How To Understand Your Man and Help Him Understand You

By Lance Chambers

Most of the problems in relationship are caused by communication issue between partners. Men and women are different is many ways and it is the differences in how we feel and think that are the root cause of the problmes we face.

The book expalns how and why we are different from each other and how to make sure we are aware of how to change the words we use, the ways we thing, and how we act to stop problems arising and how to oversome issues if they are already there.

It's not hard to make the necessary changes and just reading the book could save your relationship or help anyone else you know who's having a problem.

A wide array of recent research and survey results are used to highlight what's going on in both men and women that lead to the relationship problems we all have at times and why we fall into the relationship traps we fall into again and again.

It's rare for men to read book on relationships so I have added a short section on how to convince your man to read and understand how he can do better in the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lance Chambers
• Release date: Jul 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311031587

Lance Chambers

British/Australian male born in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1949.I have a degree in Marketing from Purdue Uni in the US and an Engineering degree from the Uni of South Australia.Have been a lecturer to Business Grad students, worked as a labourer, for the Government as a Strategic Planner, have picked hops and apples in England and grapes in France while on my 2 and a half year gap year.I have also run a writing course at the Western Australian University during their summer schools.Travelled back to Australia from Europe overland which was easy in the 70's and great fun. Wouldn't try that today.Have run my own consulting company, made money selling all sorts of stuff online. Am married to a really incredible artist and have two kids (one of each).Have written five technical books with CRC Press of Boca Raton, Florida. Have had another printed by another company I've forgotten the name of and two books on small business by an Australian publishing house for local Australian consumption.I have dabbled in writing fiction but have struggled but non-fiction now that's great stuff.Been an avid researcher into biblical history for over 30 years - incredibly interesting.Well that it about me.

Book preview

HOW TO UNDERSTAND YOUR MAN

AND

HELP HIM UNDERSTAND YOU

and other stuff to help your relationship

Dr. Lance D Chambers

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Dr. Lance D Chambers

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Table of Contents

Detailed Table of Contents

Preface

A Simple Introduction to Some Differences Between the Sexes.

More Details On Why We're So Different

Why the Science is Important

Learning What Your Partner Means When They Talk.

Some Central Cores of Relationships

More 'STUFF' That Shows How Different We Are

For the Male Reader - How You Can Help Her

Mating Value

Relationships

Sex

End notes

How to Get Your Man to Read this Book, which he really needs to do for it to work the best.

Detailed Table of Contents

Preface

Some Divorce Facts

The Politics of Equality

Why we Ended up the Creatures we are

Some Inconvenient Truths

A Simple Introduction to Some Differences Between the Sexes.

Why Do We Fall In Love?

We All Want The Same Thing - Love!

What We Each Need

The Chemistry of Love

Is 'Love At First Sight' Real?

Damned Evolution

The Lovey Dovey Times And Sexathons

Why Lovers Are So Crazy About Each Other

Why is Love Felt Differently by Men and Women?

How Men's Brains Rate Attractiveness in Women

How Do Women Determine How Attractive A Man Is?

5 Differences Between Women and Men

More Details On Why We're So Different

Why Women cannot Relax like Men

Why Our Relationship World Has Changed

Men Need to be Alone and Women Need to be Pampered

Some Inherited Differences.

Why the Science is Important

Evolutionary Psychology and its Relevance to Human Behaviour

Our Three Brains

Monogamy in the Animal Kingdom

A Few Truths About Human Nature

Humans are Built for Polygany

Let's be Honest - Monogamy is Unnatural!

Why Suicide Bombers are Muslim

Have a Son if You Do not Want Your Relationship to Fail

Beautiful People have more Daughters

Most Crimes are Committed by Poor, Young, Disenfranchised Men

Male Mid-life Crisis

Sexual Harassment of Women is not Sexist

Why We Believe Having Choices is Important

Why we Believe What we Believe

Your Life Preferences Might be Hard-Wired

The Internet Gateway To Sex

Protecting Our Tribe

The Education Gap

Why do Men Work Best in Hierarchical Groups and Women in Collaborative Ones?

How our Instincts Work

Can Smell Change a Persons Sex?

The Amazing Female Orgasm and Why it Works the Way it Does

How Hormones Affect Behaviour

Differences are the Same Everywhere

An Essential Difference

The Planet Theory

Learning What Your Partner Means When They Talk.

What He Means When He Says:

What He Hears When You Say:

How to Set Him on the Right Path to Understanding You

Some Central Cores of Relationships

Making Contracts

Ability to Compromise

Accepting that the Relationship will Evolve over Time

Some Solutions are not Rocket Science

Some Signs of (Dis)Satisfaction

Men and Women's Different Needs

More 'STUFF' That Shows How Different We Are

Women Keep Score - Men Do not

Men Retire - Women Keep Going

Are Women More Trustworthy than Men

Who's Into Retail Therapy?

Our Needs

Sexual Needs

The Impact of Our Genes and Instincts

The Traps Women Lay

Why Women Nag and How to Stop it

She Changes and He Doesn't! - mostly...

Beware - Conflict Levels Do not Change

Learn to Say Sorry!

For the Male Reader - How You Can Help Her

Make Her Feel Special

Say, I Love You

How to Excite Your Partner

Things You Could Do to Stop Your Woman Driving You Crazy

Why Your Woman Requires Time, Attention, and Reassurance From You

Mating Value

Wealth Matters

Men Will Be Tested for Suitability

Attraction

What Turns Women On

Reproductive Behaviours and Mating Value

Mate Competition

Breast Size, Attractiveness, and Mate Value

What About Different Cultures?

Mis-fathering Children

One of the Reproduction Strategies Related to Mate Value

Why Some Girls Attacked the Steubenville Rape Victim?

Relationships

How to Help Men Learn About Relationship Building

Why Women Leave Men

Why Men Leave Women

Do Women Love Alpha Males?

Penis Size DOES Matter

Some Stuff That Women Want

Ensure You Find the Right One

Sex

Do Married Couple Have More Sex?

What Do We Regret?

Does Desire Really Die?

Sharing Housework and Sex

Can Men Get the Sex they Need in Relationships?

Can Women Get the Love and Affection they need in Relationships?

Sex Changes How We Make Decisions

Some Interesting Facts About Sex

The Value of Sex

Our Top Ten Sexual Fantasies

Some Fundamental Sexual Mistakes Women Make

Guys More Affected by Work/Home Pressure

Want a Better Relationship - Open Yourself to New Experiences

Sex is not just about Sex

End notes

How to Get Your Man to Read this Book, which he really needs to do for it to work the best.

Preface

The environment that humans - and, therefore, human minds - evolved in was very different from our modern environment. Our ancestors spent well over 99% of our species' evolutionary history living in hunter-gatherer societies.

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby from their primer on evolutionary psychology

Each of us deserves the best out of any relationship we enter but life, being what it is, with all its difficulties and complexities is not helped when two people interpret the same event, words, or actions differently. Without any help or support, is it any wonder that more than 50% of, supposedly highly committed relationships, end in separation?

Some Divorce Facts

According to McKinley Irvin (See: See: www.mckinleyirvin.com/blog/divorce/32-shocking-divorce-statistics/) the divorce rate in America is:

• for first marriage [1] is 41%

• for second marriage is 60%

• for third marriage is 73% [2]

In America, there is one divorce every 13 seconds. That is 6,646 divorces per day, 46,523 per week, or almost two and a half million a year.

The average length of a marriage that ends in divorce is eight years.

People wait an average of three years after a divorce to remarry (if they remarry at all).

The average age for couples going through their first divorce is 30.

79.6% of custodial mothers receive a support award, while only 29.6% of custodial fathers receive a support award.

46.9% of non-custodial mothers default on support, while only 26.9% of non-custodial fathers default.

About 1% of currently married same-sex couples gets divorced each year, in comparison to about 2% of married straight couples. (Note that the percent of couples that get divorced eventually is the same, but only one or two percent get divorced in a particular year.)

Statistics on the Likelihood of Divorce

If your parents are happily married, your risk of divorce goes down by 14%.

People who wait to marry until they are over the age of 25 are 24% less likely to get divorced.

Living together prior to getting married can increase the chance of getting divorced by as much as 40%.

If you have attended university, your risk of divorce decreases by 13%.

2008 US voter data shows that red states (states that tend to vote Right-Wing), have higher divorce rates than blue states (states that tend to vote Left-Wing).

29% of Baptists are divorced (the highest of any US religious group), while only 21% of atheists/agnostics were divorced (the lowest).

Divorce and Children Statistics

The divorce rate among couples with children is 40% lower than couples without children.

43% of children growing up in America today are raised without their fathers.

75% of children with divorced parents live with their mother.

28% of children living with a divorced parent live in a household with an income below the poverty line.

Half of all American children will witness the breakup of a parent's marriage. Of these children, close to half of them will also see the breakup of a parent's second marriage.

Divorce has become a serious issue around the world as the disruption and disintegration of families, especially where there are children involved, leaves lifelong emotional scars, disrupts economies, causes individuals to, often, avoid seeking companionship after the divorce, causes loneliness, depression, and a host of other negative outcomes.

The rate of relationship failure has increased dramatically over the last 30 - 50 years.

If we also include the separation rate of non-married committed relationships, the picture becomes even worse. For a host of reasons relationships are failing at greater rates than they have for many years .

Why?

Each of us, today, are encouraged to seek our own fulfilment but when we find ourselves unable to achieve this widely promoted and, supposedly, easily attainable state, we start to blame others for our failure. Also the goals we are encouraged to achieve are, sometimes, almost impossible for most of us to achieve in the real world.

When we start to blame those around us because we cannot achieve the things we want to achieve (happiness, fulfilment, promotion, etc.) it can be especially damaging in a relationship.

Many of these expectations of being self-fulfilled (a concentration on rights rather than responsibilities) are relatively new within a historical context and this has contributed to the increase in relationship failures. If we expect to take or be supported in a relationship and not give back or offer support then we should not be surprised if the relationship fails.

If we do not know how to react to the world around us, and especially to those who are close to us, we will, more often than not , be a significant contributor to relationship failure. This book is designed to help you get through those tough times when it seems that the whole world is fighting you and working to crush the life out of you. You can survive, in fact you can do much more than survive, you can prosper if you learn how men and women work and think differently. This book has been written to help us understand each other and the simple tools and techniques revealed will also help.

The continual increase in divorce rates for people who go into second and subsequent marriages tells us that these couples, or at least one person out of the two, has not learnt how to help their relationship work even though they have gone through previously failed relationships. This is a serious problem because it highlights the fact that people fail to see how their own shortcomings contribute to the problem. It comes back to the point made earlier - the 'blame game' - it is always someone else's fault that things go wrong and it is never anything that I have or have not done. If you or your partner thinks this way then you have serious issues and need to rethink your priorities.

Too many of us search for the perfect partner and never seem to realise that the 'perfect partner' does not exist 'out-of-the-box'. Relationships need to be worked on. There are no magic solutions to getting a relationship that benefits both partners. It is possible to get what we want and need from a relationship if we know what we need to contribute and, even more importantly, how to make that contribution.

We all want the same things - to be loved, and to love, to be appreciated and to appreciate, to be cared for and to care for - when we can do and expereince these things we have a wonderful relationship.

Being in a truly loving and supportive relationship is wonderful, it always has been, and always will be for everyone with a heart and soul.

However, there is a problem most of us fail to recognise. A problems and issues of which we are unaware can turn a wonderful and fulfilling relationship between two seemingly perfectly matched people into a total disaster. The terrible thing is that we all have the seeds of this disaster hidden within us. This poisonous thorn blooms when we least expect it, it can cause pain, suspicion, anguish, anger, violence, and sorrow whenever it bursts forth. Some people are aware and are prepared to combat it as soon as they feel its first stirrings. They have either learnt through years of pain how it feels when it first starts to stir or they have been taught how to recognise it approaching and how to stop it, repair the damage it has caused, or at the least to minimise any damage that might occur.

This poisoned thorn is triggered by 'misunderstanding' and it is driven by men not understanding what women mean when they talk, act, or react in certain ways and women failing to understand men when they talk, act, or react in certain ways as well. It is not uncommon when the different sexes don't understand each other for each of us to jump to the wrong conclusion. And the conclusion we most often jump to is wrong. To protect ourselves we respond in the totally wrong way and start to defend ourselves from what feels like an attack when no attack was intended. The pattern goes something like this:

• Someone says something.

• Their partner hears something that was not there because they misunderstood what was actually said. So they retaliate to defend themselves.

• The 'attacker' is unprepared for the retaliation as they did not say anything that they thought was deserving of the attack they just endured. In response they also retaliate to this, apparent, attack.

We all know what's going to happen for at least the next few minutes, hours, or even days.

The wonderful thing is that it is easy to break this pattern of misunderstanding, attack, retaliation, followed by all out WAR!

The Politics of Equality

Since the mid-sixties, there has been an idea that men and women are 'equal' in every way. However, the reality is that men and women have a significant number of differences at a fundamental biological level.

Most airlines pilots are men, not because airlines refuse to hire women but because few women apply to become pilots. There are other professions that are dominated by women - such as kindergarten and primary school teaching and writing cookbooks to mention just three. Women are better at these tasks, not because the work is inferior or trivial but because they revolve around relationships and women are particularly good at anything to do with building, healing, maintaining, and initiating relationships.

The reason that teaching is about relationship building should be obvious to us all but maybe writing cookbooks may not be. Cooking is about 'family' and friends and these are relationships.

But, why are most chefs men?

It is because 'chefing' is a job and, if you have watched any of the cooking shows on TV these days you know it has nothing to do with building relationships - it is too much of a cutthroat world for any of that sort of stuff. It is all about performing tasks and single minded task performance is a very male attribute.

Almost all relationship problems, between men and women, are caused by differences in how our minds work - and most of that comes from how differently we think and feel.

History would suggest that for many thousands of years there has been a widely held belief that men and women are very different from each other in a number of fundamental ways and recent research into how our minds work is highlighting the truth of this long held belief.

Women are always discussing and writing about how strange men are and men have been discussing, among themselves, probably since the first two men on the planet could get together and discuss the issue, how impossible it is to understand women.

Let us consider some commonly held beliefs from each sex:

Some Women's Views on Men

Men cannot commit - they can if you are the right woman.

Men can only think of one thing at a time - true but women are no different whatever common beliefs exist to suggest something different.

Men take everything women say literally - true.

Some Men's Views on Women

Women allow their emotions to define their actions - true.

Women talk all the time - women speak more than three times as many words than men in a day so this is true as far as men are concerned.

Women gossip - true.

Do not take the realities of these few behaviours to heart, as there are real, concrete, and serious reasons why men and women think and act as they do and those reasons are embedded in our genetic makeup.

Nature designed men to go out and hunt dangerous food, [3] to bring that food back for the tribe, to protect the tribe from danger, breed with females to bring children into the world, and to do any other tasks that required brute strength. These roles are all very different from each other and require very different skills and abilities. There is a good reason that football players are rarely women, there is a reason that it is women who take centre stage at the ballet, there is a reason that the best racing drivers are men, and there is a reason that it is women who are more common in the 'caring' professions.

There is a commonly held belief that women can 'multi-task' - perform more than a single task at a time; however, this is simply not true. What most women can do is flip from one subject to another very quickly while not losing track of the other issues she is flipping between. There is also the common perception that men cannot multi-task and this is as true for men as it is for women. What men cannot do, that women can, is to flip! Men, in general, cannot flip quickly between a number of different subjects. They can flip between different aspects of the same subject - car gearboxes and car suspension - but they would have problems flipping between their kids schooling and a business proposition. The main problem with men is that they are programmed by nature to be single minded in the performance of the primary task that confronts them to maximise the odds of successfully completing that task. Who wants to hunt in a pack where the members of the pack keep talking about anything other than is what is relevant to ensuring success of the hunt?

Women have a very different role that requires them to be capable of responding to a number of other people who are attempting, in their own way, to contribute to cohesion within the tribe or her family - women are the force that binds people together and she needs to be able to communicate with a number of different people who may be asking/talking about different subjects while, at the same time, cooking food and keeping an eye on a child that is heading towards the fire. Without this ability to quickly flip between tasks our species would probably have failed to survive and the same can be said of the need for men to remain focused on a single task.

We are NOT EQUAL - We ARE COMPLEMENTARY!

Why we Ended up the Creatures we are

Nature designed men to go out and hunt both dangerous (e.g. bison, woolly mammoth, wild animals, etc.) and non-dangerous foods (e.g. birds, fish, etc.) that may be a great distance from the tribes 'cave' and foods that sometimes required them to give chase over long distances which is the basis on the 'endurance running hypothesis' (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis), to bring the meat back to the tribe, and to protect the tribe. They were also designed to breed with as many females as possible to maximise the chances their genes would survive, and to do any other tasks that required strength.

Nature designed women to give birth, care for, feed, nurture and when necessary protect the tribe, to find, nurture and heal, build social cohesion within the tribe, gather non-dangerous foods (e.g. nuts, fruit, roots, eggs, etc.) within a short distance of the tribes 'cave', make the 'cave' comfortable, and to breed with the best male she could to produce the genetically 'fittest' children she could.

Over hundreds of thousands of years we evolved to be as good as we could be at fulfilling these very particular roles and this was necessary if we, as a species, were to survive and prosper. The advent of farming and the resultant changes in cultural demands and ways of living created a whole new set of behaviours that were brought about by the need for humans to now have ownership of personal property (tools, land, livestock, stored grain, etc.) that had value and was worth stealing.

It is now believed, by many experts, that it was the arrival of farming that saw the beginnings of violence between humans. Before farming hunter-gather groups would have comprised between 30 - 50 people - small enough so that everyone knew everyone else intimately yet large enough to ensure the tribes survival. In a group this small no one can 'slack off' and get away with not pulling their weight. There was always new hunting grounds available with food in abundance - often no more than a few days walk away. In fact it has been shown that it may have taken as little as one hour every day to collect all the food needed for the tribe especially in new fertile hunting grounds.

They moved regularly and so would have had very little in the way of possessions that would be worth stealing. Evidence from hunter-gather groups that have lived in the recent past and those that still exist today show that these groups share everything. All the food collected is shared, children walk freely throughout the huts, no scolding, no punishments for small infractions, every male is a father to every child, and every women is a mother to every child. There is also strong evidence that jealousy, as we understand it, did not and does not today exist either in adults or children. These people engage in sexual intercourse freely with each other with none of the jealousy issues we feel today. There is no concept of sexual exclusivity or 'wife' or 'husband' as we would understand it. This all arrived with the idea of ownership which started when we moved into farming which required us to stop moving and to settle down. It also meant that we now started to collect valuables such as livestock, fertile land, buildings, and similar things that were worth defending - the start of conflict was over property.

All the assertions made in the book will be supported by real science and references will be supplied so that you can, if you wish, confirm what the book says.

Human life changed dramatically about 10,000 years ago as many of us moved from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers. The skills we had learnt in our hunter-gather years were no longer as well suited to this new lifestyle. Men had no need to hunt as much. What they needed to learn was how to plant and gather, the best times to sow, and what ground was best for which crop. But this change in lifestyle did not, overnight, cause changes in the structure of a man's body, changes in his instincts, or the ways of viewing the world - those stayed largely intact and impacted on both men's and women's effectiveness in this new world.

Today we are much the same - our bodies, instincts, perceptions, the way we process information and communicate are still best suited to hunter-gatherers rather than modern 21st Century humans - our world has changed dramatically but our minds and instincts have not kept pace with those changes. We are not, out of the womb, at all suited to the needs of the modern world with all the gender role confusion, with many families now being single parent, and a host of other newly created priorities that humans never needed to confront. Our whole physical, emotional, sensory, intellect, and instinctual systems were and are still designed for an environment that existed in the distant past.

The world is now far more confusing, scary, and dangerous than it has ever been and we are not biologically well adapted to deal with this new world.

Some Inconvenient Truths

This book is based upon scientific evidence to draw the conclusions it does however, science is simply the pursuit of facts, reality, or 'the truth' (pick your preferred description as they all fit) and as such it often asserts things that conflict with some peoples beliefs. As a result throughout this book you may encounter 'facts' that make you feel uncomfortable or that you refuse to accept. When that happens I ask you to please do all the checking you need to do to convince yourself that the conclusions are accurate, and that good science is not about pushing any particular agenda or belief - it is all about discovering the truth.

This does not mean it always gets it right first time, it does not mean that what science says today is the final word, it just means this is as close as we have got to the truth right now.

However, having said this there are some truths that science can say are COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY TRUE and will never change.

How about Sir Isaac Newton's LAW of Gravity?

Who would disagree that things 'fall' towards the centre of the Earth? The reason it is a law is because gravity can be proven via experimentation and mathematics, and that we can forecast events such as how fast a falling body will be moving after it has dropped 20 feet in a vacuum. But, and here's a real issue, laws do not tell us why? We know that something thrown up into the air will fall back to Earth but our LAW of Gravity doesn't explain 'WHY'!

Laws very rarely change as they come from, mostly, observations that can be repeated as many times as you wish and the results will always conform to the mathematics behind the law.

But, Newtonian science still doesn't understand HOW gravity works.

A law does not tell us why something happens. It is a 'description' of what we can see or record.

What about the THEORY of Gravity proposed by Albert Einstein?

A theory includes the LAWS an adds the why. So a theory gives us more information than a law because we discover what happens and why it happens whereas a law only tells us what happened.

The common meaning of the word theory is an idea, a guess, or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not an idea, nor is it a guess, or a hunch. It's a substantiated, supported, and well-documented explanation for what has been observed and why it is the way it is.

A theory ties together all the facts about something, and offers an explanation that fits all the observations. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. A theory is as close to proven as anything in science can be up to that time. However, as we gain more understanding our theories can change.

In the past, if you wish, we had LAWS and THEORIES about the Rising Sun.

The LAW of the Rising Sun was that it rose in the East and set in the West. That the time it took for the Sun to rise, fall and rise again was a full day. That the days would be cooler when the Sun was low on the horizon and warmer when it was higher in the sky. These fact are still true today.

Now let's see how a theory of the Rising Sun worked.

1. First the Sun is pulled across the sky by a Sun God,

2. The Sun rotates around the Earth as do all the other planets,

3. The Sun is the centre of the Universe and the Earth revolves around it as did all the other planets and now

4. The Sun is at the centre of our solar system - which is one of an uncountable number of similar systems. All planets rotate around their own Sun. The Sun rotates and all the planets rotate on their own axis, and it is the rotation of the planet that 'causes' sunrise and sunset.

This is as far as the theory of the Rising Sun has got and we assume that's as good as it will ever get.

So a theory is 'better' from a scientific perspective than a law. Who would have thought? (See: www.grossmont.edu/johnoakes/s110online/Notes on Scientific Laws.doc)

Evolutionary psychology and biology, which are used in this book to show why, and how we need to change if our relationships are to improve, are based on theories which makes them provable. They can also be used to make forecasts on how things will change and evolve. Better than any scientific laws.

But as was stated at the start of this section, the truth is often very uncomfortable for some people and I believe that the conclusions drawn in this book will be exactly that - uncomfortable for some. However, I make no apology for anyone's lack of comfort.

I have worked as hard as I can to use the best research available to state the cases that I do. I truly believe that the conclusions can help people understand why we operate the way we do, that understanding some of our human primal drives and preferences can help us understand ourselves and others better, and that this will lead to better relationships - the whole aim of this book.

The book makes no moral statements. It is a book about human relationships using scientific explanations and recommendations based on science. The book doesn't make moral judgements it explains the truth as we know it today.

Nature knows nothing of Good and Evil

A Simple Introduction to Some Differences Between the Sexes.

Why Do We Fall In Love?

Terms such as puppy love, passion, and infatuation are what we commonly use to describe the feeling we get when we discover someone who steals our heart and minds in a blaze of glory and starry eyed wonder but close behind can come distress, anguish, feelings of betrayal, and grief.

Ever since we walked the Earth we have attempted to discover what it is that causes romantic love. Many things have been 'blamed' and for many years it has been laid at the feet of forces that are outside of ourselves such as spiritual or mystical agents over which we have no control. These beliefs make a lot of sense as romantic love overcomes us in the blink of an eye, seems to appear out of nowhere, and as quickly disappears leaving us feeling destitute and helpless. Surely this is not how our bodies should work? Therefore, it must have an external agent - or at least this is what people used to believe.

However, for all of our past ignorance today we are better able to supply answers to the question of 'Why do we fall in love?' and this section will reveal those truths.

We All Want The Same Thing - Love!

Although both sexes want the same thing we want it for very different reasons - we both want love but love for a man does not mean the same as love for a woman and here lies some of the problems we encounter.

Men fall in love with women who are healthy, fertile, and youthful and most of the easily accessible information on these points come from visual clues - long shiny hair, a 70/100 waist to hip ratio, good skin, bright eyes, large breasts [4], blue eyes, and a high pitched feminine voice. These attributes are universal and cover every culture in the world - Western, Eastern, Asian, African and every other.

Women fall in love with two different types of men depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle:

• for a long-term relationship - she searches for a man with sufficient power, status, resources, and commitment to care and protect her and her, existing or future, children into the foreseeable future and

• when she is approaching ovulation - she looks for a genetically 'fit' man who is able to give her the 'best' children she can hope to give birth to - a 'hunk'.

It has been this way for hundreds of thousands of years and will remain so for a few more hundreds of thousands. This is because, as you will discover, our primitive brains were programmed this way a long time ago and they change very slowly.

There may be a number of people who feel strongly that this is not true because men and women are the same - they have the same feelings, motivations, needs, and desires. However, these beliefs can be laid at the feet of political correctness, for which I have no time, or arise from people who have a particular agenda and are, most often, very vocal about their beliefs (feminists and male-ists, liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers). I do not have issues with anyone's beliefs but I do reserve the right to disagree with them when searchers of truth (scientists) do the work needed to reveal truths and I have read, understood, and written about those revealed truths.

It is actually very easy to debunk those who would suggest that there are no differences between males and females. We know that it is possible for men to develop breasts because their bodies have stopped producing testosterone but those breasts will never feed a baby without serious medical or genetic interventions. A similar case can be made for women and their musculature - they are different. We have all worked with, lived with, and had friends who are members of the opposite sex. Can any of you truly believe that men and women are the same when it comes to how they think, feel, and act? If you can say there are no differences I believe you need help - I know a therapist you might want to talk too. The last words should go to parents who have children of different sexes. These people know that children are born with certain attributes that have something to do with their gender. Boys children are not the same as girl children and any parent will confirm this to be true.

What We Each Need

We each NEED quite different things in our long-term relationships and any relationship will come under pressure, often intense pressure, if we are denied the relationship needs we have.

The following table highlights what the different sexes most often need in their relationships and what their partners believe they need. As you will see there a few issues of misunderstanding in the lists.

The list is in order of importance for most of us but be aware that some people may reorder this list or even replace some of the items with others. However, for most of us this list holds true.

What becomes damaging is when a one partner fails to understand what the other partner needs and tries to give their partners what they believe they need. This partner is, at least, trying to do the best they can however, a partner that tries to give what they themselves need is either not trying, is badly informed, not listening, or has a psychological need to push their needs onto their partner.

The Chemistry of Love

Most of us would accept that there are basically three types of 'love': lust, romantic love, and affection. There are others but to call them love may be stretching it a bit - sexual fetishes, visiting strip clubs, or the love of fast cars.

Scientists have shown that each of the three types of love are triggered by changes in brain chemistry which is caused by changes in our hormone production. The production of certain hormones change the way the brain works and this is what we call love. The chemicals in question include oxytocin, testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, and nor-epinephrine (a combination of 'sex' and 'love' hormones). It is these chemicals that drive all mammals into looking for a partner with which to breed. When we find a suitable partner our hormone production changes again and, as a result, or brain chemistry changes once more and starts to work out how to attract that potential partner.

What has changed in the last few centuries is that our love object is now more likely to become our long-term partner. As recently as a few hundred years ago long-term commitment was generally formalised by marriage and was often loveless, sexless, and unfaithful on both sides, and was arranged for reasons of wealth, status, politics, power, and tribal affiliations. However, things have changed and now most of us end up in long-term committed relationships because we, initially fall in lust, and then, if it all works out well, we fall in love.

Most mammals when seeking a mate will start ritual displays to many potential mates at the same time. A good example is a male peacock that displays his tail (his signal of genetic fitness to breed) to all females within visual range. However, humans are quite different when they looking for a long-term partner. Although they may have a short-list they will, most often, target their preferred candidate almost exclusively. If they fail to attract the object of their affections then the next candidate down the list will be approached. This is not true for short-term relationships when both sexes make displays to all potential candidates, much like a peacock, when looking for a one-night stand.

Is 'Love At First Sight' Real?

Do not be fooled into thinking that this is silly - love at first sight is real and scientists agree that it is a measurable phenomena. Scientists working in this area also believe that feelings of lust, romantic love, and desire for affection are the most efficient and effective way to ensure the survival of species.

When we fall in love our brain is flooded with massive amounts of dopamine and nor-epinephrine, which light up the same parts of the brain that many recreational drugs light up. So when someone is described as a 'Love' or 'Sex' addict we're talking about the possibility of a real addiction.

The same happen to other mammals. Stallions that smell the urine of a pregnant mare have the same reaction that humans do - a massive surge of dopamine and nor-epinephrine. Although this effect only lasts for a few seconds or minutes for most mammals, it can last for years in humans.

Damned Evolution

Surges in estrogen and progesterone in women, and testosterone, in both sexes, trigger feelings of lust, which is a need to have sex with the object of our desire as soon as possible. When we are feeling lustful our hypothalamus, which controls our primordial drives, such as thirst and hunger, and the amygdala, which is a centre for arousal are active. Dopamine is also secreted when we feel lust, and the high dopamine triggers the production of testosterone, which, in turn, causes sexual attraction.

Even a casual chat with an unknown female can cause testosterone levels to increase by a third in single unattached men and the stronger the reaction, the more the man's behaviour will change. This affect is not as dramatic in men who are in relationships or have children because in their role as family men they have higher oxytocin levels which lowers testosterone.

Why did we evolve with 'lust'?

One hundred thousand, of more, years ago the idea of a one-on-one long-term committed relationship did not exist in humans. We were more like highly promiscuous Bonobo monkeys when it came to reproduction.

We, as a species, survived because we were capable of feeling lust - pure unadulterated lust. A male would be attracted to a female and vice-versa, hormones would start pumping and circulating through their bodies, they would have sex, lust would ease, and they would go and do whatever it was they needed to do that didn't relate to sexual intercourse. That's it! Sort of like what two horny Bonobos do today.

More recent examples of unbridled lust come from countries that go to war - especially when the fear of death is close like it was in Europe during the Second World War. When our lives are in danger we see the very obvious signs of lust (which is no more than a desire to breed and pass on our genetic blueprint) in the frequency of sex between total strangers. If you have a grandparent that went to war or lived in a country that was in the path of bombers or had lots of troops (friend or foe) ask them, if you trust them to tell you the truth, how easy it was to get sex at the time - their answer, if they are brave and honest enough to tell you the truth, may surprise you.

Such a discussion with my father many years ago came as a real revelation - he was in England towards the end of World War II and had many tales to tell about his time there and during the advance