Allow me to state my disclaimer now: No, this will not apply to every single male of the human race. This is a generalization based on research presented by renowned psychologist John Gottman in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. I'm simply summarizing it in my own words.
Now, onto the good stuff.
Ladies: Do you ever feel like that guy in your life is physically incapable of having a mature conversation about his emotions?
Dudes: Don't you just hate how that girl in your life keeps nagging you to talk about feelings when there is nothing for you to even say?
There is an explanation for why you feel this way. In fact, it's rooted deeply in the human evolution. Back in the day, the need for survival began the very first sign of rigid gender roles: the men went out to hunt the mammoths, and the women developed skills for nurturing the offspring and keeping the cave tidy.
The female's role was to nurture the children, and the more calm and relaxed she was, the more milk was produced to grow strong and healthy babies. Therefore, natural selection favored the mothers who were able to calm themselves on command.
On the contrary, the dads were at risk of encountering saber tooth tigers and other extinct dangers, therefore they were more successful if their adrenaline levels were high and remained high to trigger the flight or fight response needed for survival. Once again, natural selection did its thing and favored the males who could remain alert for long periods of time.
Flash forward hundreds of thousands of years and here we are, with grocery stores and day cares completely altering our original human purposes. However, the physiological foundations remained. When they feel attacked, male hearts will typically beat faster and longer than their female counterparts. Women can calm down within about twenty minutes, but the men are typically still shaken up by it.
This includes any form of attack--whether it's a stampede of mammoths or his significant other excessively nagging him to take out the trash, if his adrenaline is triggered, it will take a greater toll on him. As a result of this, men are biologically more overwhelmed by confronting relationship conflict than their partners are.
So what does this mean for your relationship? When a couple argues, the man will get worked up faster and on a more extreme level for a longer period of time. The conversation will be more draining for him than for the woman, who can calm down on command easier. The physiological effects are so intense that he will actively avoid the confrontation, not wanting to even go there. On the other hand, women don't have the same response, thus are more comfortable discussing this and will be more likely to bring up the difficult topics. The one sex does not know what this is like for their counterpart, which often leads to the frustration when you "just can't understand why he is so bad expressing his thoughts," and why you "don't know why she needs to keep nagging you about this."
On top of this, men are socialized not to talk about this. They are taught from a very young age to "suck it up" and "be a man," and these lessons are just as engrained as their evolutionary wiring. They are taught to ignore their feelings so far to the point that they don't even realize that they have these feelings. Women, on the other hand, are considered to be (overly) emotional beings and can typically explain how they feel without much struggle, or they are at least more willing to attempt an explanation.
The good news from all of this, is that you know the communication disconnect isn't entirely a result of the compatibility of your relationship (but don't use this scientific evidence as an excuse--you two just might be a terrible combination after all). On the other hand, it's very annoying because there isn't too much you can do to change someone's evolutionary development.
Some tips from the pros that did this research:
Ladies - Take it easy on him. Work the conversation up slowly and try not to overwhelm his system with a series of attacks. He physically cannot communicate on your level, so if you want to get anywhere, you're going to have to walk him through it.
Dudes - She isn't trying to drive you crazy. She just cares and wants to improve your relationship. Take deep breaths and try to prevent her and yourself from getting too worked up. Be willing to hear her out, because she is designed to be more obnoxious about conversation than you are.
In the meantime you can take comfort in the fact that humans have been struggling with communication since the beginning of mankind, and that you aren't dong so badly after all.
