again. Government systems,

12:14banking systems, production systems, ways of storing food, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And

12:19because heavy labor on the production side has been mechanized, a woman can now operate a harvester

12:28and harvest stuff in the field. Not that women can't harvest, but men would normally harvest more

12:34than a woman. But now a woman can harvest just as much as a man. A woman can produce just as much as

12:39a man. And so the whole argument for, I'm the provider. I go out and do this. You're the nest

12:45builder. That whole rug has been pulled out. Now we have stay-at-home dads because women can actually

12:51earn more than their husbands. They might have a better education. They might have utilized their skills

12:58better at another time than their husband. Men now become nest builders. Women become providers.

13:06And the essential cultural wiring of what a man is and of what a woman is, though it has changed

13:14consciously, is still present unconsciously. We are 80 or 90% unconscious mind. In our unconscious mind,

13:22the strategies and seeds and relationships of the past still exist to some extent.

13:31Remember how I told you my grandparents were massively impacted by the depression.

13:35My parents grew up as children out of that with their parents' experience of that. My parents'

13:42concept of men and women came from their parents' concept of men and women. I'm raised by them.

13:47My concept of men and women is impacted by my parents. My parents don't have maybe quite the

13:52same men do this and women do this idea that their parents did, but it's still there because

13:58their parents had it. It's been put in them. That seed is passed on even to current generations.

14:06There's a seed. And add to that, go back to our previous episode on how brains and testosterone

14:13operate versus the way brains and estrogen operate. And you've got something out of sync.

14:20We have a society functionally as we're evolved to the point where men and women can do pretty

14:26much the same things, pretty much the same things in terms of productivity, food, in terms of

14:31procuring for children. And that is a wonderful thing. I got a son-in-law who is showing up for my

14:36grandson in a way that is unprecedented because of the opportunities that his job, my daughter's job,

14:42give them and allow them to do. It's a beautiful thing. He is an awesome father. He cares for that

14:47child in a very different way than his mother does. The connection that child has with him is very

14:51different than the connection that child has with the mother. Why? Because he is still an animal

14:58that is testosterone-based versus estrogen-based. She is still, even though she can make more money,

15:06even though she can produce at the same level as a man in the same job, maybe better in some ways,

15:11maybe worse than others. Even though all that's true, the wiring of their brains is still there.

15:17She tends to be more environmental. He tends to be more linear. She's more sensitive to emotional

15:23shifts. He's less. How does that impact the child? Really? I'd be like, we are yet to find out.

15:29And I suspect it goes like this. I suspect because she's more sensitive to emotional shifts.

15:35She, as the child, children, as they grow, practice exercising power through expressing

15:42emotion, there may be a different interplay going on with her than with him. He may just gloss over

15:48an emotion and the child may not try that as a tactic anymore. I'm not talking about consciously,

15:56I'm just talking about experientially. Even though men and women are equal, they do things differently.

16:01And the challenge here is that the traditional roles of men and women have basically been wiped

16:07out, but we still have the wiring to do things in masculine and feminine ways. Now, there've been

16:14some maladaptive adaptations. We talked about this in previous episodes. We've talked about

16:20six or seven different models of maladaptive masculine behavior. We've talked about toxic masculinity.

16:26That's sort of going back to the TED camp days. Hey, babe, you're not going to be safe without me.

16:33Do what I say and everything's going to be all right. We've talked about the nice guy syndrome.

16:38Talked about that a lot in the last episode. And we talked about in the previous episodes where the

16:42guy is trying to be accommodating and what he experiences femininity as being in some ways,

16:48trying to be emotionally present, but not really succeeding because he's doing it in a masculine way.

16:53We've talked about a lot of the feminine maladaptive behaviors. All right. I've talked about women who

17:00have adapted the alpha. They go to work and they take names and kick ass. And then they come home

17:05and they take names and kick ass, or they come home and they don't know how to be environmental

17:09anymore because they've been taking names and kicking ass so much, right? The different maladaptive

17:14behaviors, right? The culture, even though the production mode promotes ecology, the culture still has

17:21a male stamp on it in many ways that hasn't been shifted completely yet. We're still these

17:27institutions, the rules, the systems of the institutions are still shifting and changing to

17:33accommodate this because we, the human beings who create and drive those systems are shifting and

17:41changing. So in the same way that we have maladaptive behaviors in our marriages, the institutions have

17:47maladaptive behaviors. In the last episode we talked about, or maybe it was this episode. I don't know

17:52if they all roll together. We've talked about inclusion, you know, the word versus the action.

17:58The result is stress and confusion, stress and confusion on the institutional level, frustration

18:05and in the marriage, right? In the marriage, there hasn't been a lot of communication. The two

18:10individuals are growing and changing there. They haven't figured out how to express their masculine

18:14and feminine sides at the same time in a way that's balanced and healthy and it muddles up the

18:19communication. Here's an example. A man who was raised by a father who was a sole provider might

18:25feel inadequate if his wife out-earns him. While his wife, raised to be independent, may struggle

18:32to soften and let him lead in certain areas. The way that we're raised by our parents who don't have

18:40the same take on what equality means that we do is going to impact, we might overcompensate. And the

18:47combination of the overcompensation is what leads to discord. It's what leads to disharmony. It's what

18:55leads to the fighting. It's what leads to the misunderstandings. It's what leads to not being

18:58heard. It's what leads to not being understood. It's what leads to not being respected. It's what

19:02leads to not feeling safe. It's what leads to not having that intimacy that you signed on for when you

19:08were in love. It's the culture impacting us as individuals. And we're not thinking about it.

19:13Well, I want you to start thinking about it. This series is pushing you to think about

19:20what does masculine and feminine mean to me? And how can I express my masculinity in a way that's

19:26healthy in my marriage and healthy in society? And you know what? There are going to be times

19:30when you're walking down the wrong street with your wife and you see what's coming down the street

19:36isn't good for either of you. And all of a sudden, that thing that we call toxic masculinity is going

19:42to be appropriate. And what that looks like is, honey, I want you to go find a cop. Take the kids

19:47and go find a cop and let me deal with this. Go back to the restaurant and call for help while I deal

19:53with this. And don't argue with me. In this situation, I know what needs to be done. You need

19:58to trust me on this. You can't help me by being here. If I'm spending my time trying to protect you

20:03while I'm defending you, defending myself, it won't work. I need you to go find safety and get help

20:10while I slow this down so that you can get away. Now, that attitude in any other ecology might be

20:18seen as toxic, but in that ecology, it's appropriate. I'm now talking to men, obviously. So as men,

20:23I need you to get that some of the stuff we learned in the past has application today. We have an illusion

20:30of safety today. We need to be washing out to our families. We need to be prepared to be warriors

20:35when a warrior is called for. And we need to be gentle lambs when it comes to our family.

20:42And women, similarly, there's a time to kick ass and take names, and there's a time to be

20:49ecological. All right. So we have gone over this pretty extensively. I'm just going over my nose

20:54while I was like, I covered, I covered all this. Um, let's, the question really is how do we,

21:00how do we brace our masculine and feminine sides and find appropriate expressions? So I'm going to

21:07talk to men and women separately on this. And it's fully possible that I might be talking to a woman

21:13who's embraced her masculinity or a man who's embraced his femininity, but has discarded his

21:18masculinity or she's discarded her femininity. I just wanted you to get whatever side of this

21:24balance you've been leaning into. This is what you need to do to balance it out. So if you've been

21:29leaning into the masculine or you're a man, you need to embrace your linear approach to life,

21:35which is, I have a goal that I'm working towards. I'm a train on a track, but you need to make your

21:41primary goal in your marriage to prioritize emotional connection. So your primary goal in your marriage

21:50is to embrace, understand, and channel feminine qualities without losing your masculinity. We've

21:57talked about that in another episode also. That means you need to be able to express your emotions

22:02gently and in a way that is still authentic so that your wife can receive them. That means that you need

22:09to, when she's talking to you, honor her femininity by exercising your feminine side, even though it's less

22:15evolved than hers and listening. That means that you need to save fixing, changing, and helping for when

22:23she asks for it or when you offer it and she accepts it. That means that you need to be present, not just

22:32productive. All right. You're not just getting stuff done. You are present. And you know what? I'm going to

22:39tell you something. When you're productive and emotionally present on your own, whether you

22:46like to work with your hands, whether you like to invest in the stock market, whether you like to

22:53deal with abstract concepts in the world of education, when you're emotionally present, when you allow that

23:01emotional connection to guide your linear thinking, you actually are going to have more satisfying and

23:08more filling results. It won't happen as fast always because the nature of ecological thinking is to

23:15explore. But when you take the time to explore and allow the process to unfold, instead of driving that

23:21train to the station as fast and as hard as you can, you will actually experience higher levels of

23:27fulfillment and satisfaction as a human being and start to see how your wife operates. And similarly,

23:34women, I want you to get that men process emotional emotions differently. Get that just because he's

23:43not talking about it doesn't mean he doesn't care. Get that he's wired for directness, but he can talk

23:49about emotion. You may need to pull it out of him. You may need to explain to him why it's important to

23:56you. You may need to lay it out for him why expressing emotion will help him get to that place he wants to

24:02get with you in this situation or that place he wants to get in this situation with you, depending

24:07on how you want to frame it. But when you tell him the why, he will be more likely to engage. He might

24:14not do it wholeheartedly. He may not do it as well as you would, but he will get there. And when you

24:21communicate clearly, when you communicate to men in terms of the goal, why you need it done this way

24:26in terms of the goal, they will make the connection between exploring the emotion and getting where they

24:31want to get. When you explore the emotion without making that connection for them, you don't show

24:36them that you really understand. So here's, here's some actions you can take. I want you ladies to

24:43appreciate the effort that your man makes, particularly when it's around hearing and validating your emotion.

24:50And I want you to appreciate the effort that your woman makes when she honors your desire and need to be

25:00linear and gets that you're probably not trying to manipulate her directly or indirectly, that you're

25:08probably really just doing what you think is best. Gentlemen, I want you to take five minutes each day

25:14to ask your wife about how her day was and how she felt specifically. Not how was your day? Oh,

25:20you went to work good. Oh, you picked up the kids good, but you went to, how did you feel about your

25:24work day today? Hey, how was school? What did, what did it feel like? How are the kids doing

25:28emotionally? I want you to focus on the emotional and ladies, I want you to focus with your men on

25:35what did they accomplish today? Because the tendency of linear thinkers is to always feel like

25:40they aren't there yet. So they need to try harder. They're focused on the goal. Help them to focus on

25:45what they actually accomplished. Hey, I know that the goal is for us to do X, Y, and Z, or for you,

25:50this car, this house, this, whatever, I have this position. Um, what did you accomplish today?

25:57That is helping you move towards that goal. Like help them to acknowledge it and help them to have

26:02that feeling of success. So the key to thriving together is you don't need to be the same to

26:09have a great marriage. In fact, you should, you aren't, and you shouldn't be, but you do need to

26:14show understanding, balance, and harmony with the other person. You do need to learn into that side of

26:22yourself that they embody and vice versa. The key is to understand and appreciate your differences

26:29and to lean into them instead of being resentful or feeling threatened. And also, as you're doing

26:35this, just notice how your own concepts of how it should be might not be in alignment with what

26:42works, right? You may have some old ideas, old emotions that maybe your parents gave you

26:48hanging around and it's worth it to explore it and air it out without shame and without guilt,

26:54right? The only way to air it out is to just get, well, you can have some guilt because guilt,

26:59guilt drives, guilt is the desire to see I have a behavior that's not working. I'd like to change

27:05that behavior so that it's more effective for myself and for my, my family. Shame is there's

27:11something wrong with me and I can't fix it. So without shame, a little guilt might be okay.

27:15I think the punchline here is, and we need to really work on leaning into what's already present

27:22for us, which is the femininity our mothers gave us or our sisters gave us or our aunts gave us

27:28or whoever that female, those female role models are. And women, when you lean into your masculinity,

27:35you want to do it in a way that doesn't invalidate your femininity, which is the cultural norm and

27:41probably what we've all unconsciously taken in. And so just look for ways to bridge that gap in

27:46your marriage and in yourselves. Hey, if you're liking what you're hearing here, if it's challenging

27:50you, if it's bringing up some stuff, awesome, right? This is not a podcast that's for everyone,

27:55even though I'm like doing my best to honor all perspectives. It's not for everyone. Some people

27:59are going to hear this. They're going to hear misogyny. Some people are going to hear this.

28:01They're going to hear anti-whatever you hear. And that's okay. Something that's powerful often

28:10brings up disagreement. And with that, I'm going to say, have a wonderful day. Have an awesome

28:16tomorrow and stay tuned for the next episode of Rich in Relationship.

28:31I'm going to say, have a great day.

Why Men and Women See the World Differently – The Roots of Our Differences

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