Transcripts

Dr. Herb Goldberg:
It's not a matter of good or bad or right or wrong. It's a matter of how do we transform relationships so they don't follow the traditional progression, which I call "from romance to boredom to rage."

Dr. Herb Goldberg, author of the book "What Men Still Don't Know About Women, Relationships, and Love," says a better understanding of the opposite gender can really help.

Men don't really know the difference between a loving response from a woman and accommodation. Women are trained to be accommodators at the beginning of relationships: laughs at his jokes and tells him how wonderful he is. And men say, "Wow, I finally found a woman who really appreciates me, she's not like my wife or my past relationships."

Married men or men in long term relationships can often be heard complaining about the women in their lives, so why do they get involved in those relationships in the first place? Dr. Goldberg says that's another important force in relationships that is seldom talked about.

Men deeply need women because men have very little capacity to achieve closeness with anybody. And so they tend to become very isolated and lonely and very, very needy on a personal level - so they deeply need a woman in their life. Most men don't acknowledge how deeply lonely they are but they absolutely are.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.