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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
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Go on.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here, male-female hour, second hour every Wednesday.
Most honest talk I am aware of in the American media about men and women.
It's a very popular hour, as it should be.
Four times a year, every season.
I give you a gift.
This is the winter gift, Allison Armstrong.
Allison Armstrong has been on the male-female hour since we began in 1874.
We're both well preserved.
We are well preserved.
That is exactly right.
The problems of men and women were different in those days, but not entirely.
The male-female issue has been eternal.
Allison Armstrong is having a white Christmas.
She is ensconced in her home.
I have a certain envy of you to sit in your house and watch snow fall.
Is it falling right now as we're speaking?
It is huge flakes, and I'm surrounded by mounds of snow.
It's been snowing since Monday.
And I was supposed to take my dog over to Dan's house while we were doing the show, and I couldn't get there.
So it's hard for everybody.
I mean, I grew up with snow, but New York is incomparable to, you know, western Colorado where you are.
Anyway, you will truly be having a white Christmas.
And Alison Armstrong is one of the...
I'm sorry.
What?
Except I'm going to Arizona.
Oh, really?
Oh, how ironic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, well, all right.
Well, you'll have a white post-Christmas.
You'll have a white New Year's.
Anyway, Allison Armstrong is one of the deepest thinkers in this country on the issue of men and women.
She has had seminars for decades for women and men, but especially for women.
And they have been filled with insights and helped people immensely.
I know this from so many people calling into the show.
You can reach her at allisonarmstrong.com.
Is that correct, Allison?
Yep.
And let me just tell you, Allison is one L, one S, one I, one N except we know most people spell with two L's, so they can even misspell it and get to me.
Oh, really?
Oh, yeah, that was very, very wise.
So I didn't have to tell them there was one L.
So Allison Armstrong is my one guest.
I'm sorry.
Well, I don't stop you from telling them because it's just so sweet that you're so committed to them being able to get through.
I am.
Yes, I'm very committed to that.
I'm committed for your sake, but even more for their sake.
It'll help them.
I don't get a commission, by the way, folks.
Just for the record.
So, Allison, I have stuff on my mind, but you always have stuff on your mind.
So, it's not really a gamble because it's Allison Armstrong, but it's the only guest I ever have where I just tell the guest what's on your mind, but I have stuff.
Would you like to tell us what's on your mind for today?
Do you have something?
I do have something, but I also left myself open in case there's something you want to talk about.
My thing would be a predictable conflict that's going to get, it happens all the time, but it can be worse during the holidays.
And it's between what we do to feel secure by being productive and what we do to feel safe by being connected.
And those go head to head and cause huge problems.
Wow.
So I don't know what you mean.
Therefore.
Go ahead.
Let me understand.
Let me at least summarize.
There are two conflicting urges to be connected and to be secure.
To feel safe and to feel secure.
Okay.
They sound the same.
Yeah.
Yes.
You didn't say connected earlier?
I did, but we go about feeling secure by being productive.
We've gotten things done.
We're producing results.
We're making things happen.
But we feel safe by being connected, which requires interest and attention.
And when someone's being productive, it's very hard for them to have interest and attention.
Oh, so okay, so since you're attaching it to this season, would an example be, let's say, to use a generalization, let's say there's a husband and wife.
The wife is preoccupied with preparing for Christmas and all the guests.
Yes.
And he therefore suffers a lack of attention from her.
Yes, that will happen.
Or he'll try to get attention from her and she can't pay it.
Like she's got to have these things done before she can even be present to another human being.
Or the opposite may happen.
Someone's got deadlines and due dates and results to produce for, say, the end of the year in a business, and their partner is very romantic about the holidays.
And, you know, we're supposed to have these moments of gazing into each other's eyes.
And we're supposed to be so close, but we're not.
And that angst about that it's personal, right?
That the person who isn't getting attention, that it's personal, right?
Instead of, okay, we all have this.
We all have a degree to which we need to be productive and a degree to, and then we can be connected, if you will.
And one of the things that helps to pay attention is to do it out loud instead of struggle.
Okay, what do you need to accomplish today before we can just be with each other?
And do you need any help?
Which is something else that happens.
The person who really has to be productive will get upset that the other person isn't helping them.
They just keep trying to take their attention, but they're not helping them get done what they need to get done.
So, this is well beyond just the Christmas problem.
It happens all year round.
It just gets worse around holidays because we have this romantic idea about how things are supposed to be perfect and we're supposed to be so in love and we're supposed to be so connected and mushy and yummy-yummy, and all these things are getting in the way of it.
Well, so, in the case of the person whose professional work, as opposed to the work of the home, is preoccupied and not giving enough attention to his or her spouse or significant other, if you will.
That's somewhat insoluble in terms of it's not insoluble, but in terms of she, let's say he, let's say, let's take the standard, and it's it's no longer even the standard.
But let's say he, just for the sake of this analogy, he, uh, okay, so he is he has some work, there's year-end intensity or even middle-year intensity.
Fine, the odds are because of the nature of the work, she can't really help him.
He might be able to help her prepare for Christmas, but I don't see, right?
So, it doesn't equally go in both directions.
Well, support looks a lot of different ways.
Sometimes supporters leave someone alone to do what they need to do and don't be grumpy about it.
Just like understand and be supportive.
And can I pack you a lunch?
Right?
Or, you know, Dan, my boyfriend, right, he does all the snowplowing around here.
And so he might have to snowplow three or four times a day.
And I get out on my tractor and I snowplow too.
I did that last weekend.
But sometimes instead, I just feed him.
That helps.
All right, we'll be back in a moment.
1-8 Prager 7-7-6.
Allison Armstrong and the Male Female Hour.
So it is Christmas Day.
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, just in hot days.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
There's a feeling of the snow.
And just want to remind you about Angel Tree Campaign.
Kids, a lot of kids in this country have a parent in prison.
So there's a beautiful campaign to get them a gift, hopefully from the parent, as it were, a note from the parent, give them some religious commitment.
It's a very beautiful campaign.
So if you do as I do, especially at the end of the year, you want to give some more charity.
This is the one at Salem for Christmas.
The Angel Tree Campaign.
There's a banner at my website, dennisprager.com.
$25 services, eight kid.
Obviously, 10 kids is $250.
It's tax deductible.
And you will feel good that you've done good.
Angel Tree Campaign.
The banner is at dennisprager.com.
So I'll give you a moment to click there.
Presents are a testimony of God's love for the incarcerated parent.
That's their motto.
It's very nice.
I am here with you on the male-female hour with the inimitable Allison Armstrong.
And so, what's on your mind, it seems to me, is the great conflict of how do I do my work and attend to my spouse or significant other.
Is that fair?
It's fair, and it's easier to pay it enough attention.
Like, this is really important.
This is the source of so many breakdowns and breakups because it's not really just do my job, right?
It's doing our job, being productive, respected, trusted, that makes us feel secure.
And until we're secure, we can't really be present.
However, we access feeling secure and feeling safe.
That's what allows us to be present to each other.
And it's something we all need support in because it's a very difficult thing for human beings to be.
And so, it's like, you know, you don't pay me attention.
Well, I go to work.
We don't understand why these arguments persist because we don't know it's really about safety.
And until people experience safety, they also can't experience something you and I are really committed to: happiness.
Until we feel safe and secure, we won't experience happiness.
So, the more we can support each other during this time, the better.
And I laughed, Dennis, when you said that the man can help the woman with like preparing the home for the holidays.
I laughed because one of the problems of being female with a home to prepare for the holidays is another person can only help to the degree that they're certified in doing it my way.
Oh, man.
Remember, we talked about the holidays.
So, I learned early on in my marriage that my doing the dishes was regarded as a joke.
And I have bounced this off other couples, and I am not a unique issue in this regard.
Men have told me that they washed the dishes, and that when they left the kitchen, the wife would rewash the dishes.
We're not certified as dishwashers.
So, I haven't washed the dish in at least a decade.
Since it's insulting to have your dish rewashed, yes, yes, it can be.
I mean, it's a whole topic, right?
Do things my way.
Yeah, then I can release it to you if I know you'll do it my way.
It's not enough to merely produce the results.
You have to have gotten there the same way I learned.
Oh, God.
This is why you're Allison Armstrong and I'm not.
That is such a perfect way of putting it.
We men are results-oriented.
Like, I've solved the problem of the dirty dish.
Ah, but you didn't do it my way.
All right.
What I don't quite understand, but I assume that you will explain it because you're gifted.
What is the connection between that and feeling safe and secure?
Well, so I chose these words on purpose because the only time I've heard men talk about feeling safe is in the domain of to tell the truth, that it's safe to tell the truth.
That, like, a lot of men don't feel safe to tell their wives or girlfriends the truth because of how she reacts.
And then that's when I hear men talk about feeling safe.
The rest of the time, I hear the word secure, which is interesting because secure is a lot more factual and it'll be based on things that are measurable and that the result was produced,
that I got the promotion, that I'm well thought of by my boss, as evidenced by the accountability they gave me or what they said about me to somebody else.
All that stuff can be more tracked.
Whereas feeling, literally, a feeling safe, is one of the biggest mysteries about interacting with women because you can't make us feel safe.
And then the fact that we flip back and forth from needing to be productive and needing to be connected, you've heard me express it before as we're both hunters and gatherers.
And hunting, we need to be productive.
Gathering, we need to have this diffuse awareness and pay attention to everybody and feel like we know what's going on with them and that they see us.
So it's really, really tricky, and especially with different roles, like I was always the one who had year-end deadlines.
And so the Christmas tree never went up until I think my worst might have been December 23rd or something, but usually like December 19th or something like that.
And Greg wanted the Christmas tree up at Thanksgiving.
But I was in the thick of things then.
And the funny thing was our last Christmas together, I didn't even want to put up the Christmas tree because the kids weren't coming.
We were going to them.
And he really wanted it up.
And I said, okay, then I need you to do it.
Oh, my gosh, it was so funny.
Was it funny or is it funny now?
I don't know if it was funny then.
We'll come back in a moment.
I want to explore the other part about men's feeling, I want to explore it all, but men not feeling safe to say what's on their mind to their wife.
That's a big.
Yes, I can unpack that one.
Where the treetops.
Hi, everybody.
Male, female Hour Wednesday, second hour.
Allison Armstrong at AllisonArmstrong.com devoted her life to understanding men.
Her story, by the way, is truly magnificent.
She simply wanted to understand men.
Right?
When you were a young woman, that's what, when you were a younger woman.
I was 30 years old, and my friend was called a frog farmer.
Right.
As in a woman who turns princes into frogs.
And I got it.
I was bringing out the worst in men, and I wanted to know how I was doing that.
So I could tell.
You know, that's Even beyond the male-female issue and male-female hour, it is worthy of its own attention.
The vast majority of people, maybe in history, maybe especially in our time, do not ever ask, am I responsible for a crisis that I'm in?
It is you did when I when I divorced, I remember thinking, I didn't even ask who was right.
It didn't enter my brain.
I just knew I was part of the issue.
And I simply went to a therapist, a brilliant guy, and I said, I want to know what I did wrong.
And if I had left therapy sessions, I don't want to get sidetracked for a long time, but I just want to say this to you because it's so in keeping with what you said about yourself.
The last thing I wanted to do, this is many years ago, but the last thing I wanted to do was feel good.
I assumed that if I felt good every time I left a therapist, nothing was happening.
I didn't go for reinforcement that I am a healthy, wonderful human being.
I went.
I wanted to find out, you know, what went wrong with the carburetor.
It's just so anyway, I so salute you, and it obviously has you have so affected so many people as a result.
So I want to go back to this.
So we're talking about issues that can create tension between couples and in the holiday season and for that matter, the rest of the year.
And tell me if my summary is accurate.
And one of the arenas is where one partner may not feel all that attended to and therefore not that secure because the other is preoccupied with the hunting and/or gathering.
In other words, doing work.
So that's one issue you're raising, correct?
Yes, I would say it a little differently, but close enough because you want to get to this business of it being safe to tell the truth.
Yes, because I have on my own noted how much men walk on eggshells with their wives, even if they love them and the wife loves them, about, for example, their sexual nature.
And they clam up.
And very few men acknowledge this publicly because they're afraid to.
I have been endowed with a relatively fearless nature.
I don't care.
People doesn't matter.
All I know is I know this is true.
And then my line, and I'd love you to react, obviously, my takeaway is so many women say, you know, my husband doesn't, he's silent.
He doesn't talk.
But if he's afraid to talk, that might be one of the reasons.
And I'm not blaming the woman.
She's reacting to her own fear of hearing these things that a man might say.
So go ahead.
Yes, it's all yours now.
Okay.
So I did a webinar that people can get on our site in the holiday sale called Why You Can't Trust Men to Tell the Truth.
And when I publicized it, my graduates were freaked out that Allison Armstrong would say you can't trust men to tell the truth.
But the webinar itself is a rug pull because aka how honest men, how women convince honest men that it's not worth it.
Wow.
And yeah, and how I unpack this is this very interesting dynamic.
All right, hold on.
Remember this point.
How you unpack this thing.
This is really, really important.
The light above thy deep and dreamless sleep.
Hi, everybody.
Male, female, our Dennis Prager show every Wednesday, second hour.
Every season is inaugurated by having Allison Armstrong on.
And we're inaugurating winter a drop early.
Actually, we're sneaking in fall.
It's what?
Sneaking in fall?
Yeah, we're in the last week of fall.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
So we're just sneaking in to cover all four of ours.
Look, beautiful.
By the way, you mentioned that, is it Dan?
Yes.
Yes, you mentioned that Dan does the snowplowing at your place.
Most of it, yes.
I've recently gotten involved with my tractor.
Very nice.
I just wanted, I didn't want to interrupt, but I wanted to note that whenever there is snowfall at the Prager house, I also do the snowplowing.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I just thought I would throw that in.
So I think my complete identification.
Yes, it is commendable.
That I live in Southern California, which hasn't seen snow in a century.
At least not plowable snow is a separate issue.
All right, back to the serious, one of the many arenas, if possible, tension between, I'm sorry?
Yeah, we've got to get back to this.
It's really interesting.
Yes.
Well, your line about what is it that women teach men not to tell them the truth?
Was that your line?
We train honest men.
We teach honest men that telling the truth isn't worth it.
And can I tell you how it happens?
I am quiet.
Okay, so the dynamic is, and it's one of the things that's really different about women than men.
So women tend to traffic in, if you will, being upset.
And so, and we think it has a lot more weight than it does, just like approval and disapproval.
Parents tend to traffic in that, and they think it should cause everything to happen.
And it doesn't cause what they want.
So what will happen is a man will tell a woman the truth, and his truth upsets her.
She's really upset by what's true for him.
And she thinks if he knows how upset she is about what's true for him, that he will change what's true for him.
That he'll change his mind.
He'll change his heart.
If he just knows how very upset she is by it, he'll change it.
But women don't follow the trail of logic, which men, What's true for you is probably been true for you for a long time, and it didn't cause any problems until you told her.
So you assign the problem to telling her the truth, not to what the truth is for you.
And women don't know that men are that logical, that they're paying that much attention, that the problem came in with telling you.
We didn't have any problems before I told you.
So I just want to tell you.
And that's how women teach honest men.
It's not worth it to tell the truth.
All right.
So people are.
I have an example in my mind, but I'd rather you give one.
Oh, golly.
Okay, I'll give you something useful.
And if a woman can ask this question, or a man can ask this question, and then not traffic and upset, it would be the question: is there anything you need from me that you've given up on getting?
This can save a marriage.
Is there anything you need from me you've given up on getting?
Because the things we truly need, eventually we won't be willing to live without anymore.
So if you have the guts, it takes courage to ask your mate that question.
And if they say, no, there's nothing I've given up on getting, then just to check, okay, is there anything you need from me that's too hard to get?
So you might someday give up on getting?
And then imaginary duct tape and listen and learn.
Try to have compassion for this other person who's been going without something that really matters to them.
And that's important information.
And the withholding of that kind of information is actually one of the ways that we emasculate.
We withhold quality information.
And we teach people to withhold quality information by not being grown-ups about it.
So I am so impressed with what you've just said that I actually wrote them down, and I will keep them.
So here was one.
Women traffic in being upset.
That is such a devastating line.
By the way, I just want to remind people something I say frequently at the beginning of the male-female hour.
I am not a man fan or a woman fan.
I have no problem in criticizing either sex or in praising either sex.
My only agenda is truth and that they get along.
So just to put that in perspective, then your question, I hope I wrote it down correctly.
Is there anything you need from me that you've given up on getting?
Now, do you hold that both sexes should ask this question of their partner?
Yes.
Because we're both afraid to hear the partner.
Yeah.
We're both afraid to tell the answer.
We won't volunteer it.
By the time we've given up, we're so resigned or we may never even ask.
We were too scared to ask for it in the first place.
Would you say that if you could ask couples to do one thing, would asking that question of each other be it?
Well, probably before that, I would say get curious.
It's across the board.
Get curious.
It comes from the Greek word that means to care.
Get curious about the other person's world, the other person's truth, the other person's experience, the other person's reasons for why they do what they do, which was the breakthrough that I had when I started studying men.
Back in a moment.
You're great.
You're great.
Stay there.
Stay there.
On a cold winter's night, that was so deep.
No well, no well.
No well, no well.
Hi, everyone.
Final segment, unfortunately.
The Winter Edition each season is inaugurated with Allison Armstrong.
And this has been really powerful stuff, Allison.
Yes, you're more than welcome.
God, I'll tell you, I'm going to do, I'm going to repeat it, and of course, attribute it entirely to you.
Is there anything you need from me that you've given up on getting?
I wrote it down correctly.
What did you want to add at the very end?
Because we have just the two and a half minutes.
Well, I would say one of the biggest shifts, right?
I started studying men in 1991 to find out how I was bringing out the worst in them, which I didn't know because I was so normal.
And it never occurred to me I was bringing out the worst in men.
I thought this is just how men were.
And later on, a question popped into my head: what if no one is misbehaving, including you?
And the corollary to that is, what if there's a good reason for that?
So what if good people have good reasons for everything they do?
And now, every once in a while, I said to a man, I assume you have a good reason for what you did, and could you explain it to me?
And from time to time, I've had a man say, No, I didn't have a good reason.
I was just a jerk.
But because I granted good reason and wasn't attacking him, he could own that he did less than he thinks he should have done.
And if we get curious about why people do what they do and grant that there's a good reason, the good reason may be an instinctual compulsion, right, to be safe and secure, or it could be a deeply held, thoughtful value that's part of who that person is.
And curiosity about that, it has people experience being seen.
And when we feel seen, we get hope.
It's one of the ways that we get hopeful.
Oh my gosh, you see me.
So many things can happen now.
And mostly we live in a world where hardly anybody feels seen, and especially by their significant other.
They can end up feeling the least seen.
All right.
You're terrific.
Merry Christmas, dear Allison.
May you plow beautifully.
I love being on my cactus.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs and to purchase Dennis Prager's rational Bibles.
Hey, girl, yes, you.
You are seen.
You are loved.
and you were made for more.
Created especially for teen girls, chart-topping Christian artist Anne Wilson invites you to her 40-day devotional, Hey Girl, through honest stories, scripture, and journal prompts.
Anne talks about real struggles, comparison, insecurity, doubt, and faith, reminding you that God is always near and fighting for you.