A delightfully bubbly woman, with a somewhat skewed sense of humor once asked me the riddle: How do you stop a man from drownding? Ans: Take your foot off the back of his head.
Now being a guy who is pretty confident, I didn't take offense. In fact, from this particular lady, I found the riddle amusing. After all, I poke gender-related harmless fun at my wife and girls, and this lady all the time (In my book, if you're gonna dish it, expect to have it thrown back). Of course I hit my boys with other things, like competitions where I only can be the winner, throwing ice-water over the shower curtain, etc.
Yup, I believe in a bit of foolishness every now and again. But I have to admit that for the first twenty-some years of my marriage, my wife could drive me nuts sometimes. She used to always ask me things like "Which shirt should I wear, or which pants look best. The problem wasn't in the asking. It was in her response. She always chose the clothes I had not chosen, every singe time. A couple of years back, I decided not to answer those questions anymore. And I have had a hard time, and am still having difficulty in explaining the concept that just because I may disagree with something she said, it doesn't mean I'm fighting, or trying to start a fight. I'm simply disagreeing.
Where men tend to try and be subjective (not that we always or even usually are), in my experience, most women I've known tend to let emotions rule their personality more so than men. On the other hand, women tend to be warmer, more sympathetic, and a whole bunch better to look at (from a man's point of view).
Ideally, a woman should compliment her husband and vice-versa. She should shore up my weaknesses with her strength, and I should fill in her weaknesses with my strengths. Instead of dwelling on each other's weaknesses and shortcommings, we need to understand our own strengths and weaknesses. Then, we can use our individual strengths to complete each other and make the family unit/marriage strong and healthy.
The problem is that in order to do that, we must be able to admit to our weaknesses and occasionaly swallow a bit of crow, and that can be difficult for some people. The sad part is that once you do it a couple of times, you find that admitting to mistakes is really very easy, and makes life so much more enjoyable.
Much of what are considered difference between men and women is simply myth. We both want to be loved, nurtured, to feel that someone thinks we are special, and to give of ourselves for someone else. We are the most happy when we place "self" on the back burner and our loved ones on the front burner, with a bunch of energy directed toward them.
When your loved ones really respect you, and love you for who you are, not for the perfect person you would like to be, but fall far short of, then you have done your job, and hopefully, for the good of your family. The great feeling of self-worth is just a happy side benefit of the process.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North