In the case of a conventional heterosexual relationship as described in the article, I think that men are very often terrified that, at any moment, the woman they are involved with is going to dump them or are looking for reasons to dump them. Yes, this is paranoid, but it’s the emotional reality the kind of men this article discusses are working with-they are assuming that, no matter what they do, they are always in danger of being broken up with or divorced.

I agree that men need to be open to criticism and that women in a conventional heterosexual relationship need to be able to express it. Where I’m coming from on this is that, in general, criticism expressed by anyone towards anyone needs to be expressed in far less harsh terms than it currently is and that there needs to be a way of expressing it without going to ultimatums.

My response was also simply a way to engage the article’s point on phraseology-the words “we need to talk” are now so weighted that, quite frankly, I think their utterance by women is simply going to put most men into such a state of panic that they won’t be able to process anything the women in their lives might say to them after those words are said-that they will simply hear “you are screwing up this relationship SO BADLY that I’m on the verge of leaving up-and no progress you could make on addressing the issues here is ever going to come close to reducing my anger towards you!”.

If a phrase has that effect on those it is uttered to…is that phrase still in any way useful?