Many of you have told me your man is….less than a good listener, kinda crappy at deep conversation and conflict resolution, not great at being open about his true feelings, and...shall we say, not always focused on doing what he said he would ”try to do better at”--like ...washing the dishes, or speaking in a kinder tone to the kiddos. Said another way, many men are not as emotionally mature, responsible, open and loving as we women want them to be. If that’s a complaint you have, you’re in good company. And it IS...ahem... frustrating, to say the least. There are big cultural reasons for this, which I delved into in last week’s interview on my podcast (if you missed it, it’s worth a focused listen, here!) BUT: men’s unskillfulness in the ways of deep connection does not mean you have to settle for a poor disconnected marriage! There is much we women can do to support our men to evolve in ways that are best for all of us--you, him, and our world as a whole. It starts with SAFETY. It’s just non-negotiable for deep love and lasting connection. Now, one of the most powerful things that I’ve learned is that we lead with our energy. We create our relationship with what we bring to it. In other words: what we put out there gets reflected back to us. (I kind of love the woo, but this is science!) So in the most obvious sense, creating a relationship with him full of safety comes in part from your genuine kindness, respect, appreciation and care for him. (Assertiveness, and putting your foot down have their role, too. If you missed my recent email on When to be Pushy, go read it. It’s important!) But there’s a less obvious, equally essential truth: When you feel deeply safe and at peace with all parts of yourself, your partner will be much more able to feel more safe and at peace in himself...and the relationship.
Whaaaat? Why?
One basic and common way this works is that when you need him to do certain things to “make you” feel safe or loved or approval-worthy (because you haven't learned to do that for yourself, so you naturally outsource that job to him), he won’t always get it right.
You will then be disappointed in him. And it will come out in some way. This pushes on his shame and insufficiency buttons. Which does not feel safe to him.
He will try to protect himself by defending fiercely or withdrawing into himself, far from where you can reach him.
In other words, your need for him to be a certain way with you so you can feel safe leads to a lack of safety in him.
But when you are already steeped in deep safety inside yourself…
….when you can drop your own self-judgement and see the wholesomeness in the parts of yourself you used to reject, or labeled as bad, and tried to bury away...
...when you know how to feel safe with even the most challenging emotions that may come up in you, and can be with them the way you would hold a baby bird in your own soft hand...
... when you know how to swim your way out of the deep dark waters of self-judgement and shame, back into the safe embrace of your own fierce care...
...You naturally effortlessly bring the same to him. You don’t shame him. You don’t buy into your judgments of him. You don’t NEED him to be your source of safety. (Because you are it!). You accept him as the human he is. So he can just be him. So he can feel safe to be him. And therefore safe to love you--all of you-- fully. Because love is birthed in and blossoms in safety. In this way, you create a culture of deep accepting safety in your marriage, in your home. Where your whole self is welcome and loved just as you are. Where, also, your partner's full self is safe to come out, in the safety of your loving, all encompassing genuine love. The cherry on top of all this is that he may just be inspired to develop that deep internal safety you’ve developed in yourself… cause it’s contagious, like a yawn… He is a reflection of you. Of your energy. Of how you show up. What you judge in yourself, you will judge in others... and you will be judged FOR. So this means doing your work on YOU. Shining a light onto the places shame and self-judgement seize you. (And we HSPs, like any neuro-atypical people, often have a lot of it to wade through!) It means freeing yourself from its sticky grip. To create an environment of loving safety inside yourself. We cannot create healing in our marriage if we ourselves are not in the process of healing ourselves. And YOU ARE in that process, otherwise you wouldn't have read this far! The thriving of your marriage, and of our society as a whole, relies on you continuing, and deepening, that healing. When you come coach 1:1 with me, together we will build the most solid loving foundation of safety inside you, so you become a natural at creating extraordinary loving connection with your man that strengthens and deepens more and more over time.
It’s time to finally give yourself what your heart has been wanting for so long now...You don’t have to keep trying to figure it out all alone. I am here to get you there. Grab a spot on my consult calendar here to chat about our work together.