Why Women Want Your Feelings
A guest post by Alisa Bowman from ProjectHapilyEverAfter.com.
Alisa is one of my favorite bloggers. She is on target and has a great sense of humor. After you finish reading her article, click over to view what I have to say on the topic of “When was the Last Time You Saw Your Man Cry?” over on her blog.
What are you thinking? How do you feel about that? Don’t you feel anything? Come on, just tell me how you feel?
Have you heard those questions from your woman? My husband certainly has. It took me many, many years to come to three conclusions. They are:
- When I ask him, “How do you feel?” he’s really being honest when he says, “I don’t know.”
- When I ask him, “What are you thinking?” he’s really being honest when he says, “Nothing.” Sometimes “nothing” really means “nothing that you would ever care about” which really means “I’m thinking about race cars,” but “nothing” suffices.
- When I ask, “Do you want to talk about it?” he’s really being honest when he says, “Nope.”
It took me even longer to be okay with all of that, though. For many years I thought I could turn him into what I knew best: a woman. Eh, he wasn’t up for the sex change.
Perhaps you, like my husband, have a wife who is attempting to do the same. In order to get her off your emotional back, you first need to understand why she’s attempting to pry open your feelings and thoughts in the first place. She could be doing it for any or all of the following reasons.
She wants to be there for you, but she doesn’t know how. Women help other women by listening. Hang out with a gaggle of chicks for any length of time and you’ll experience this phenomenon first hand. We tell each other about all of the stressors, frustrations and embarrassments in our lives, and we do it so our girlfriends will tell us what we want to hear: that we are normal and lovable. We also do it to release steam, something that most women refer to as “venting.” It works so well for us that we frequently assume that men must need to vent, too. So when your woman suspects that something is bothering you and keeps asking you about it, she’s just trying to be a good friend. She wants to help and she wants to be there for you, and this is the only way she knows how to do both.
Solution: Give her a man approved way to be there for you. How can she lift your spirits? A back rub? Sex? A game of hoops? Fill her in.
She feels threatened. When women ask, “what are you thinking?” we really just want to hear this: “About you, honey.” We want to feel loved and adored, but your inability to talk about your feelings makes us feel distance instead. So we worry, “Has he fallen out of love with me? Doesn’t he love me anymore?”
Solution: Regularly tell her how much you love her. Say “I love you” and “you are the best thing that ever happened to me” and “woman? You rock!” and “Wow, your butt looks amazing in those pants!” Keep the compliments and expressions of love coming and she’ll be a lot less likely to embark on a search and rescue mission for your feelings.
She’s bored. Somewhere between meeting you and now, she’s lost a piece of herself. She’s grown out of touch with her friends. She’s given up her hobbies. Now, you are her entire world and she’s starving from lack of conversation.
Solution: Encourage her to reconnect with old friends or to make new ones. You can’t turn yourself into a chick, but you can bring chicks back into her life. You can also prevent boredom by doing more activities together that you both enjoy. Go hiking. Take up a joint sport. This will take the focus off “talking” and put it on something you are more comfortable with: doing.
She wants you to know all of her—and still love her anyway. It took me many, many, many years to realize that I didn’t necessarily need my husband to tell me about his feelings. I just wanted him to know about mine.
Solution: Oh, this one is so, so simple. It’s this. Listen. Make it your goal to become the world’s best listener, and she’ll soon stop wanting you to become the world’s best talker. Ask her how she’s feeling. Ask her what she’s thinking. Ask her about what’s going on in her life. Soon she’ll stop asking you the same questions.
Alisa Bowman is a recovering divorce daydreamer who offers marriage advice at ProjectHapilyEverAfter.com.
Click here to get the man’s perspective on “When The Last Time You Saw Your Man Cry?” on Alisa’s blog, ProjectHapilyEverAfter.com.
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[...] Why Women Want Your Feelings | Effective Family Communication [...]
Alisa – I love it! You hit the nail on the head. I’m forwarding this one to my husband.
[...] TV). Check out his post here about men and feelings. Then click over to his blog to get my take on why women want to extract feelings from men. [...]
I enjoyed reading your blog. You have some great advice. I have a blog for women also. Now if I can just get my husband to read it.
It’s easy to see how men and women differ in their showing of emotions and how it’s “trained” into boys. Take a boy infant and a girl infant. In that first year they pretty much cry over the same things – hunger, wet/dirty diaper, tired. Take that into the next year and you’ll see the same for about the first six months. Then it starts to change. I say by two or three male children already get that they aren’t supposed to be a “sissy”.
I think it’s really sad. This is probably why there are also more male serial killers, etc., since they are taught not to express their emotions.
One also has to take into account the different personality types from Myers-Briggs. Some people just aren’t “feelers” and it shows in how the display their emotions. My daughter is a “thinker”, I swear her compassion chip is broken. My husband is also a “thinker”, but after reading enough books on how to interact with a “feeler” (me), he’s so much better at accepting my feelings. And he’s even improved on showing his “feelings”. And I’ve gotten better at dealing with his “thinker” traits.
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“via @EffectiveFamily : Reading http://www.effectivefamilycommunication.com/why-women-want-your-feelings/ “
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My ex-husband would cry at all sorts of things. But *I* could never have a bad day without him feeling the need to out drama me. Whatever he had going on was worse. A thousand times worse! Oh, the fun of a bi-polar spouse.
I’m honestly relieved to be with a more typical man. He’s an engineer. He doesn’t gush. He rarely cries but is capable of it. If I’m silly enough to ask what he’s thinking about (rare!), the answer is likely to be the code he’s working on or a plane he’s seen. That’s ok. He’s there for me when I need him and my girlfriends are there for me as well for venting purposes. The trick is I don’t expect him to be my girlfriend and act as such. He’s the man.
Frugal Kiwi´s last blog ..DIY Clean Green Deodorant
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Dear Kathy and Frugal Kiwi,
Your comments are both right on target. I think that the basic common denominator in each comment is the need for us men (and people in general) to a) be true to ourselves and our personalities; while, b) finding a healthy and comfortable balance between being overly emotional on the one hand, or being totally unemotional on the other.
Thanks for the great comments.
Ben
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The only time my first husband cried, that I can remember, was when I left him. He is French. My second husband is from Sweden and 71. He cries and it always surprises people. I like this about him, that he does not suppress emotion. I thought your audience might be interested in whether he has always cried, or if this phenomenon is relatively new, so I interviewed him on this topic: “Life changed for me around 35. Before that, I couldn’t cry. It was a relief to be able to cry. The change came with a major crisis.” (Divorce split up the four kids in his family; he raised the two older ones.) “I grew up in a traditional macho-man culture. You bottle up suppressed feelings, which, for me, brought on depression. I rejected this culture after my divorce. I cry when it’s appropriate now. Sometimes feelings overwhelm me. I don’t see this as a weakness. Homer’s heroes cry …”
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Frugal Kiwi, You’ve got an engineer also. Interesting creatures. LOL!!! I, too, rarely ask what my husband’s thinking about. It’s not that I don’t want to know, I just know I won’t understand. For a girl who does NOT do technical stuff, I do actually understand most of what he says. But, I just rather not use my brain that much. LOL!!! My brain is busy figuring out my next goofiness or the next thing I want to create.
Ben, it took me a bit of time to figure out my husband. Reading numerous books on Myers-Briggs and dealing with my own issues has helped immensely. And I can tell my husband appreciates it.
Alexandra, I think that’s so awesome about your husband. He actually learned to handle (accept) his emotions as they come to him. I don’t see the point in suppressing emotions. Tho I do understand it. I used to suppress my emotions all the time.
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I have a husband who isn’t afraid to cry…yet there are a lot of questions I ask to which he answers, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Automatic shut-off. Haven’t yet figured that one out, after all these years.
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Communication is not an easy thing… no matter your sex. I too find it difficult to label my own emotions and feelings in my own mind, which makes it that much more difficult to express them.
I hate when my husband asks me what’s wrong over and over, because when I know, I will TELL YOU. I suppose that’s the difference in the sex’s right there, when I understand what is wrong, I will express it and perhaps he won’t, he needs a prompt.
Shannon O | Confessions of a Loving Wife´s last blog ..Happy Easter Dear Readers!
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Alexandra, As a male therapist, I can say both professionally and personally that crying feels great. Every so often I’ll cry. I wish I could do it more often because almost nothing feels as purging and simply wonderful as a good cry.
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I have never seen my husband cry. Not even close, in 15 years. When he is truly upset, it hits him in the gut—literally, he gets a belly ache. Not seeing him cry is fine with me, because I am not a crier myself. For a woman, I cry rarely. I’m a bit apprehensive because his dad is suffering from a terminal illness, and when my father-in-law passes, that will be one time that I am sure I will cry. I do not expect that my husband will—I think he and his two brothers will power through with a big dose of black humor and an even bigger dose of alcohol. So I’m already having guilt that my inability to control my emotions will make it even more difficult for him to deal with his. It’s going to be a rough time, all around.
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My husband never cries, and rarely expresses any negative feelings in anything remotely resembling a constructive manner. Mostly he gets grumpy, and irritable, and doesn’t even know why. I am convinced that he usually does not know what he is feeling. When something bothers him, he can’t talk about, don’t think he can think about it, and he definitely doesn’t cry. I on the other hand cry easily, when we fight I usually end up crying, not to manipulate him as he thinks, but because I just cry easily. The discrepancy between our crying habits is a problem. The irony is, he suffers from depression, I do not.
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kcl, It might be worthwhile to attend a support group led by a qualified mental health professional to help you work through the grief of losing your father-in-law. Even if your husband chooses not to attend, you’ll be in a better position to help him work through his feelings without having to resort to alcohol; and of course your husband could attend if he so chooses.
kat, If your husband is suffering from depression it could mean that rather than productively dealing with his emotions his emotions are negatively dealing with him. It might be worth your while to read the book “The Relationship Cure” by Dr. John Gottman. Dr. Gottman provides some useful exercises anyone can do in the comfort of their own home towards building emotionally friendly relationships.
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I think that there are also just personality differences that affect how emotional a person is and it has nothing to do with gender. My daughter and husband simply are not as emotional. They don’t think about relationships as much or spend as much time dealing with how things make them feel. However, my son and I seem to be much more emotional and more aware of little nuances.
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MarthaandMe, Very true. Thanks for mentioning that point.
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Ben, thanks for this article and your informative follow-up comments. I think I’ll check out the book you recommended by Dr. Gottman. I’m looking forward to your next post exchange!
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My hubby has cried many times during our years together – I am not the source, thank goodness! When he is feeling stressed and starts thinking about his life he often cries over old pains and old wounds that creep back up from time to time. I just try to comfort him the best I can to make him feel better. I will say I am a fixer so sometimes I move to trying to fix it or trying to find a solution when oftentimes he just needs a shoulder.
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