It's a Guy Thing (2 page)

Will I Ever Find a Man Who Gives Me the Love That I Want?

How Can I Get the Love I Used to Have?

How Do I Grow in My Ability to Love?

What Should I Do When My Relationship Feels Hellish?

How Do I Get Rid of the Tension in My Relationship?

Should I Tell Him How Afraid I Am?

Will He Always Bring Out the Worst in Me?

How Can I Avoid the Negative Feelings That Come Up in Intimacy?

Will I Always Fail in My Relationships?

Is It Possible to Achieve a Perfect Relationship?

Why Is Loving So Painful?

Why Should I Commit to Intimacy If It Is So Painful?

Wouldn’t He Treat Me Differently If He Loved Me?

Why Should I Give Him Love When He Pulls Away from Me?

Why Should I Trust Him If He Hurts Me?

16. Embracing the Parents in Your Head and in Your Bed

Why Do I Always Get Involved with a Man Who Can’t Give Me What I Want?

How Does My Mother Affect My Intimate Relationship?

How Can I Change His Need to Control Me?

Why Do I Feel Like I’m Still Trying to Please My Mother?

How Can I Get Rid of the “Mother” I Still Hear in My Head?

17. Practical Exercises for Healing Your Relationship

What Can I Do When He Is in a Bad Mood?

How Can I Tell Him I Don’t Want to Be His Mother?

How Can We Regain the Passion We Had Before We Became Parents?

How Can I Learn to Enjoy Sex More?

How Can I Stop Flip-Flopping Between Feeling Helpless and Feeling Strong?

How Can I Connect with My Intuitive Wisdom About My Relationship?

Is Discrimination or Surrender More Important for Real Commitment?

How Can I Clarify Whether I Really Want to Stay with My Man?

18. Surrendering into Ecstasy

Can a Bad Relationship Prevent Me from Discovering God or Divine Love?

How Can I Experience Ecstasy in My Intimate Relationship?

How Can I Love Without Getting Hurt?

Should I Just Passively Surrender to Whatever My Man Wants to Do?

Do I Have to Surrender Myself to Really Enjoy Sex?

Am I Ready to Surrender into Love with a Man?

For More Information

1
Understanding Men

Why Are Men So Difficult?

Most women,
their man was so difficult—why, on occasion, he behaved like a jerk. The answer is easy: Most men “give out” masculine energy. This, at times, is offensive to most women. What do I mean by “masculine energy”?

Every man and woman has both masculine and feminine energy within them. In about 10 percent of all men, these energies balance. Another 10 percent of all men demonstrate more feminine energy than masculine. But about 80 percent of all men demonstrate more masculine than feminine energy. These men can often seem like jerks.

These men are difficult for most women to deal with in intimacy because masculine energy is very different from feminine energy—and about 80 percent of women are naturally more feminine than masculine. Intimate relationships between a masculine man and a feminine woman often seem like a struggle between creatures from different planets. They try to communicate with one another in a language neither understands.

Many men seem like jerks to many women because feminine energy is frequently confused, offended and hurt by the masculine, just as the masculine is by feminine energy. Once understood, the differences between masculine and feminine can become gifts men and women offer to one another in passionate love, rather than wrinkles to be ironed out.

Why Is He So Rigid?

One masculine quality is modality, the ability to focus. Masculine energy tends to focus on doing one thing at a time. It moves on a single track. Have you ever tried to interrupt a man while he is absorbed in a project? Many men just won’t notice you or else they will become angry and resentful.

The feminine is much less modal. It’s not stuck on a single track. It flows easily from one thing to another. It’s much easier for a man or woman using their feminine energy to do several things at once. When men use their masculine energy, they may feel everything is falling apart when they are called on to do more than one thing at a time, or when they are suddenly pulled off a project.

Why Doesn’t He Pay More Attention to Me?

In both sexes, masculine energy is a vehicle of focus and accomplishment. This energy eliminates distraction and focuses on what needs to be done.

For instance, when most men watch TV or work on a project, the rest of the world ceases to exist. That includes their intimate relationship. Even if the project is as mundane as waxing a car, masculine energy will focus and shut out the rest of the world.

Masculine energy has the ability to focus. It’s a strength, but a strength that can turn to weakness when it’s used to avoid an intimate relationship.

Feminine energy is quite good at flowing and relaxing. If your feminine energy is at work while waxing the car and
your partner wants to talk with you, you can easily shift your attention and focus.

Men often find it very difficult to shift, because they are stuck in their masculine energy. It’s not easy for most men to break what they are doing, shift their attention to you and then flow back again. For women who are comfortable with their feminine energy, this ability to shift happens almost automatically.

Many women might feel,
Why isn’t he paying attention to me?, What’s his problem?
You could take it personally, believing he’s choosing to neglect you.

If a woman friend were to neglect you it would send a definite message. Most women are very aware of relationships. But for men, absorption into a project or TV is rarely designed to send a message. It’s just how they do things. That’s how masculine energy works.

Women often ask, “Can’t my man learn to go with the flow? Can’t he be more flexible? Why does he have to be so rigid and single-minded?”

Men may wonder, “Why does she get hurt when I’m busy? Can’t she understand it’s not personal? What a hassle! She gets hurt every time I’m doing what I like to do. Can’t she change?”

If you want to trust your man to get the job done, try to accept his need to focus. Without this quality, your man might not carry through with projects he starts. You would begin to feel like you had to do them yourself. You would lose trust in him.

You can’t expect a man to get things done and not be focused. For a man to drop this quality he has to move into his feminine energy, where he may lose his focus and fail to get the job done.

Why Does His Work Seem More Important Than Me?

When your man is hard at work, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s shutting you out. He’s not being insensitive, turning away or avoiding participation with you. When he’s focused on a project or a task, that becomes the whole world to him.

Men are either in one mode or another. For instance, a man could be having problems with his wife yet still enjoy an outing with his male friends. On a fishing trip a friend could ask, “How are things at home?” He’ll say, “Man, it sucks. Wow, look at the size of that fish!”

For most women, or anyone in their feminine energy, the intimate relationship touches their lives no matter what they’re doing. It’s difficult to drop the relationship, get absorbed in something, enjoy it completely, then go back to the relationship.

A man who temporarily “forgets” his relationship may not be avoiding his feelings. The same thing may happen to you when you are in your masculine energy. When the masculine energy focuses, everything else disappears.

If you were in the midst of an emotionally charged thought or feeling and your partner said “Can you get the catsup for me?”, it would disrupt your emotions and probably frustrate you. When you inject your emotional mode into his action mode, it feels the same way to him.

Men don’t exist so much in a world of flow and feelings. To a large extent, they exist in a world of problems, functions and challenges.

Most archetypal myths of men involve battling demons, enemies, war and conquest. They involve breaking free and winning. Most archetypal myths about women involve love relationships. Men and women play in very different domains. If you want to be married to a masculine man, as opposed to a feminine or more neutral man, then part of the package you get is his modality, his ability to focus.

When your man thinks your emotions are wrong, it can throw off the whole relationship. Emotions can’t be
wrong
, they simply
are
. In the same way, his action mode is not wrong, it just is. But this doesn’t mean you can’t gift him with your feelings, sensitivity, intuition and wisdom.

Two of the biggest gifts you bring to your man are your sensitivity and intuition. He can learn a lot from your world that is foreign to his. And you can also learn from him.

Don’t disown your feelings. If you really feel it’s best for him to be interrupted, then interrupt him. Just remember that you may encounter some initial resentment, because he’s stuck in one mode.

Why Isn’t He Aware of How He Hurts Me?

When your man gets involved in something and doesn’t pay attention to you, it hurts. He probably doesn’t feel he’s turning away from you. He may not be aware of it at all.