Men plus Women Equal 4

I don't know any better than you why it is I choose to write relationship advice.  I basically have gone out of my way to do everything wrong.  Me being an authority on relationships is like taking child mentoring lessons from Jerry Sandusky.  Heyoooo.  What the hell though.  Maybe I am just the guy who read the book "Failing Forward" and really, really took it to heart.  Recently I had the chance to ponder one of the Mrs. and my latest arguments.  The nature of the argument escapes me but I am sure it was really a very mature one like they always are.  Something along the lines of who should be responsible for washing out the beer pong cups or how does a thirty four year old man still leave racing stripes in his underwear.  You know, life altering stuff.  Shan and I actually do a better job of avoiding the disagreements over things worth disagreeing about, like finances and what to watch on television, instead settling on quibbling over the little things.  So I sit down to help my little princess angel baby sunshine ray daughter do her 11 year old math.  I'll just say, 5th grade math, when you are as far removed from school as I am, could just as well be advanced nuclear calculus.  But I don't tell my daughter that.  I say things like "Heck yes I know how many bananas should be left after the monkey stole the barrel, but Taylor, if I just told you you wouldn't learn anything."  Then I walk away, Google it and come back like frickin Einstein and give her the answer from on high.  Taylor and I were struggling over an equation that I actually knew, like, what is 4 plus zero.  I was trying to relay how to get to the answer and she couldn't get it.  I walk away exasperated and a while later she says that she got it.  I came over to make sure she arrived at the answer as instructed only to find that she took a completely different path to get to the answer than I thought she should. The odd thing was that the answer was right.  Picture a light bulb floating in the air over my head and brunette angel babes going "AHHHHHHHHHH" in an angel babe way.  Yes, all my angel babes are brunettes so please refrain from picturing them with and other hair colors.  Except maybe one red head.  After completing the visualization exercise we can get back to the blog.  Go ahead, I'll wait.  Sister Wives is on and I love that train wreck.  AND WE"RE BACK!  Equals four! I say.  By golly I have possibly unlocked a little relationship nugget.  Men and women both tend to focus on the outcome.  Equals four.  Now, follow me here, we spend so much time focusing on the outcome of an equation, that we forget to understand that the outcome is not what went right or went wrong.  Understanding the equation and how each of us come to the outcome is what is important.  If you asked me, what equals four?  I would say, two plus two.  Because I am a simple kind of man.  If you ask a woman what equal four, they are more likely to tell you that the time of the month divided by how fat they are feeling plus the square root of  "He loves me, he loves me not" equals four....Duh.  Get where I am going?  We both have the same outcome but have different ways of getting there.  Do people go into a relationship wanting to be unhappy?  Unloved?  Hurt? To hurt? To lie or be lied to?  No!  So why, when we know that we both want the same thing, to be happy, do we wind up getting so messed up along the way?  I submit it is because I know how I would get to four, and she knows how she would get to four, but neither of us take the time to fully understand how the other one gets to four!  So when I try to get Shan to be happy, I take 2 plus 2 and say that should get her to four.  But she doesn't get that.  Same for her, she thinks getting me to four is way more complicated than it really is for me.  So although the solution to the equation is the same for both of us, neither of us can get there because we want to be happy together, which means her understanding how I add things up and me understanding how she adds things up in order for us both to come out happy!  Does it mean I have to get a degree in rocket science?  Yes!  Does it mean she needs to strip things down to the lowest common denominator?  Yep!  But understand, the issue isn't the issue.  An issue is an outcome of an equation.  Bad communication plus work stress equals no kiss when the husband gets home.  So the wife says he doesn't care because he didn't kiss her.  He yells back that it is just a damn kiss and isn't a big deal!  She screams (crying too while clutching her knitting) that it is a big deal because he hasn't been home all day watching kids!  And he storms off to the driving range.  We realize no kiss was the outcome, but the lack of desire on both parts to understand why the other one came to that outcome means it is destined to happen again.  This goes for the positive as well people.  Ever said to your significant other....boy this was a great day, and she says back, the best.  But we don't talk about what made it great for each of us.  That makes the great day difficult to reproduce.  It's why guys keep doing the same thing that worked once but has become stale and old.  I am rambling at this point but you understand where I am going with all of this.  Understand how they get to four, and communicate how you do.