August 5, 2012
Little Details
Please note: This article is for my female readers. Most men will believe that I am venting and and not see the point that I am making which is another gender difference to be explored in a different article that I will write on another day.

Women typically attend to little details to make other people happy. I realized this as I made my bed today. Since my husband died 20 years ago, I have thrown the sheets and blanket together hellter skelter. Today I made the bed with care, pulling the sheets out to lie flat, folding the top sheet carefully over the blankets and then lining up the pillows. I stood back and wondered why I did not do that all the time lately. Of course! I had no husband to enjoy it with. Then I smiled because he would not have even noticed. A rumpled bed would have suited him just fine. In fact on the one or two occasions when he did make the bed, it was in the hellter skelter manner.

To further illustrate my point here are other details that I attended to: making dinner every night for my guy at 5 p.m. promptly so that he could sit down and eat as soon as he arrived home as he requested, locating the Prince Albert tobacco which he used up each week (It was not always available at the store I attended, so I had to visit another two or three before I found it.), purchasing a shirt or any other item of clothes which he insisted must meet particular stipulations; such as his shirts had to have a pocket both on the left and on the right side or he would refuse to wear it and angrily discard it.

Therefore, I have concluded from my personal observations and from 35 years of observing couples who I counsel, that men pay no attention to the details that women care about. Females show love in this manner and often when the male does not notice the details (Or is unaware of them. An even greater offense in the female’s world!) it is perceived by many women as lack of caring. Men show love by going to work every day. Now before the gallery roars that such is not the case in your home-please remember that roles and the culture has changed so that today (2012) there are many differences in individual families. What I am attempting to illustrate here is that men do not think the same as women. Much of what each gender feels is a lack of love is simply a difference in perspective based on how each gender interprets the situation.

Although on a daily basis women expend a good deal of energy attending to the minor unnoticed details, the male often does not return the same attention to detail. For example, when my husband purchased an item for me, he went into the first store he saw, picked out the first item that was in front of him. How do I know that for a fact? We were Christmas shopping and parted at the intersection. I delayed entering the store for my selections and observed that he crossed the street and entered a shop. After I paid for my selections, I went across the road and entered the shop he had visited. I saw some very cheap sleazy night-gowns in the front of the store and noted them. He stated that he had been waiting some time for me with only one package beside him in the car. When Christmas day came, sure enough the sleazy night-gown (that the seams fell apart on the first wearing) was my gift. Nor was that the first time that I became aware that no thought went into what style I liked.

The point that I am making is not to complain about my husband, but rather to point out that men’s reasoning in these matters does not agree with women’s concept of love. Some men get angry and feel a woman is controlling when she expresses her concern about his welfare (love) when he arrives home later than expected on a stormy night. It is the really the same situation, but in reverse. Major uproars in relationships happen because women think with the left and right hemisphere of the brain while men predominately use the left hemisphere. It is a fact that gender brains are wired differently according to a Shaywitz and Shaywitz 1978 study.

The way my husband and I settled our differences was; I picked out what I wanted and let him know that I did not want any deviation from the product I picked. He was so pleased to know how to please me. In the case of him wanting to surprise me, I picked out a selection of items so that I would not know which item he chose and therefore it would be a surprise. I remember one time doing that and he bought them all! Men really do want to please the opposite sex. As long as both genders comprehend that we view life differently, we can have more harmonious relationships.