Stop This Tragic Cycle In Your Relationship

Having no idea how to please her, he gives up, shrinks his hobbled feelings even more until he shuts down altogether. Relationship over.

By Bryan Reeves

Updated 9 years ago, May 31, 2016

I’ve discovered a tragic cycle in intimacy:

WOMAN routinely lets man know he’s “not enough” (doesn’t feel enough; not emotional enough; not expressive enough; often combined with he can’t get it/do it right).

Having no idea how to please her, he gives up, shrinks his hobbled feelings even more until he shuts down altogether.

Relationship over.

On the flip side…

MAN often tells woman she’s “too much” (too expressive, too emotional, too unpredictable, too whatever …) so she learns to shrink herself hoping that will make him love her, until eventually, tragically, she also becomes “not enough” (for him OR herself).

Relationship over.

Here’s an idea to end the insanity:

WOMAN, give the man space to feel however he feels (or doesn’t feel). Don’t blame or leave him because you’re frustrated he doesn’t know how to touch his feelings. He’s been taught since he was a boy not to touch those things, except with the little pole between his legs.

I know it’s hard for you when he doesn’t feel like you feel, but feeling is your feminine mastery, not his. Of course he’s capable, it just ain’t his primary nature and he’s not as practiced as you. But you can lead the way for him into discovery of his own feelings, NOT by admonishing him for not being as “good at feeling” as you are, but by honoring your own feelings fully, offering them to the relationship honestly WHILE also reassuring him repeatedly that he’s fully free to feel whatever he feels, too (or doesn’t feel).

MAN, stop telling her she’s too much for you (or the world). Yes, I know she often is too much for your more still nature. She knows she often is, too. But do your damn best to love her as she colors your relationship with all the expressive flavors of her wild heart. That’s what attracted you to her in the first place. Don’t tell her to squash it now that she’s in your presence all the time! Don’t make her more masculine like you!! She’s not your roommate or your buddy. She’s your woman!!

Let her decorate your life with whatever sparkly, capricious, confounding ways delight her. And reassure her repeatedly that you love the unending mystery of her, even when it frustrates the hell out of you…because if you’re loving her right, she WILL frustrate your mind right INTO HEAVEN!

In the end, I believe the best any of us can ever hope for is a partner who’s simply willing to keep showing up, who’s willing to learn how to do this wild dance of opposites with at least a little more grace and tenderness and flow and laughter and love than we experienced yesterday.