What Women Need to Know About Men, Relationships & His Emotions When Dating, Pursuing a Relationship
We live in a world where love, sex and relationships is the domination of all. Yes, we love our careers and want to be successful in our work lives, but I think we can all agree that most, if not all, want to find “the one” for them. This is why we have popular shows such as, Married At First Sight, Love at First Flight, For My Man, and the list goes on. All these shows have one thing in common—Americans and their quest to find true love, no matter what chance they have to take.
This also pulls me into the origin of this article. On the most recent season of Married at First Sight, the thing that I found was interesting is that all the women were professing that they were starting to fall for their husbands as decision day was approaching (which comes after 8 weeks and when the couples have to decide whether to stay married or not), and of course the women started getting emotional because their husbands weren’t ‘saying’ what they were saying, but in-hindsight, they were indeed feeling the same way.
I asked and researched around to get the men’s point of view to this “dilemma” that women have. We as women are very emotional by habit and we often verbally express how we feel, but men are not wired that way, and until we as women understand that, and I mean REALLY understand that, we will continue to be lost in our emotions and angry with our men over nothing.
So first things first, men actually do display their emotions. Let’s look at what some of our men had to say:
Men use actions.
“Words are cheap. Consistent actions convey the most information. Male emotionalism is at an all-time high. We don’t need more of it.” -Gerrold Young II
“Men are adept at expressing with actions over words. Non-verbal communication and body language is much more important when a man wants to express aggression, anger, frustration and even love. This is also why they are perceived to be non-expressive, as they can’t clearly state how they are feeling. They can only show it, if they want.” -GiSan MunTasir RiYad
Men express their feelings if they want a solution to it.
“Men tend to not talk about how they are feeling unless they want a solution from someone. When a man tells another man (or woman) about what’s bothering him, he’s not telling them the story because he wants them to listen to him. He’s telling them the story because he wants a solution to a problem that perplexes him.…When a woman tells another woman what she’s feeling or even a man, she’s generally not looking for someone to tell her how to fix it. She’s telling them because she just wants to feel understood and/or wants someone to vent to. The above is one of the key reasons I think couples tend to have misunderstandings. Men only communicate their feelings if they want a solution to something not if their just having a general bad day.” – Bradley Dunkin, (Been married nearly a decade)
Societal Norms have changed the way men ‘should’ express their feelings
“Because every time we do we are punished for it. Tell a girl you like her, she’ll laugh at you. Tell a girl that says she likes you that you’re really serious about her? She’ll run a mile. Tell a girl you’re in a relationship with, that you dislike how flirty she is with others? You’re an insecure, jealous asshole…Whatever we do, we cannot win. As a result, we push our emotions deep down inside ourselves as a coping mechanism. Women have always valued confidence above all else. Exposing any of your true feelings is going to make you seem extremely vulnerable. In a nutshell; women are repulsed by feelings. Honesty is never the best policy.” -Alex Ball
“Men learn by imitation or through experience which ways of expressing emotion, when, with whom, and about whom, are socially acceptable. Encouraging men to express their emotions differently and in different situations won’t work if the repercussions for doing so do not benefit them and might even harm them.
Apart from all of the societal conditioning described above, I think the biological part to your answer is that men might better process their emotions in ways that differ from women. Openly talking about emotions, etc. might relieve a woman, but many men would not feel relieved at all and might prefer doing an activity of some sort. I don’t claim that what I wrote is the gospel truth: it is just my perception, and I am open to feedback and welcome views and experiences that may make me reconsider what I wrote. – Erik Ceunen, Ph,D in Psychology
“I personally think men today are too emotionally driven. The feminist movement has pressed young men for the last 50 years to understand and empathize with the plight of women. Meanwhile, many women have no connection to the psychology and situations of men. In my opinion, stability and strength should be at the forefront of a man’s mind, more-so than his day to day moment to moment feelings. But if women would like to ease hesitancy for their men… a spirit of servitude (which is NOT a bad word ) usually helps in this regard. A man needs to know that he’s king (to his woman ). That’ll give your best results.” –Gerrold Young II
In conclusion.
I definitely agree with all the above statements, especially the action one. I’ve always been an action first type of person. Ladies, you’ve got to start paying attention to the actions of your man or the man that you are currently in pursuit with (exclusively dating). Actions will indeed tell you everything to where you won’t have to second guess, or guess at all for that matter. You’ll already know without asking. As women, I think we have the tendency to over analyze everything!
For example, texting. Women will over analyze something in a text message or something that is not sent back in a text. For one most guys already don’t like the phone and prefer to see you, so by them communicating with us daily or weekly through the phone (whether by text or phone call) I think that they are already doing us a favor by keeping us happy in the times apart—because at the end of the day they just rather see us and can’t wait until they see us again.
However, just because you say, “I miss you” in a text or some other mushy-gushy statement and he doesn’t reply back with one in response, does not mean he doesn’t miss you too. So, let’s stop over analyzing, please. It could definitely the death of a beautiful relationship if it continues.
Finally, the last statement that was made from one of the guys was for us to show servitude for our men, especially when we are getting pleased. Just as we as women like to feel like our man’s queen, our man also wants to feel like he is our king. Below are just a few simple ways that you can serve your man:
- Back massages, especially after he’s had a long work week/day
- Cooking dinner for him, suggest eating dinner in and if there’s not any food to cook, then take a field trip to the grocery store and pick up some items
- Do a chore for him (folding laundry, doing laundry, etc.)
- Pay the bill, just because and to show your appreciation for him (not because it’s his birthday)
- Plan a nice date for him doing something that you know he likes or always wanted to do but hasn’t gotten a chance to do it yet