Episode 65 - Why Mars and Venus Collide: How Stress, Brain Chemistry, and Hormones All Affect Your Love Life (Part One) with John Gray

Transcript

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Dr. Patti Taylor: Welcome to the Expanded Lovemaking show. I'm your host, Dr. Patti Taylor of ExpandedLovemaking.com. I teach you how to make exquisite love. This is Part 1 of a two part series on why Mars and Venus collide.

In Part 1, we will be looking at how stress, brain chemistry and hormones all affect your love life. We are going to be discussing gender differences, biological differences and the impact of the ever present modern day stresses of life on your lovemaking.

Our guest today is someone who has spent years of intense study on these topics, Dr. John Gray.

John Gray: Well, I think the most important thing to recognize is the context in which we are living our lives today has dramatically changed. And to try to change the content of our lives, so to speak, we have to recognize the new context that everything is in. It used to be that for thousands of years, thousands of years, the history of men and women on this planet had a kind of relationship that no longer exists today. That was a relationship that was based upon men being providers and women being homemakers and baby makers.

We could think: gee, the world would be a harmonious place if we could all just get along and think the same and react the way and respond the same way, everything would be fine. But, it wouldn't be fine because that's not the way the world works. That's not the way the world is, and what we have to do is kind of grow up and recognize that we are different and our responsibilities as being mature individuals is to respect differences, to honor differences so that we can come together. In a sense, so that we can collide but the collision can be harmonious.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Welcome, Dr. Gray.

John Gray: Well, thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Well, it is such an honor to have you here and I worked it out with you. May I call you, John?

John Gray: Certainly.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Thank you so much, John. I've just followed you. I've heard you talk so many times. I love listening to you. I can't believe I get to share you with my listeners today.

Moving right along, let me tell everyone a little bit about you. Dr. John Gray is the best-selling relationship author of all time. He is the author of 16 books, including the relationship classic, "Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus". His newest book is just out which is, "Why Mars and Venus Collide".

Dr. John Gray is a certified family therapist who has been conducting personal growth seminars for over 30 years. He is a popular speaker and media guest, and he also has a business linking better health and nutrition with a richer and more fulfilling love life. So, we'll find out a little bit about that, too; lots of interesting stuff here.

Today on the show we'll find out Dr. John Gray's cutting edge research from his latest book. We'll learn how stress, brain chemistry and hormones impact the differences between men and women. So, let's get started.

Let's start with stress. John, we are under so much stress these days from work to money. What can men and women do to help each other cope? Let's start with women. What can women do to help men?

John Gray: Well, I think the most important thing to recognize is the context in which we are living our lives today has dramatically changed. To try and change the content of our lives, so to speak, we have to recognize the new context that everything is in, a new context for sex even; a new context for relationships; a new context for marriage. Everything has dramatically, like an earthquake, shaken the whole planet. We haven't recognized it regarding the relationships between men and women.

It used to be that for thousands of years, thousands of years, the history of men and women on this planet had a kind of relationship that no longer exists today. That was a relationship that was based upon men being providers and women being homemakers and baby makers and nurturers. Women were in charge of the relationship, and men were in charge of making money or going and protecting the home, going into the dangerous areas of life either hunting or protecting or guarding.

Suddenly, that sort of relationship of men's domain being outside the home and women's domain being in the home has been shattered, and we're trying to pick up the pieces. While this is a very powerful, progressive, positive step in terms of women in the work place, duel incomes, women providing for themselves, this is terrific.

At the same time it has created shock waves through our relationships because women who have kind of initiated this change also instinctively feel the new needs that they have. Suddenly, when a woman is no longer in the environment, a nurturing environment all day but in a stress producing, emergency, urgency type of environment of the work place, when she comes home to cope with that stress she has completely new needs -- needs that men have never satisfied before, that men don't even have a clue as to what to do.

Women instinctively, intuitively know it's possible. They want more but the way they communicate more is in ways that often turn men off or they're not effective or the job just doesn't get done. That's why I evolved the "Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus" message to now center it around stress and how men and women are under more stress than ever before today. Let's identify that stress and that's the context in which we are living our lives, which is this new stress and how it affects men and how it affects women differently.

I wrote this book, started about four or five years ago when these researchers at UCLA discovered that the ultimate sex hormone which is oxytocin and that oxytocin is responsible, which they were learning, for certainly women's orgasm. But then they found oxytocin is the hormone that lowers stress for women. Once again, we see the direct correlation between lovemaking, orgasm, women's fulfillment and lowering stress levels.

This prompted a huge amount of research around the world, and everybody is trying to make sense of it. Unfortunately, when people are working in laboratories they don't really realize how all of this stuff affects the real life, you know, living in your relationships. I have been able to take their research and apply it in practical ways to what we are doing in our relationships.

Dr. Patti Taylor: First of all, I am electrified because I know that I, just for myself, feel a huge amount of conflict when I am with my partner. And I am under stress, and he is under stress. There is just this general confusion between the old roles and the new roles.

John Gray: Yeah, there is so much confusion. If we want to solve this new problem, we need to be able to, in a sense, dissect it into pieces and identify each piece very clearly. Then, we can see how the pieces will fit together in a new way. The good news is that we do fit together in a new way that's much grander and more delightful than anything ever in history.

The promise of what we are looking for here is a sensual, orgasmic expanded lovemaking as you write about becoming a predominant part of our lives because what you find is that the hormone that lowers stress for women is oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone that allows women to be orgasmic. The hormone that lowers stress for men is testosterone, and, of course, we've always known that sex is one of the easiest testosterone stimulators for men, also for women. But, the difference is that testosterone doesn't lower stress for women. It's the hormone, oxytocin, that lowers stress for women.

What we want is to recognize, so this is the in-play, so to speak, and that is that sex, great sex, loving sex, continuous sex throughout your lifetime is one of the healthiest things we can do, one of the most satisfying things we can do. And hormonally we see that it produces a sustained testosterone level for men which helps men to cope with stress, and it creates sustained oxytocin levels for women to help women lower stress.

It sounds like all we have to do to solve our problems of increasing stress today of the double income family is to just have more sex, but here's where the problem comes in which is that when a man are under stress the possibility of sex can actually raise his testosterone and lower his stress levels. But, when women are under stress their oxytocin levels have dropped and, therefore, they are often not responsive to sex. They don't feel the same urgency to have sex that a man would feel at that time. Women have to have--in a sense, a threshold has to be reached. She needs a certain amount of oxytocin.

Let's imagine there is a scale of one to a hundred, kind of like a fund raiser when you're raising money. You know, you see a thermometer and it gets up to 40 and then it gets up to 50. It gets up to 80, and then it gets up to 100. And they say, "Hooray, we've achieved our goal. Thank you very much". That would be the climax. Well, women start feeling sexually responsive generally when that thermometer of oxytocin reaches about 60 or 80. Now, she's really, really in the mood.

That's why there is something called foreplay. That's why there is something called romance That's why there is something called communication. These are all types of things that raise oxytocin levels. The quality of intimacy in your relationship will raise oxytocin levels for women. Men don't recognize the importance of those things because oxytocin is not a key player for men in terms of how men get energy or how men cope well with stress.

The bigger obstacle here that we have to be aware of so we can overcome is that oxytocin itself, while it has this dramatic calming effect for women, a sense of fulfillment, it's the love hormone. It's the bonding hormone. It's the sharing hormone. It's the friendship hormone. It's the cuddling hormone; all of those nice, touchy feely things that are associated with oxytocin.

What we see is when the oxytocin levels go high in a man, it actually makes him sleepy. That's why after climax, you know, a woman has had her climax; if he's not finished he can keep going, happily going on and on and on. If they finish together with two climaxes, she's ready to talk about their future. She's ready to share her hopes and dreams and listen to him, or she's ready to just cuddle for quite a while.

The man, on the other hand, is ready to go to sleep. That's generally what happens to men when oxytocin levels shoot up really high. It actually makes men a little sleepy, and it causes their testosterone levels to drop. Here you have a whole scenario that helps us to understand oxytocin. While it is beneficial for women, it can often soften men too much, and they get sleepy.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Thank you very much. We are going to take a quick break, and I definitely want to come back to that. I think this is really pointing out why it is so important if we're really going to understand expanding our lovemaking that we do take hormone and brain chemistry into account in addition to gender differences and stress. I mean, it is all so important.

We are going to pause for a break, and you absolutely must come back and hear more of this because this is very important information. Do stay with us. We are talking to Dr. John Gray. You can learn more about Dr. Gray at his website, MarsVenus.com. We will be right back, so thank you.

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Dr. Patti Taylor: We're back. This is Dr. Patti Taylor and I am here with Dr. John Gray. So, we're talking about why Mars and Venus collide, and so that is a good question. Why do Mars and Venus collide? Is this politically correct? There's a pretty big movement out there that's sort of gone the other direction in saying that men and women should all be carrying the same load and doing everything equally.

John Gray: Well, that would be great if we were all the same, but we're not - that's the reality. I'm just basically saying that they're no clones [?]. We can think, gee, the world would be a harmonious place if we could all act just get along and think the same and respond the same way, everything would be fine. It wouldn't be fine because that's not the way the world works. That's not the way the world is, and what we have to do is kind of grow up and recognize that we are different and our responsibilities as being mature individuals is to respect differences, to honor differences so that we can come together. In a sense, so that we can collide but the collision can be harmonious.

That's really what is happening today. There is this intersection of men and women. We are closer than ever before. Unfortunately, it is creating more problems between men and women than ever before, but let me address--one of my favorite ways of addressing this is a story from my own personal life because for years there are genuine, sincere women in my audiences. They say, "Well, why can't we all just be the same?" It is a wonderful thought.

I give a really clear example, and then I'm going to come into the hormonal backup of this, but the bottom line--I think everybody can relate to this. My wife and I were going on a getaway, a romantic getaway. This is many years ago. It was a long drive just some place in the forest, in the woods, and it was in Oregon. We didn't live there. It was a big trip for us, and one of my friends had told me before that there were these stalking bears, bears that would actually stalk you. There was something in the papers at that time. So, there was that in the background.

We arrived. It was late at night. It was dark. We didn't know where we were. We didn't know if anybody was around. It was really quite isolated, and we were kind of thinking about these stalking bears. So, we certainly didn't linger outside. We unpacked the car and got inside. We were inside and after a while we started hearing noises out in the woods, around the house. Both of us were like, "Whoa, what is this?" We were both scared, and I said to my wife, "Honey, why don't you sit by the phone and I'll just go out and I'll check things out. I'll yell to you if there is anything wrong and I'll run back. You know where the phone is. You can call 911 or whatever. So, we set it up like that and I went outside to check.

Now, imagine what would have happened in our relationship if I had said to her, "Honey, I'm so scared. Would you go outside and check to see if there is a bear? I'll sit by the phone". If she had gone out and checked--and she would have. I could convince her to do that, "Oh, honey, would you check" She would think it was a little odd, but she would go out and check. Then, she comes back in and I say--she realizes it's just a raccoon and she comes back in and say, "Oh, it's just a raccoon". I say, "Oh, OK, thanks. Thanks for checking, but I'm still a little scared about those bears. Would you just hold me?"

Dr. Patti Taylor: Right, exactly. She's going to want to cuddle, right?

John Gray: Right. The reality is everybody can put themselves in that situation. You know darn well we're not going to have sex that night. She is going to feel mothering towards me, and I am going to feel close to her.

But, turn it around and have me go outside which is what happened. I went outside and I saw a little raccoon. I just kicked another can again as the raccoon ran off to create a little more excitement. Then, I yelled to my wife, "It's OK. It's just a raccoon", and then I came on back in. She was like, "Oh, thanks so much for going outside". Now, she said to me, "Will you just hold me? That was so scary". As I am holding her, what do you think happened next? We had the best sex. We had the best sex ever. Again, it was the circumstance. It was the circumstance of danger; man going out into danger which is actually a testosterone stimulator.

So, now I'm all pumped up and ready to have sex. For her, she feels protected. Any time a woman feels cared for or protected in that way, it stimulates high levels of oxytocin. As we just explored, oxytocin, besides the hormone that helps women cope with stress, it's also the hormone that allows women to be orgasmic. Here we had the best sex of our life at that time, and it was all because I did the male thing and she did the female thing.

I just use this as an example to say that men and women should go back in time. Men should be in the jungle, and women should be only in the garden and the family. The point is, is that in those worlds that's where our hormones flourish. If women are going to spend time in the jungle today which is a step of greater wholeness for women, they need to come home and find new ways to increase their oxytocin levels.

That's what my newest book is about. That's why I think it's the greatest book I have ever written because there really are the answers to many of the issues that I started talking about 15 or18 years ago when I wrote "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus". This is the real sequel. I am able to talk about things that I really couldn't even say then, and some of the things I didn't even know then because we didn't have the bio-chemical basis of it.

It's not like I am saying that women shouldn't be in the workplace, but when women go to the workplace what's happening today is that women are becoming more like men. It is very hard for them to come back to sort of finding their femininity, finding their female side when they get home. In trying to do that, often the man becomes one of the bigger problems in her life rather than the guy who can actually help her to do that. That's what I help men to do as well.

Dr. Patti Taylor: So, let's get to some specifics here. What can a woman do who would like to get more into her orgasmic, oxytonific or whatever...

John Gray: Oxytocin, right?

Dr. Patti Taylor: ...state of mind?

John Gray: Well, here's the thing. In my new book I have a list of 101 ways for women to create oxytocin without a man and then 100 ways to do it with a man because you don't want to ever be dependent on a man. Ultimately, if you want to be more independent which is what women are today, then they are more on their masculine side. They need to use that masculine side to also find out ways on their own to create oxytocin.

That means to do something that women really have never given themselves permission to do as a society of women, so to speak. That is, do things that you want to do. Do things that you like to do, to prioritize you in terms of if you are going to be giving to people all the time, you also have to equally give to yourself. This really historically was not allowed in the female culture, to give to yourself. You are not allowed to be special. You are not allowed to do something just because it feels good to you. You are allowed to do things that are good for others.

As long as everybody plays by that rule, then everybody gets what they need, but nobody gets to be special. It turns out that when you do something special for yourself, then your oxytocin levels go up. I remember back about 15 years ago or 10 years ago one or more ads were coming out saying to women, "You know, you deserve it. You're special. It's for you". Some women might look at that and go, "Gee, that's so egocentric", but what they were doing really is a positive thing which is giving women the message, that if you want to cope with stress you've got to do things that you like to do.

One of the chapters in my book is called, "A woman's never-ending to do list". Women's brains are designed to always have more to do, and this is the difference between women and men which is men are designed to have more to do during the daylight hours, and then their brain goes to sleep at night. When the sun sets, we have very little to do.

Literally, you could measure. There is less blood flow in the front part of the brain for a man than for a woman. Her brain is really set up to be nurturing children all the time. Whether she has children or not, her brain stays very active. In order for her to relax the brain particularly, she needs lots of oxytocin. When women come home from work unfortunately, there is so much to do that they put themselves at the end of that list.

For women, there is a never-ending to do list, and they always put themselves at the end of the list. So, they never really do what they want to do, what they like to do. They often resent when a man does what he likes to do, what he needs to do, what he wants to do. That resentment creates another thorn in their relationship rather than even admiring that quality in men and say, "Hey, if he can do what he wants to do, then I can do what I want to do". Give yourself permission to do that, and then most men will encourage a woman to do what she likes to do, to do what she wants to do.

Occasionally, there are a few who have been brainwashed by their mothers, and they will use that to control their wives. That's more the dysfunctional male, but your typical male--his happiness really, he's happier, she's happy. Women have to learn they have to be the ones to take responsibility to start doing things that they would like to do, not putting yourself at the end of that list. Any time you do something you enjoy doing, that you like to do, that you love to do in a non-rushed manner oxytocin will get produced. Now, that's 'A'.

'B' is how do you create oxytocin in a relationship with a man? Well, you can even hear this. I heard this over the last 15 years with women in counseling. More and more women would complain, "He doesn't listen". Well, it turns out it's getting a man to listen. If a man listens, it produces lots of oxytocin.

The other complaint is that he's not romantic any more. Well, if you go around the world women have never complained that men aren't romantic any more. All they complain is he doesn't go to work or he doesn't earn money. Romance has never been a big deal in relationships, but today it is. And that's because romance, like communication, is a super oxytocin producer.

So, creating romance in the marriage, creating conversation in the marriage is the key way to stimulate oxytocin. Now, women think they have been trying to do this, and I know many women listening are going, "Yeah but try doing that. He's just not romantic. He stopped being romantic. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't listen or he talks too much. I can't talk to him. He's always trying to fix everything I say". Women feeling the need for greater oxytocin, feeling the need knowing instinctively, intuitively that romance and conversation would do it, women seek that but have no way in most cases of getting it.

What I hear as a marriage counselor, they are always complaining that the man is not romantic. The man doesn't communicate, and they have no idea of how they are not creating romance and how they are ruining communication. How can one be accountable when they don't even have a clue as to what it would look like for a woman to create the romance, since that's what she needs and for the woman to create the communication in a way that it would work for the man.

That means you have to speak his language. That means having to actually do more, and women already feel I am doing so much, you're telling me to do more. Well, I'm telling you how to get what you want.

Dr. Patti Taylor: I'm glad you have a list here. So, it's an amazing book and there's a hundred things here. Some of them might look obvious. I know I am reading it as a woman, and I'm going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh read this. Read this, honey. Not too simple for me. Yep. I'd go for that one. I'd go for this one". Take her sailing. Put your socks in the hamper. Take her to a museum. Play tennis together. I don't even play tennis, but sure make me the offer. Give her a meditation tape. Don't underestimate the power of the offer to raise that option so it's new. It will turn me on if you do this, partner. Do it.

John Gray: Let me put that in the context of summarizing all of those things you just mentioned in a concept which is simply men don't realize doing little things that say I care, that I am interested, that you are part of my life. Doing little things makes a big difference in women, and men don't realize that.

Men think if I do big things, then you'll feel loved. The truth is if you do big things, she does feel loved but if you do little things, she feels loved. You can only do so many big things, but you can do lots of little things. So, if you do little things, you can give her a lot more love, or a lot more oxytocin gets stimulated.

Dr. Patti Taylor: And that's profound. We have to take a break, so we are going to talk about what the men can do and what the women can do for the men right afterwards. So, please stay with us. We are going to take a short break to support our sponsors.

This is Dr. Patti Taylor, and I am here with Dr. John Gray having a great time. You can check out Dr. Gray's website, MarsVenus.com. It is a really cool website. He has an hour long wellness program every week and a relationship program that is an hour long every week. He is into health and nutritional stuff, so it's really fun to just go there. I just love that you have just stayed on the cutting edge of things, so it's very exciting to go to MarsVenus.com.

Please stay with us. We will be right back after these ads that support our show.

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Dr. Patti Taylor: We're back and we're talking about why Mars and Venus collide. I think I am getting the picture. So, we have been talking about all of the little things that women can do for themselves and that men can do for women. How about the other way around, what women can do for men?

One more question before we go on to that. No, I'll go to that at the end. What can women do for men?

John Gray: OK, this is the question that women always ask. The issue is, as a marriage counselor, what I hear from men and their complaints when they want to end a relationship or when a man is not satisfied in a relationship. The answer that a man gives is so different from what a woman says.

A man says, "No matter what I do, it's never enough to make her happy". So, what this implies is a very important concept. It implies that if a woman is happy and responds to what a man does, that's her greatest gift she can give him. Certainly, women do so many things for men and men like it, but it's not what makes a man feel bonded to her.

If a man does a lot of things for a woman, she feels so loved and supported. When women are unhappy with men, basically they are saying he doesn't do anything for me. I do all this stuff for him. He doesn't do anything for me, so women are giving what they want. What a man wants most is for a woman to have a positive response to what he does. Now, I'll just emphasize it again. I'm not telling, I'm actually suggesting that women do less for men and focus more on being happier so that you can have a more positive response to what he does or to what he forgets to do.

You know, if you are just giving and giving and giving all the time for a man and he forgets to bring home the milk or he forgets to plan a date or he forgets to do something he promised to do and you did 10 things for him, you are going to be really upset with him. But, if you find that you are spending more time for yourself and giving less of your time for him, then if he forgets to do something it's not such a big issue. You are more generous with your loving response. You can say something like, "Well, that's OK. Forget it. Don't worry about it. Next week, will you do this for me?"

So, that's a first step. It's learning to be generous in your loving responses to a man. That's the greatest way you gift him and the bedroom the same thing. What turns a man on most in bed and you can certainly learn lots of techniques and so forth and men like them, but when you do a sex seminar and you ask men what are your greatest sexual experiences, they talk about what she felt and what she experienced because he takes credit for it.

It's always a woman's response to what a man does that allows him to bond with her, that allows him to feel most loved. And since we are talking sex, probably the most important thing in terms of a woman's response to a man is how she responds to his sexual advances. When he's in the mood, when he initiates sex, how she responds is critical to how much love he will feel in that relationship.

Women just don't understand how significant that really is for him to say, "Oh, let's have sex" and for her to say, "Well, we just don't have time. I still have to make fruit salad, and our friends are coming over. We had a chance, but you slept late". Any kind of a comment like that, he's not going to be as interested in having sex with her next time.

All it takes is two or three comments like that, and the whole sexual relationship changes to where he never feels comfortable or free to initiate sex any more. He'll look to see is she in the mood, or is she not in the mood. That's a real passion killer because there are so many times when she could be in the mood if he would just be a little affectionate, a little interested. But, he'll just back off because he says, "She's clearly not in the mood. It's not going to happen".

How a woman responds to a man, a positive, favorable response; it doesn't mean she has to say yes to him sexually every time. It just means, have a positive response. Instead of saying I still have to make a fruit salad, she could say, "Oh, sex. That would be so much fun. I still have to make that fruit salad, but let's do it tomorrow or let's plan to do it tonight. I'd rather do it tonight, OK?" Something positive is always going to be what a man is looking for when it comes to sex.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Boy, you're making a lot of friends out there, John, with your words. So, women, be an inspiration. That's what I am hearing you say. Inspire the guy. They'll do pretty much anything with that inspiration in their lives.

John Gray: That's really quite wonderfully said. A more mundane way of saying that is motivate him. Women always say, "If he loves me, why do I have to motivate him?" It is just amazing. Here I am, this guy at home. I love my life. I love my wife. I could be sort of tired, and my body just wants to sit on the couch, and my wife says to me, "Honey, would you help me with this? It'll only take a few minutes". Suddenly, I have the energy to get up from the couch and go do something.

That's called the art of motivation, and you brought it to a higher level which is inspiration. But men typically--what women don't understand--is just as women feel overwhelmed and it's kind of they have no control over it, they are just feeling overwhelmed. I know women it is hard when you are feeling overwhelmed to think about yourself and come back to doing things that make you happy.

Well, likewise when men are experiencing stress, they don't feel overwhelmed. They feel under-whelmed. They actually feel exhausted and tired and want to sit down. As much as a woman wants to do everything and get it done now, a man wants to do nothing and sit for a while and just let himself go into sort of this relaxation state which is so ancient they even created religions around this.

If you look at the concept of meditation, it is all around justification of sitting down and doing nothing and not thinking about anything. If you look at the history of meditation and so forth, it was primarily men that did it and this is because men, the way they react to stress, is that for a man--remember--it's testosterone that lowers stress for men. When you've been working all day long, if you sit on a couch and rest, your body actually rebuilds testosterone.

Women don't run out of testosterone, don't need testosterone to lower stress, so women don't feel this urgency to sit down on the couch. It looks very appealing, but her mind says, "No, my urgency is these things have to get done". Well, just as that's her urgency, his urgency is to sit on the couch. But, what can give him energy is when she gives him room to support him, "Oh, you're tired. Go sit on the couch or watch TV or read a magazine, whatever you need to do. Take the time you need for yourself".

Balance with that attitude to also engage him in the relationship by asking him to do little things. It's the little things that make a difference, but you also have to ask to do the little things. We can expand this because for women to overcome their stresses today with more oxytocin we need the super oxytocin producer, which is romance.

Romance is the precursor to great sex. What women don't realize, nobody has taught them, women don't have this understanding is that if you want romance you have to ask for it. Every woman in her genes says, "No, if I have to ask then it's not romantic. That's an oxymoron. You can't ask for something and have it be romantic". I said, "That's absolutely right".

On Sunday when you say there's a play next weekend I'd like to go, will you get tickets, please? There is nothing romantic about that, but once he said, "Yes, I'll get on it" and once he gets the tickets and you can anticipate that he is going to take you out on this date, the anticipation of going out on a date allows you to reorganize your week.

So, here's this special time which is a time which is for you where this man is making you more special than anybody else, where you get to be special, super oxytocin gets produced. Just anticipating that, arriving at the next weekend and that's called romance. What I am teaching women is how they can create that.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Well, that sounds totally romantic, and my philosophy is by my asking my partner to do all sorts of little things, he'll live longer that way.

John Gray: He will. That's right.

Dr. Patti Taylor: I'm doing him a favor, you know.

John Gray: He'll lie longer. He'll have more energy. He'll feel more bonded to you. This is the irony. I can love my family, but I feel bonded to them when I do things for them. Then, I sort of retreat back into my cave awhile and have my own separate life. But, it's when my wife asks me to do the little things and I do them and then she delights in that or has some positive response--remember, the positive response is the greatest gift a woman can give a man. Then, he bonds with her and then when he anticipates spending time with her, just spending time with her, his testosterone levels start to rise up because testosterone increases whenever a man senses or anticipates success.

Dr. Patti Taylor: I want to get more into that in the second show which means I have to close the first show. I am going to just ask if you would leave us with a parting, inspirational thought here so we can close out this show.

John Gray: Sure.

Dr. Patti Taylor: We'll have you back to find out how to bring this all into the bedroom in Part 2.

John Gray: That sounds great. That will be really fun. Well, what is really key is to recognize the challenges that couples are facing together. There are new challenges and if you are finding frustrations and disappointments and worries and you don't know how to make sense of it and there is confusion, first of all recognize you are not alone. Second of all, there is hope that you can have more than your parents could have ever dreamed of, the possibility of endless romance and great sex and a long, healthy life because of it. It is right within our reach. We just have to do a little research, a little understanding. Try some new techniques, and it's achievable.

Dr. Patti Taylor: Thank you so much, John. I have loved this show. I am so inspired even though I agree with you. I love hearing it. I just love hearing it over and over and over again. I love reading your book, and I just loved having you on the show today. I am totally motivated and pumped up. I am just thrilled to talk to you in person and share you with my listeners again. Thank you for joining us today.

John Gray: You're very, very welcome.

Dr. Patti Taylor: This brings us to the end of our show. You can find out more about Dr. John Gray at MarsVenus.com. It is a great website. We have been talking about his new book, "Why Mars and Venus Collide" which is a handbook which is full of every list in the world about how to get the hormones going in the right direction and the brain chemistry. We have a Part 2 so we are in luck, but for now we are going to close out this show.

One thing I am going to ask, we do have a listener's survey that we are doing now. If you would like to take five minutes and fill it out, it helps me understand who my listeners are and creates sponsor confidence. I would love for my listeners to fill out this survey for me. My listeners have been really good about it. I got a lot of pats on the back, so thank you all if you have. If you would, I'd love it. It's just Survey.PersonalMedia.com, and it's fast and easy. So, thank you.

Anyway, please send me email at [email protected].  For text and transcripts of the show and other shows on the Personal Life Media network, please visit our website at PersonalLifeMedia.com, and you can visit me, Dr. Patti Taylor, at ExpandedLovemaking.com where you can join my mailing list and find out more about my products, services and events.

This is Dr. Patti Taylor and that's all for now. I remain yours in ever expanding lovemaking, and I'll see you next week.

Announcer 1: Find more great shows like this on PersonalLifeMedia.com.

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