The word “opposite” has such a huge implication in meaning. And it can’t add any more than to the differences between a man and a woman.
For the past 5 years of our marriage, we have fought countless number of times. Mainly, that to Soojin, telling me of something again and again isn’t the same. Confused? It has only begun. To her, even slight change of the content of the conversation implies it is a new conversation. Example 1. If yesterday, she told me “We ate rice today” and then today, she says “we ate barley yesterday” (to be more specific), those two statemens are entirely different whereas to me, rice and barley are cereal that we eat on daily basis and thus the same. Example 2 (for the men!). If she said “AAAAAAAA” yesterday and she says “AAAAAABA” today, these two statements are
entirely different. So in her case, even the slightest of change in content implicates difference in conversation where as to me, it’s “close enough” that I take it as repeating, and thus, [the hated word of the ladies] nagging.
This is important esp. as we go through Purpose Driven Life together. As we accept more and more of how God has created each of us differently, it’s even more important to realize that we can’t change the way the other person thinks. What we have come to agree now is that instead of trying to get the other person to see the differences or understand, it’s more imperative that we try very hard to remind ourselves that the other person takes to understand (or as I like to say, translate) “A” as “Z” because of our fundamental differences in the thinking mentality.
To her, she likes to be reminded, even if I’ve told her before, whereas I take it as being ignored because she doesn’t think that I listened to her. Now, we both realize that putting our own selves in each other’s shoes is that much more important.