Men should ask for help, not fear being vulnerable, and trust people, all in the aim of living authentically, says Maureen Campion of Amanda Palmer’s Asking.
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I just finished Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking-How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. I strongly recommend the audiobook because you get to spend all that time with Amanda’s voice in your head and she shares a bunch of her music.
Amanda is rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED speaker (and she happens to be married to writer Neil Gaiman). The book is about asking for help, about being vulnerable, about trusting people and about living authentically. In lots of great ways it is about modern marriage. Much of my work as a marriage counselor is around the requests people keep to ourselves.
Want to build a powerful marriage? Ask 100 times a day. Kids build attachment to us because they need us, they have to ask. Like kids, we should come to the table asking for stuff and being open to creative negotiation. We have to understand that no is an acceptable response. We need to find the joy in being generous with yes. It isn’t just in bed that we need to ask for what we need and teach our partners how to make us happy.
Honorably asking
Honorably asking means being able to hear no. If you ask for 12 things a day and get six yeses, that’s a good day. If you only ask for two things, and if you wait and pick the two things that you really, really want, you aren’t really asking—you are demanding.
You don’t have space for a no if you only ask for the most important things.
Inside every criticism is a request. If you’re going to be late, would you call? Can you help me with the yard? Next time would you please? Do me a favor.
Asking is scary. Asking is vulnerable. If you ask, it means you have needs, it means that other people matter to you. Asking forces you to lean on others. If you ask, you face the possibility of being hurt or disappointed, rejected even. Not asking is so much safer.
I am working on this one. It is easier to ask strangers than those I love. It is easier to ask for stuff that doesn’t matter than the stuff I really want. It is easier to do it myself until I get resentful and overwhelmed. It is easier to be fiercely independent than powerfully connected. I have learned to notice when there is a request stuck in my throat or when I am drowning in my independence. I have learned to admit how hard it is to ask. I know that just because I love to be vulnerable and naked with my fans doesn’t mean that I am being honest with the people that love me.
Great marriages are built in the asking. Lean in and catch but also let go and trust that you will be caught.
Asking takes courage. Be bold. Be brave.
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-Photo: Amanda Hatfield/Flickr
This generation is clearly f*cked, the best you can hope for is grand cleaning of the slate. Remember most of today’s boy’s and young men grew up in a divorced household, and most were raised by single mothers and tv for the last 30 years or so. Where do you think they got the indoctrination from? he|| they hand out ad-hd meds like it is Halloween candy.
I do find it funny that feminism is all about shaming the guys, and railing against all things male, but they have failed to give up MANipulation.
As a man, If you ask for clarification from a female superior at work, you will labelled, dumb, draft, unmanageable and not a team player. Ask for help from your girlfriend, fiancee of wife and you will be seen as weak, milquetoast, indecisive, incapable or if you defer to her advice/decision you will be labelled the ‘Nice Guy’ and are on your way to being Next’d. As a Maureen, nobody would ever paint you like that.
I get that- and it sucks. How are we going to change things if it isn’t safe for men to ask for support? I think there is a powerful, leadership, connected way to ask for more. And I get that we don’t see men asking, therefore especially as a woman, as a partner it scares the hell out of us. We have to fight throug this gender bias. All I can say is that asking might be rough but not asking, not working on an assertive way to express yourself is more dangerous.