The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You

Research indicates that those who stick to traditional male-female roles on the average have the least happy marriages and are less responsive to marital therapy.

what’s called “feminine” is simply “normal human.”

average gender differences have declined with each generation. We all need to express our feelings

All HSPs, men or women, are more aware of what other people are feeling, what they want and need. Thanks to your spontaneous deep processing, you also can sense what will happen if others don’t receive what they need—they may suffer, fail at what they want to do, become angry with you, feel disappointed with you. And being more sensitive, when they

emotionally. The fact is, although both genders do it, it is mainly when women demand and men withdraw that relationships are highly troubled, polarized, and likely to end.

When mothers overprotect sensitive girls, these girls grow up feeling they will always need this kind of overprotection—later a man’s protection—and gladly give up their authority for it. Sensitive sons, loved less by their mothers, grow up expecting to be loved less by everyone unless they can somehow hide their sensitivity.

we can have special difficulties with the other gender—mistrust, fear of rejection, misunderstandings. These have to be faced before going any farther in this book.

For example, research shows with perfect consistency that people in relationships are happier when women and men behave in what in the past has been seen as a traditionally “feminine” way—that is, warm, nurturing, emotionally expressive, and eager to discuss the relationship.

The point is that the differences are not nearly as great as each sex imagines, but let’s face it: the “strangeness” will be more intense for HSPs, with our tendency to process everything deeply, imagine vividly, and sense others’ feelings—in this case including the anger and suffering of the other gender. With all these reasons for tension, distru