As a coach I often find myself having this conversation with female clients who call me to get advice about dealing with their husbands.
So let me get this straight, if he tells you about his feelings he needs to stop whining, but when he doesn’t tell you how he feels he isn’t open and doesn’t communicate well?
Another famous line is “he acts like the woman in the relationship because he is always complaining about something.”
I always wonder if these complaints are really a masked cry for help coming out in the form of frustration and “whining.”
Maybe he is needing something from you as his wife but you’re so focused on his delivery you can’t hear the message. Maybe he isn’t being the “woman” in the relationship but rather he’s just being a HUMAN in the relationship.
Often times, I believe we forget that human emotion doesn’t specify gender.
As men, we hurt like women hurt and men have emotional needs like women have emotional needs. Men feel pain like women feel pain and men cry like women cry.
Society teaches men they aren’t allowed to feel and as a result we became good at holding everything inside; but on the flip side, women have come to expect men to not have feelings while subsequently saying “why won’t you tell me how you feel?”
I hope y’all see the quandary here.
Well, when a man finds a wife, one of the most intimate and freeing things that happens for him is he feels like he has permission to be vulnerable. Sometimes he tries his luck and expresses that emotion and is met with a wife who doesn’t know how to accept or handle it.
What’s worse is sometimes it’s met with a negative reaction and, like a kid touching a hot stove, he pulls back, reluctant to touch or express these emotions again.
In turn many marriages and relationships suffer because of this cycle of events.
We say we want transparency and intimacy and vulnerability but do we know how to handle it when we get it? It has to be handled with care because human emotion is more fragile than we want to believe.
We are all looking for that person who will protect our hearts and embrace our vulnerabilities. The one place that should happen should be inside the confines and comforts of a marriage.
BMWK, Is this happening in your marriage? Just something to think about…
Sincerely,
Just A Man