8 Emotional Lessons Women Teach Men
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Sometimes it can feel like women are the caretakers of emotions–both of our own, and of the men with whom we’re romantically involved. While men are certainly becoming progressively more comfortable getting in touch with their feelings and behaving emotionally, it’s really only been considered hot when a man cries for…what…twenty years?
Let’s be honest; that’s not enough to undo centuries of the conditioning men underwent to stifle their emotions and see feelings as weaknesses. We still have a lot of work to do, which is probably why most women in heterosexual relationships end up teaching their men these emotional lessons.
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Being close = feeling close
I’m usually the one to point out when a week will be so busy that my boyfriend and I probably won’t get to see each other. I’ll pester him at the beginning to have us sit down in front of our calendars and find one hour we both have free to spend together. My boyfriend will insist, “Let’s not stress it. It’s just a week–we’ll figure it out.”
Then he feels distant
Deciding not to be the nagging girlfriend begging for time with my partner, I let it go. I know how life goes, and we will probably not get to see each other that week. And then low and behold four or five days in I get the call from him: “Baaabbe. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. How did this happen?” Uh-huh. My boyfriend has started to learn that if we are going to feel emotionally close, we have to be physically close, and sometimes that takes scheduling.
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It’s better to talk it out
The majority of my male friends, when experiencing a problem, would rather drink it out, jog it out, box it out, X-box it out–or do just about anything than talking it out. I usually hear some excuse like, “I don’t want to let that issue take up any more of my mental space than it deserves.”
I say, “If you don’t talk it out, it will just get worse…”
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Then, it takes over all of their mental space
Eventually, the guy will have a total meltdown, or get way too upset about something tiny because he didn’t talk out the bigger issue. Whether we like it or not, people or circumstances that are bothering us only get larger if we don’t address them head on. I seem to have taught several men that.
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Then, he feels sick
Nobody can outrun their mental and emotional health. Every man I’ve known who thought he could hole up for months, avoiding all socializing while he completed a goal eventually had a nervous breakdown before he could complete it. Anxiety, depression, nervousness or just general feelings of being unwell settled in. Socializing is critical for your emotional health, which is in turn critical to any goal you want to complete. Women seem to understand that a bit better than men do.
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Most fights aren’t worth picking
My male friends tend to be more comfortable with confrontation than my female ones. We could all afford to meet somewhere a little more in the middle on that. But for now, we’re talking about men. Men tend to speak their mind, right away, with little filter, regardless of with whom they’re speaking. It can often earn them respect, but it can also get them in trouble. I had a boyfriend whose arm I constantly had to squeeze under the table when I knew he was going to pick an argument with somebody. He insisted and insisted that he would never regret giving his opinion. Until one day he lost a job over it. And it did not feel worth it.
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If you know you’re right, then sometimes that’s all that matters
I had to teach that boyfriend that, unless it would actually affect his life in some way, it didn’t matter if somebody disagreed with him. Sometimes blurting out your opinion only burns bridges, gets you nothing, and doesn’t change the other person’s opinion one bit. If you know in your mind that you are correct, sometimes that has to be enough. I used that mentality in my arguments with that exact boyfriend a lot too.
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Leaning on somebody can feel really good
So many men are afraid of opening up to a woman, even if they really care about her (and even love her). I cannot tell you how many of my male friends are secretly crazy about a woman, and that woman has no idea because they don’t want to “Give her the power” or some BS like that.
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And if you don’t lean, she’ll leave
Many of those same game-playing men have had those women nearly leave them. Why? Because the woman would tell them, “I have no idea how you feel about me. Am I even that important to you?” Yikes. Those men hadn’t held onto their power; they’d just driven the woman away. So, they had to lay it all out on the table (aka be vulnerable) or lose her. Some of them did, and they never regretted it. Some didn’t, and now they’ll never know what could have been.
There is value in painful experiences
I don’t know if it’s a pride thing, but a lot of men I know refuse to talk about or look back on painful experiences. If they do, they become bitter and angry that things didn’t turn out the way they’d hoped. “Don’t you think you learned something from it? Or that it made you stronger?” I always ask. “No. It just sucked” they usually say.
When that experience returns…
Eventually, a similar experience or set of circumstances like that painful one in the past comes back. And men realize, “Oh. I know how to handle this better now because I’ve already been here.” And a lightbulb goes off. There is value in painful experiences and even more value in analyzing them.
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Sex is highly emotional
I’m not saying every session in the sack has the makings of a romance novel page, but I am saying that there are hundreds of thoughts and feelings that happened that day that allowed that moment to happen. I’ll be clearer; sometimes I don’t enjoy sex with my partner because I’m preoccupied thinking about how pissed off I am at my coworker. “That’s got nothing to do with this” is what I’ve had a partner say.
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They learn as the relationship goes on
When a relationship is new, men are usually still so excited about you that they’re willing to forget about stress in their life, and fully get into sex. However, once men become more comfortable with a woman, they let their attention go back to the other parts of their life more. The excitement of new love is no longer there to distract them from an issue at work or in their family and even they, too, cannot get that into having sex.
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Listen to us
That might be the most valuable emotional lesson any of my boyfriends has ever learned; when it comes to handling your emotions, listen to women. We know a thing or two about this arena. We’ve been far more comfortable playing in it for much longer than you have.
