I'm a man, this is how I talk about relationships...
One of the reasons I wrote Pick Your Battles was because there weren’t a lot of relationship books that connected with men — to truly tap into a husband or boyfriend’s perspective when it comes to nourishing a relationship. It was a perspective I happened to have from experience, and I wanted to share it. It can be a sensitive topic for men to break down our barriers in fostering love and understanding. It can be an issue of stubbornness to forego communication and deal with feelings inwardly. I wanted to truly express the value of finding the common ground through arguments, strong notions, and big decisions. To really show that the man’s role in creating harmony is equally essential to a happy relationship.
As such, while trying to be as encompassing as I could, I catered the language and themes in Pick Your Battles to men, using examples of everything from peace treaties to atom bombs, from the lens of my own life. I am a diehard sports fan, and I happen to speak four languages fluently (football, basketball, hockey and baseball), so I used metaphors from my own literal experience to convey points. I also treated seemingly trivial or petty topics — such as the ordering of pizza, which is something we can all understand — with the same respect as I would a heavy topic, such as dealing in family situations or financial strains.
I didn’t want to get hung up on who was right or wrong in any given example fight, but rather to talk about how we argue in general. Or how we can fight fairly so we get to the heart of the matter and don’t hurt each other in the process.
When Trisha and I came up with the concept for Pick Your Battles, I felt it was imperative to give that perspective first and foremost, though obviously the situations are meant to speak to everyone.
Men get sort of discounted when it comes to relationships. If you watch movies or TV commercials, we’re just a bunch of dumb brutes who can’t get stains out of laundry and generally sit around watching sports (with each other) eating wings and Tostitos. Our TV wives watch us and shake their heads at our cluelessness.
But honestly, my relationship is pretty important to me. Although I consider myself a competent dude, Trisha means the world to me and I don’t think I would be able to do what I do in life without her. So, I want to keep our marriage healthy and both of us happy.
If you’re on this page right now, I’m guessing your relationship is equally important to you, and you’re willing to work at it to keep it running on all cylinders. There are lots of ways to tell your partner you value them besides staring soulfully into their eyes and saying “I value you.” (Although, as weird as that might seem, it wouldn’t hurt?). Sometimes “I value you” comes in the form of saying, “okay, yeah, you’ve had a shitty day and you want to go out for sushi when I was thinking pizza? Pizza comes and pizza goes, tonight, I’m up for some unagi!”
The point is I’m not as clueless as TV might make me (a guy) seem. Trisha is more complex than those same TV wives. And when it comes down to it, doing what’s right for my relationship as a whole is not that hard. It just may look a little different when it’s filtered through my sports-dominated brain!