It’s been a long time since I have posted anything on this blog, but here goes. I have been real busy and part of that busyness is writing a book about the need for men to get in touch with their emotions, to take off the masks that keep us stuck in hiding our heart, emotions. Most of us have women in our life that want us to open up that emotional side. In my counseling office many women have said in one way or another, “I wish he would talk to me about his emotions!” My response is of course encouragement that they are on the right track in thinking we need this, but then I ask them, “How many men have you heard who were in conversation and one said to the other,’I’m really feeling sad John and I’d like to tell you about it’.”
If this is true that many men don’t even know what emotions they feel how could they ever fulfill the most common unfulfilled need of most women? In twenty-seven years of counseling, the most common expectation of women is to “Improve communication!” in our relationship. Eventually it comes to “He doesn’t listen.” It’s important to mention that she doesn’t want him to listen with a mind to fix her problems, she wants him to empathize with her, to understand her. To show empathy to someone we must be able to communicate understanding not only logically, but most of all walk in her shoes with a feeling for her emotions. The problem is we don’t speak that language.
There’s a lot more details to this dilemma and women need to understand that most men have been trained like special forces soldiers to shut down our emotions. It’s not the norm for us to even know what we feel let alone be able to communicate them.