As a man in a relationship with a feminine partner, you will have experience how her emotional sensitivity and expression is far stronger, more unpredictable and expressive than your own. For men or anyone embodying the masculine pole in a relationship, knowing how to handle and respond to this can be one of the most difficult aspects of being in a relationship.
In this article I give you a detailed overview for ways to respond to the chaotic storm of the feminine: her emotion turmoil, her upset, her criticism - no matter how outlandish or skewed it appears.
All the ways you unconsciously reactive and make things worse
I first of all want to state that there is a marked difference between reacting and responding to someone’s emotions. Reactivity is largely unconscious, impulsive and will have patterns according to how our childhood was with our primary caregivers. Response on the other hand is conscious and deliberate; it looks to act in the most constructive way possible in the moment in order to avoid escalation.
So, before moving onto responding, I want to highlight some very common ways us men react to our partner’s emotional outburst:
DEFENSIVENESS
This is explaining why you’re not the problem, how it wasn’t your fault, that they’re over-reacting or their perception is wrong.
TRYING TO FIX IT
Although well intentioned, trying to fix the problem out right, before truly being with your partner's emotions, is a sure-fire way to keep her in her pain. This comes from a masculine drive to find solutions. Itself positive! Just not appropriate in such cases.
STONE-WALLING
This is going silent, closing down, refusing to be cooperative and passing judgement without verbalizing it. This is active passive aggression and is possibly one of the most enraging and painful reactions for a feminine partner to experience when she wants you to receive her in her emotional condition.
WITHDRAWAL
This can be accompanying stone-walling: it’s when you literally leave the space as soon as your partner is emoting. This comes from your own lack of capacity to feel fully & be with your own emotions (& perhaps shame around your own emotions), therefore you perceive other's emotions as intolerable. Nothing is more painful for the feminine than being dropped so. It shouts directly that he doesn't care.
Caveat here is that yes, in certain situations it is appropriate. Like when your partner is being abusive and violent. Check out this article here to know this distinction better and how to deal with it.
FREEZE
Similar to stonewalling, but it isn’t being passive aggressive. And it’s similar to withdrawal, yet you stay in the space whilst tuning out to what's being expressed. This can come from your nervous system not being able to handle what's being expressed and going into a 'freeze' mode.
Again, this can also come from you being out of touch with your own emotions and expression - i.e. not having learned to fully be with the embodied experience of your own emotional charge, thus you suppress those ‘dangerous’ emotions in yourself and are quick to shut down wherever else they pop up in your life (i.e. within your partner).
FAWNING
Like shutting down, but rather than going into a freeze response, you simply concede to harmonizing and placating. This can look like being over apologizing in a sycophantic way. This is a conditioned pattern that is acquired in childhood: it was safer to harmonize and for-go yourself rather than to engage in whatever threat was prevalent.
MINIMIZING & GASLIGHTING
Here you make the issue out to be less significant, or try to convince her isn't an issue at all, all so you can control her emotions & have your peace. This is self-centered and manipulative, and has no regard for your partner's individual experience.
How to avoid reacting to our partner’s emotions
Okay with that all being clear, let’s turn to the better way to handle the intensity of her emotional storms. What do we as men then do do about it? So many of these reactive patterns are deeply ingrained, and subconscious mechanisms.
Ultimately it is better to feel through it with her, than to run or try and rationalize your way out of it. As GS Youngblood points out so rightly, “feelings first, facts later”. It's better to first empathize fully, regardless of the facts. Things can always be cleared up later on. If you can live by that, you’re relationship is about to get a hell of a lot smoother.
So, learn to empathize better. Don’t make what she is experiencing about you or dictate how you must feel. Be grounded so you can listen & be fully present. Doing so allows her to feel seen & heard, and thus processs whatever is coming up more easily. You can do this by deepening your breath and cuing into the subtle expressions of her body. That require a certain presence and sensitivity.
Now, if you are self-aware enough to see that in fact you’re not capable of handling what’s being thrown at you, that it's better to communicate that early and state you need a moment to center before being able to be fully present. And even better, offer a time when you can be with her fully to work through whatever it is.
But, beyond those approaches, as a man you must first train yourself to manage stress. That is, to be with a high arousal state whilst staying grounded and open to the situation arising before you.
This actually needs to happen outside moments of relating. You must intentionally build resilience in your life. Seek out calibrated stress & consciously work on metabolizing it without shutting down. The same with having self-restraint against blindly over-indulging in base pleasures.
You've heard it before: yes, it is training the nervous system; it is training will power; it is training discipline and awareness. So, anything in your life that helps you train those, will transfer. Believe me. Martial arts, lifting, cold showers, breathwork, fasting, extended meditation.
The more you give into seeking instant gratification, seeking comfort and emoting without self-awareness, the more that'll be your homeostasis, the more you will tell your subconscious that this is the norm, and the more you react to your partner's emotions.
Only closure, mistrust, blame & resentment come from that place. Beyond your own comfort or sense of righteousness, stay present & emotionally attentive. It doesn't come naturally to most men, but it needs to be experience to be known that this is by far the fastest way to what you want.
Being grounded allows responsiveness, which creates safety, which creates depth.
Reactivity is weaker in comparison to response. The stimulus over-powers you and you do not act intentionally out of choice, but rather out of fear - fear of the perceived pain, of feeling your women’s emotions.
Being grounded, presence and the ability to regulate your nervous system is what will allow for that space between stimuli and reaction to open up - a space where you can make a constructive choice aim towards magnifying love in that given moment.
And you can only be grounded once you have practiced being fully present to whatever discomfort arises in your body without wanting to turn and run. This is being grounded. It is a degree of equanimity amidst all that arises within you.
When you can meet a women in her emotional storm from that place, she will seen, felt, and you’ll give the space to express her emotion - again, without judgement or fear. Any reactive behavior from the above list is the opposite of that: it is shutting her down.
As a man embodying the masculine pole in a relationship, it is our job to lead her back into her feminine heart-space. She does actually want to be causing the emtional drama she might often create. And half the time it is an unconscious test to see whether you’ve the strength and kindness to handle her in appropriate ways.
Because when you demonstrate that capability, she begins to trust you more and more, and the relationship deepens. Doing so will create emotional safety and have her open to you. So, next time, see it for what it is: an opportunity for creating depth of connection, not a nuance that needs to be avoided.
Learning to not to get sucked into or reactively jump ship at his partner's emotional drama, is the cornerstone of a man becoming a safe, trusted companion.
Emotional Storms: heart-centered verus toxic abuse
Now, handling her emotional storm must never be confused with putting up with abuse. There is a fine line between the two, but it is essential to mark this difference and become aware of when it’s happening and to have the ability to uphold a boundary against.
All too often men are putting up with abusive, toxic behavior in the name of ‘polarity’. No, it’s not polarity, it’s toxic. And on the same note, this is not denying the various ways toxic masculine behavior is pardoned by poorly interoperated polarity teachings. Check out my other article here where I explain this in more depth.
Comentários