(From the book 'Loving the Unhealed Man', available September 2020)
There will be times when you want his presence. In fact, there are probably very, very, few moments where you would rather not have it. There will be moments – many – when he is not giving it to you.
You may want to discuss a certain thing. You may just want attention for attention’s sake. You may want to connect deeply or experience a certain flavour of intimacy. You may want to share something that’s been weighing on your heart. You may want his opinion or clarity on how he feels about a certain matter. Or you may need his love and presence to fill up the wounded part of you that you cannot fill yourself; that feels like death for you unless ‘he’ is attending to it...
In all cases, he experiences this as “She needs something from me”.
And the key word there is ‘need’. To the unhealed man, this word lies at the root of his trauma. It was being needed in a way that was not his responsibility, that was impossible for him to be responsible for, that created his avoidance. This is largely what he is constantly trying to avoid.
And if he is energetically masculine at his core, then regardless of trauma, his mind is wired in such a way that it wants to give complete focus to one thing at a time.
Being sensitive to this, without abandoning yourself or your truth, is key to navigating communication with the unhealed man or anyone with a masculine core.
This means being very clear within yourself about what you are wanting and needing from him. Then being very clear with your communication about that.
Most importantly, is replacing the expectation that you will get what you want the moment you bring the issue to him, with the intention to request that he give you his presence at a time that works.
With something small, in theory, you should be able to simply ask him, “Honey, which one should I pick, this one or this one?” and get an answer from him on the spot.
But understand that the immediacy of the need for his attention is an unpleasant feeling in his nervous system. Even for something so small. On a subtle level, he may have a neutral emotional response to this. But more likely is that he feels a certain amount of resentment towards you for this immediate derailment, which will get stored up in the box within his subconscious labelled ‘Reasons Why She’s a Pain in the Ass’. When this box starts to get full with these minor infringements, it creates a deep disturbance within the relationship. It literally changes the way he sees you over time. And whenever he needs a justification for acting out-of-integrity or for being avoidant, this is the box he will reach into.
Whether his emotional response is neutral or negative to this immediate demand for his attention, one thing is absolutely certain – he will never be happy to have been asked this.
Using this same approach for bigger issues, such as matters to do with the direction of the relationship, whether he loves you or not or anything to do with his inner world, is a potential relationship killer. Indeed, demanding immediate access to someone’s inner world by expecting to have one’s enquiry into that part of them attended to on the spot is a sign of very low emotional intelligence.
Whether big or small, then, when requesting whether you can have his attention is everything.
Even with the small things, asking, “Honey, can I get your opinion about which thing to pick?” will land in a very different way in his nervous system. Because rather than a complete and immediate derailment to whatever track his mind is on in that moment, it gives him the choice to give some form of ‘no’ and carry on the track he’s on if he so wishes.
It may be with the small things that he’ll derail himself on the spot to give you his opinion, so it may seem trivial, but the gesture of requesting presence rather than demanding it is the difference between whether your exchange gets put in the resentment box or not.
For the big things then, the importance of giving him the time and space of choice, and the sense of freedom that affords him, is incredibly important.
Use the art of requesting not so as to walk on eggshells and avoid triggering or upsetting him, but out of a deep respect for how his inner world operates.
In fairness, there are certainly lessons for him to learn how to respect how your inner world works and consciously manage that resentment box.
But this book isn’t for him. It’s for you.
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