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Nestled in a cozy cabin along the rugged Oregon coast, I pulled a blanket tight across my shoulders. Just a few feet away, behind a bolted bathroom door, my husband of one week was struggling valiantly with a severe case of 24-hour flu.

I knew that if Les really loved me, he would allow me to offer him comfort and sympathy. After all, I wanted to support him the way I expected him to support me. Instead, I was literally locked out of his suffering and feeling terribly dejected.

The next day, Les was restored to health and my doubts about our love for each other vanished. We now poured our energy into romantic honeymoon fun—riding horses along the beach, picnicking on the sand dunes, candlelight dinners. That is until the tables turned. This time, I was the one who awoke in the middle of the night with a burning fever. I groaned with the agony of an upset stomach—desperate for comfort—only to find that Les had tiptoed into another room, leaving me to suffer alone.

I didn't blame Les for passing the virus on to me, but I wanted to accuse him of not acting like a husband. After all, he wasn't there to hold my hand or hear my cries. My doubts about our marriage resurfaced.

Was this the course of married life? Moving from agony to bliss and back again? Surely I had missed an important lesson in my premarital studies. Looking back on it, I must admit that I did. It took me most of our first year to see that this marital yo-yo was due in great part to my lack of understanding a fundamental difference between men and women.

I married Les, in part, because his strengths made up for my weaknesses. When I was discouraged, he was optimistic. When I was shy, he was bold. Being with him gave me a sense of completeness. But it took a dark night on our honeymoon to reveal that our differences could actually leave me feeling more confused than completed. I didn't realize that the differences I thought were strictly between Les and me were actually shared by most other couples.

There is a predictable difference between the sexes, and without this knowledge I had evaluated my husband's behavior according to my feminine standards. Admittedly, you'll always find exceptions. But research and experience generally point to this fundamental yet powerful distinction: in times of stress, men need more space while women desire closeness.

According to John Gray in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (HarperCollins), men, when faced with stress, become increasingly "focused and withdrawn" while women become increasingly "overwhelmed and emotionally involved." Men typically don't want to talk about their pressures or be held and comforted until they have first had time to themselves. Under pressure, they set out on a quest for space, while in similar circumstances a woman craves the reassurance of relational security.

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