It's a Guy Thing (18 page)

This is a classic confusion between men and women. Women often feel, “If he is telling me what to do he must assume that I’m incompetent.” Many men tell people what to do regardless of who they tell and what that person knows. The more masculine a man is, the more he tells everybody what to do. It is not based on an assumption that nobody knows what to do. It is just an expression of masculine energy. How many times has your man told you what to do when it was obvious you knew what to do? Probably many times. Your man isn’t necessarily operating from an assumption that you don’t know what to do. He is merely expressing his masculine energy.

Why Does He Criticize My Emotionality?

From his perspective, a man wonders, “Why do women give so much credence to their emotions? They change so fast. They come and go.” So, in general, men want women to de-emphasize emotionality. Women, on the other hand, want men to communicate with more emotionality. However they communicate, men and women are both learning to love.

Love is not necessarily rational nor is it necessarily emotional. Love is granted with no expectations. It is a gift, a blessing. It is more true of us than the beating of our hearts, whereas emotions and thoughts come and go. When we are
relaxed and happy, love is who we are. Emotions and thoughts, however, are always changing.

Some women feel that emotions are more real than analysis. Some men think analysis is more important than emotions. Yet people who are not wildly emotional can be totally in love. People who are not great thinkers can be totally in love. Love can be real regardless of our mental or emotional state.

Is He Blind to How I’m Feeling?

Men usually need to hear about your feelings in words. For them to really understand you, you usually have to say something like, “I’m feeling hurt.” If you indicate your feelings with a subtle posture change or a pregnant silence, your man will just wonder what’s happening—or not even notice. Because your man is probably not as sensitive to your emotions as you are to his, he’ll need verbal capsulizations of what you are feeling.

Perhaps you are not able to put your feelings into words. You might just say, “There is something going on.” But even this is better then expecting him to sense something is going on. Most men really need some kind of verbal description, even something as simple as, “Something is happening and I can’t describe it.” This is far better than expecting him to sense something in you or read your mind.

The best you can do is to actually describe your emotions to him. For instance, “I’m feeling hurt.” He’ll probably be surprised, “Why are you hurt?” You may say, “I’m in love with you, so when you pull away from me toward your business,
I want to let you know how it affects me, even though you may need to do business.” At least you will expand his awareness of how his life affects you.

It helps for each of you to expand each other’s awareness. His actions unknowingly affect you and your actions unknowingly affect him. Let him know how you are affected rather than keeping your emotions unspoken, expecting him to sense what you are feeling.

Men love to work through things. They love to solve things. So talk to him in a way that invites his action. “When you abruptly turn away to work I feel hurt. Maybe there is something we can do about this.”

Then he thinks, “Maybe there is something we can do about it.” He won’t assume a barrier between you. It will be something to work out, and that will be fine with him. But if he turns away from you to do some business and you begin to cry, he’ll be at a total loss. He needs your verbal communication.

You need to communicate your feelings in a way that he can understand, rather than expect him to sense what’s going on with you. Men rarely sense exactly what’s going on with you. A day or two later they may say, “Is something going on?” But by then you’re purple in the face.

What Should I Do When I’m Unable to Speak?

Put your feelings in verbal form, at least silently to yourself. Label them. “This is anger.” “This is sorrow.” “I feel hurt.” Do this every time you notice you are feeling something, especially in response to what he is doing. Learn to put
verbal labels on your feelings and eventually you will be able to say them out loud. Your man needs your words, especially at first. Eventually, words may not be so necessary, but in the meantime, words are a bridge that will help you communicate your feelings to your man.

Are All Men Dishonest?

When you sense that your man is not being honest, instead of asking him to get in touch with his emotions, ask him what his purpose is. To be honest, a man needs to be aligned with his purpose rather than his emotions.

For a woman to be honest, she must contact her emotions. She feels what is inside of her and expresses her true feelings. For a woman, this is honesty. But for a man, honesty is aligning himself to his highest vision, his vision of the Divine, or truth—not to his emotions of the moment. You might ask him, “What are you going toward? What is your highest purpose?” He must examine whether his actions and words are supporting his purpose. If they are not supporting his highest purpose, then he is being dishonest.

Most men don’t have the ability to regulate their honesty with their emotions. For men, emotions are not honesty; emotions change all the time. For men, what is honest is alignment with purpose.

For a man, the distance between his words and his purpose is the error measure of his honesty. To a man, honesty means aligning his words and actions with his purpose. This is why men are sometimes so poker-faced. At times, their integrity might mean
not
saying something in order to accomplish the
highest purpose. This, to him, is the most honest thing to do.

At some point in your relationship, you will probably catch your man telling a lie. Try to remember that, just as most women will say anything when moved by their strong emotions, most men will say anything when moved by their highest purpose. To most women, a strong emotion justifies saying all kinds of things that might not be entirely true in the big picture. They are simply emotional expressions in the moment.

Likewise, to most men, a strong purpose justifies saying things that may not be entirely true in the big picture. Honesty usually means something different to men and women.

Why Can’t He Listen to My Suggestions?

Imagine a situation where the man is not as interested in sex as his woman. He seems neutralized, uninterested. So, she may become more and more aggressive. She may make stronger sexual advances toward him. She may suggest they see a therapist or go to a relationship workshop. Perhaps she tries to talk to him about it, hoping he will become motivated to do something.

The more she wants to direct the relationship, the less sexually interested he will become. Many times, for instance, the woman will say, “Let’s go to a relationship workshop,” and the man will say, “No.” The reason for his refusal is simple: He can’t go to the workshop and also carry the masculine energy in the relationship unless he has directed himself to the workshop.

While the masculine way is directive, the feminine way is attractive. The feminine way is to open doorways. Whether or not the man enters the doorway must be entirely his decision if he is going to carry the masculine energy in relationship. To open the doorway a woman might say, “I heard about a workshop that I’m very excited about.” This feels very different to a man than saying, “Let’s go to this workshop.” One is an open door. The other is a suggested direction. It might seem strange, but the effect each of these statements has on a man is very different.

Shouldn’t I Be Able to Say Anything I Want to My Man?

There is an art to communication which involves understanding what the listener is capable of hearing. For example, you do not talk about the intimate details of your sex life with your five-year-old daughter. It is not appropriate. You do not tell your grandmother all about your more unconventional exploits because she probably wouldn’t understand. It wouldn’t serve anything.

In the same way, telling your man what to do is sometimes not appropriate if your intention is to maintain sexual polarization and attraction. There are certain times, of course, when you need to tell him very directly what to do, but these occasions are relatively rare between two individuals who are polarized and sensitive to each other’s needs.