Some things women should know about men, emotions and relationships

Late April 2008

Some Things that Women Should Know about Men,
Emotions & Relationships

In this month’s article I am going to look at how men handle emotions and
the impact this has on their relationships. The popularity of John Grays’s
book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus speaks of the differences
between the sexes when it comes to romance. While men and women do approach
love and relationships in different ways, I believe that these differences
are over-played and that at their core men and women have the same needs
and insecurities – we just play them out differently. For this article I
have drawn on the inspiring relationship principles created by Chuck
Spezzano Phd.,founder of the Psychology of Vision –an organisation that
specialises in helping people to improve their relationships.
One of the most common complaints I hear from women about men during my
work as a relationship coach, is the way than men are not in touch with
their emotions.This can drive women to distraction because they tend to be
more emotionally aware and expressive. Men generally prefer to solve
problems using their thinking brain rather than their emotional brain. By
understanding why this happens women can help their men become more
emotionally aware, and dramatically improve the quality of their
relationships.

Why Men Need to Be the Hero

Men strive to be successful in life and become the hero in any situation,
either at work or at home. We want to save people, fix people and make
things better. Many women fall in love with us when we act like this – we
appear to be strong and in control of our emotions. The problem is, that
this show of strength is often a way of avoiding our deeper,negative
feelings. Society brings us up to be big, strong and powerful, but deep
inside a great many of us feel weak and lacking in confidence.We often try
to act like a hero because we are afraid to show our weak,vulnerable side.
Just because we are men, does not make us immune from the fears and
insecurities that all human beings face. A sense of failure and inadequacy
lurks inmost people. This usually stems from broken bonding in our original
families that can easily end in feelings of guilt and shame for having let
people down and failed to help our parents and siblings. Rather than feel
this guilt and failure, most men will subdue their feelings and pretend that
they don’t have them!
It is therefore a real mistake to assume that men are lacking in emotions.
A recent survey of male film-goers confirms that men feel their emotions as
much, if not more than women when they watch tear-jerking films. The furtive
swallowing and battle to hold back the tears is usually successful, but next
time you are at a weepy film, notice those hidden clues. I know from my
experiences of working with men and attending relationship workshops that
once the tears start flowing, it is like opening the floodgates. Big boys
really do cry!

The sad thing about all these heroic attempts to avoid our emotions is that
they bring about the very feelings of failure that they are designed
to avoid because they ultimately damage relationships. While in the early
stages of romance, male stoicism is very attractive, it eventually becomes
an Achilles Heel. If we do not feel and express our emotions, one of two
things will happen. We will either gradually withdraw from our partner and
perhaps bury ourselves in our work (another place we can become heroes) or
something will crop up that forces us to feel our feelings – often a
crisis like divorce or awake-up call through tragedy or illness.
Relationships do not fail because of what is said, they fail because of what
is not said. As men choose to suppress their emotions, they jeopordise the
most important relationships of their lives. So, how can women help their
men feel their emotions and in doing so enhance the quality of their
relationships?

Tips for turning your man into a true hero and
improving your relationship

To form and maintain a strong relationship with a man it is important to
understand that much of his behaviour is designed to avoid him feeling and
looking like a failure. Unfortunately your man is very unlikely to be aware
of any of this. Their sense of failure is so well hidden that they will
probably strenuously or even angrily deny that it exists. This in itself is
a protective mechanism to keep the feelings hidden.
You will therefore need to slowly and gently encourage him to feel his
feelings and become more emotionally aware –this is best achieved by
feeling your own emotions and becoming as authentic as you can. Men fall in
love with women who behave like women! We love you to be tender, kind,
empathic, vulnerable, honest and feminine. These are the natural
characteristics of women and we cannot resist them because they touch our
own feminine aspects. Although many men find this threatening, it is a
fact that we have both masculine and feminine sides to our personality. A
woman can help her man to discover this more emotionally expressive part of
himself.

The trick is allow your man to be you hero. Not in the conventional macho
way, but in an emotionally authentic way. The word courage is derived from
the French word Coeur, meaning heart. Real courage for a man is to allow
himself to let go of his control and to open his heart.Let him know that
you find him attractive and brave when he is in touch with his emotions –
when he can show them without attack or withdrawal. Make it Ok for him to
cry and be supported by you if that is what he needs in order to release the
pent-up emotions. Appreciate his openness and find the courage yourself to
communicate about your own fears and insecurities. With time you will become
more and more emotionally honest with each other and as your hearts open,
your love for each other will grow or be re-kindled. This is a
real aphrodisiac so the new-found honesty will enhance your fun in the
bedroom!

Many of the problems we see in the world today are the result of men not
allowing themselves to feel their emotions and let goof their fears. The
emotional dissociation creates competition, power-struggle,greed and war.
Women are already experts in the area of emotional intelligence and have a
crucial role to help their men unearth and heal their fears. It is only then
that we will become real men and start living the more emotionally authentic
and fulfilled lives that we secretly crave.

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