For all couples that come to me for help there seems to be a confusion surrounding the roles of men and women in relationships.
Of course it’s not for me to tell couples what to do and how to live their lives, but there are some core behaviours that when in place make a significant difference.
One of the most successful behaviours is helping the man to feel like he is the security in the relationship. Women want this and so do the men. But their is confusion as to what secuity actually means and this causes problems. For example: Many men see their role is to create money and this is the fix for creating security. The money makes him feel like a man.
Whilst on some level this is true, the money is a security it’s actually a weak substitute for what she really wants.
Some men feel that because he told her he loved her last year, she should know he does. He says, “you know I love you don’t you!?”
You see his version of security and hers is totally different. This is why problems are so common.
One of the things she wants is this: At the point she is in emotional pain and fearful of the future she can turn to him for love and certainty in the way she wants.
Most men struggle with this because of the way she presents her pain, this could be shouting, moaning, pulling love away.
In reaction to this men get upset. In other words become emotional. At the moment he does this she sees his fear and she has to get strong to look her and some women end up looking after him.
This creates fear for her because now she is the strength in the relationship and this disconnects her and so their intimacy dies.
When I ask men to love her through the pain she is in [I teach men how to do this – there is a specific way it needs to be done] his normal reaction is to ask, so what her role? What is she going to do for me?
He has now shown me that he wants to create a trade. Trading in relationships is guaranteed to kill intimacy the last thing he wants.
The sign of an amazing man in a relationship is one that does not feel the need to judge his partners reactions, what he focuses on is the pain she is in and he loves her through her pain thus becoming her security.
What this does is ignites the energy back into the relationship. She feels safe to become herself again and her desire to give to her man becomes massive and automatic.
BUT to give, especially intimately she has to feel safe. When a man becomes this security for her, he becomes that amazing man she saw in him when they first met.
The man she always hoped he would be!