You are actually the victims of a primal reflex present in all social animals, where the fear of the female stimulates a classic shame-aggression response in the male. With a better sense of smell and hearing, females are the alarm-system of the social group. When they become alert with fear, the males either become aggressive or experience terrible shame.

The fear-shame dynamic occurs when she hears something in the middle of the night and he goes down to check it out. And the same thing occurs when she's anxious about something and wants to talk to him about it, which is why, "Honey, we need to talk," never works.

The unconscious fear-shame dynamic explains most relationship problems, including why couples fight about money. His provider anxiety - dread of failure as a provider - stimulates her fear of deprivation, which makes her want to spend money to build a nest. It also explains why couples fight about sex: her anxiety about having sex stimulates his dread of failure as a lover.

Because the fear-shame dynamic was designed to work unconsciously and non-verbally, men don't get the fear of women and women don't get the shame of men. We need a higher form of compassion, that for vulnerability we do not share. That is the kind of compassion, coming straight from your core value that we (my co-author, Pat Love and I) have tried to help people appreciate. With this higher level compassion, communication is easy. Without it, communication is an illusion.

Sincerely,