Dear me, but these therapists and "self-help" book writers have a lot to answer for. If you want to see the difference between the sexes personified go to any bookshop and count the shelves of books with advice for women and note the number of females who browse them. Then look for the male equivilant!
Then go and write your own. It's a licence to print money as Kendall so astutely observed.
My advice is, throw away the books and LIVE LIFE! What do any of these gurus know that you don't know yourself. It's just another industry angled to get the money from your pockets.
I think it was Stan Rogers who said that living life should be like eating a melon over a sink. Not a pretty metaphor but one I ascribe to wholeheartedly. Forget the rules, bite life, and let the juice run where it may.