Ever wonder how a confident, powerful man loses his self-respect and the respect of his partner in his relationship?
Well, I can tell you. I see it everyday in the men I work with.
He loses that respect by not standing up –by not acting as a Warrior — for himself and what he cares about.
It usually starts out like it did for my client, Matt (innocently) under the guise of keeping the peace.
Matt mentioned in our session that his wife had called him a “lazy father.” It was obvious he didn’t think much of it.
“What did you say to her when she made that accusation?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just ignored her and went on with my day.”
“Do you agree that you’re a lazy father?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “not at all. In fact other fathers look up to me because I’m so engaged in my kids’ lives. I just didn’t want to get into it with her. Sometimes it’s easier to just let it go in one ear and out the other. “
In the same week, another client of mine was accused of not doing anything around the house. He was told: “You don’t do anything around here.”
I asked him, “Is that true that you don’t do anything around the house?”
“No,” he said. “I do a lot of the errands, and I cook dinner most nights.”
“So why didn’t you stand up to her?” I asked.
“Didn’t want to get into it with her,” he said, not missing a beat.
This male behavior is frustrating and sad.
It’s frustrating because it misses a beautiful opportunity for a man to teach a woman to relate to him with love and respect.
It’s sad because we women get lip service from you men, instead of your genuine engagement and interest in what is going on for us and what we need from you.
Many years ago I was in a relationship where I was the woman in the above scenarios – complaining to get my man’s engagement and attention.
My partner, like my clients, was often passive, wanting to avoid conflict with me, so he didn’t make the effort to discover what was really going on for me.
The more he was passive and avoidant, the louder my complaints got.
I wanted him to hear that something was off. I also wanted him to stand up — for himself and also to me.
What’s now clear is that my complaints were an attempt to express my fear: That I didn’t feel safe with him. I didn’t feel he was keeping his word or exercising proper integrity in our relationship, so I complained to bring his attention to those matters.
Since his mission was to keep the peace and avoid conflict, he didn’t come up against me (in a good way) — in a way that would have calmed my fears and helped to create confidence in him.
His avoidance told me I had good reason to be afraid.
When you don’t challenge a woman when she makes claims about you that may not be true, it demonstrates a lack of self-respect. It makes you look guilty and it teaches her to disrespect you – by default.
It’s also just lazy!
So I’m on a mission to get men to stand up – to women!
Now, let me clarify that I’m not encouraging men to become mean or aggressive, or to pick fights.
I’m encouraging you to stand up for yourself (calmly but firmly).
- Stand for what you care about — because it’s important. It’s particularly important when you fear your partner will not agree or approve of what you have to say. Those are the moments that truly demonstrate strength and courage.
- Ignoring a woman’s complaints, however invalid you think they are, does not demonstrate caring or respect for her, and it doesn’t earn you her respect.
It’s important to challenge her when it’s important
Hear her complaints as an opportunity to create safety and closeness. Doing so will build your Warrior muscle, your self-respect and her respect for you.
Photo: Getty
Ok, my biggest problem is this: why did you need him to be in conflict with you? Why did you throw insults at him (that it seems you knew weren’t even true) just to make him fight you? Is it not enough that your partner is on your side?
I’ve had this happen to me. I don’t want to fight against my partner, and I’ve resolved that if anyone else in my life in that capacity deliberately provokes me I’m out.
I am honest and say things at face value, and I expect the same from others.
Karen, I do appreciate your comments and efforts. You do care, and I agree that women want or need this on the surface. I have used your technique in my marriage for years. I am 56 yo. Yes, it does work somewhat for me. I am tenacious in applying it in a loving and respectful way. My wife and I have a good relationship. However, I would not recommend it for most relationships. You are really advocating for men to standup and lead again. That leadership role has been taken away from men through laws, education, courts, and society in… Read more »
My first reaction to this is go F yourself. If you’re the kind of spoiled woman (most American women are) that needs to create confilct out of thin air just to get your jollies, I don’t need to stand up to you, I need to leave you, because no matter how many times I stand up to you, you will just start another conflict. Plus you hold the vagina, so you can always withhold that whenever you feel like it, and you’re automatically have an unfair advantage, because you’re treating sex as a weapon. People in honest relationship don’t test… Read more »
Making up false accusations to get a reaction out of your husband is LYING. It’s deceitful, manipulative, childish, and grounds for me to dump you immediately. If someone is yanking my chain for selfish reasons (which is all you listed, BTW) I will ignore them. Their tempter tantrums don’t deserve a response. I will show you what I am by my actions, and if you can’t see it and respond appropriately, you don’t have enough integrity to be my partner. It’s as if women must have drama and conflict or they get bored. They’ll make it up if necessary. Well,… Read more »
By expecting a man to have to read between the lines and take control of the situation, and help you to feel safe and…, your asking him to take a position of superiority, and we all know that rarely goes over well with most women. What about true equality? What about taking responsibility as a woman, as an equal, to communicate on a mature level with your man. You want us to be the Warrior sometimes, and the gentleman another time, and the —another time, and yet the —another time. We are who we are, and just like you we… Read more »
When a man speaks on gender issues, there are bound to be contradictions and special exemptions for themselves. I know women do It! But women are more honest with female foibles (women are more apt to check another woman). Men tend to be more blind to their OWN and won’t correct another man when he is wrong on the subject of women. Bro code. “What about true equality? What about taking responsibility as a woman, as an equal, to communicate on a mature level with your man.” …is contradicted with this special childish standard for men… “More “Good Men” get… Read more »
This is like that movie where the guy hears women talking about what they want in an ideal man, and then he does those things and the relationship gets worse. Women often don’t know what they want. Sometimes, they are just crabby. But I do know that most of the time, letting the little nags and crap go works. Always. Of course, if there is something big, then talk — sometime after the event so all are coolheaded. Peace is paramount… That is a proven marriage secret.
Hey, thanks to all of you for responding. I hear you that it’s frustrating that a woman would say one thing and mean another. It’s not that women want to hurt men or to be manipulative, it’s that our style of communicating is often more passive — in the sense of not being direct. We’re trying in our feminine way to sound alarms without confronting you. What I think most of you are missing here (from what I’ve read in your responses) is this article was intended to empower men! To say: you don’t have to take crap. You can… Read more »
Actually, the frustration is not so much about that a woman would say one thing and mean another. It is more about the barrage of articles and messages that they are entitled to do so, because whatever the excuse-of-the-day is. And instead of her taking responsibility, we are told that we should just accept it, deal with it, and continue to cuddle her ego about it. “I’m well aware that complaining and sounding alarms is not the best way to get a man to listen up, or wrap you in his arms, but it happens to be what a lot… Read more »
The frustration is the very gendered nature of such advice.
In one breath we as men are told that women don’t owe us anything (in fact there are a few articles here at GMP that make that very point) but in the next breath men are given a list of what we owe to women.
You would have a hard time convincing me that if this were gender swapped you would be supportive of such advice.
“It’s important to challenge her when it’s important” Well, duh. You could re-write that to “It’s important to acknowledge that she’s doing stupid stuff when she’s doing stupid stuff”. But that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, I guess. And of course women never do stupid stuff. It’s just us men who miss that small part of the brain where 1+1 is sometimes 3 and sometimes minus fifty-eleven. Every time, every day that I’ve got “stuck” reading on this site, I go to bed feeling a little bit worse about myself as a person. Because I haven’t got… Read more »
The reason why that is is that women hold the advantage in a relationship. Early on the guy has usually invested more (asking her out, paying for dates, etc.). Later on he knows the court system is against him (child support, custody issues, etc.) That doesn’t even count the fact that if she accuses him of anything, he’s pretty much screwed. Fight is a losing proposition so they pick flight. I’m not sure you’re right about women “respecting” a guy wither. I think it goes back to that guys don’t open up thing. Women have an issue with it until… Read more »
Maybe it’s because I’m not married and therefore probably hopelessly naive, but it seems like NOT denigrating your partner just to get a reaction would bypass this whole process.
It’s sad because we women get lip service from you men, instead of your genuine engagement and interest in what is going on for us and what we need from you. Do you know why you get that lip service? Because genuine attempts at engaging are seen as inherently mean, aggressive, and borderline violent (even now some places consider raising your voice to be domestic violence, oddly though only when men raise their voices to women…). You may want to disagree with that but that’s largely because you’re not a man that’s constantly bombarded with messages about how you are… Read more »
Danny, You hit that nail squarely on the head. I agree, women complain about men being closed off and non-communicative. What men want is a feminine presence to counter their masculine self. What we too often get is a woman complaining. Why don’t women just say what they mean. Instead of complaining about the toilet seat was left up, why not “honey I don’t feel close enough to you, come her, give me a hug, I love you”. Wouldn’t that be nice instead of the escalation in complaints most men hear “you’re not like husband”, or “a real man would… Read more »
You are not encouraging men to become mean or aggressive, or to pick fights.
Yet you say nothing about women who fabricate accusations and try to pick fights just to try and draw his attention to a totally unrelated issue?
It didn’t work out for you, and it doesn’t work out for any of the women who come to you with the same complaint. Yet it is as always the men’s fault for not reacting “properly” to your issues…
Its Ray Rice all over again. She hits him, spits at him, and pushes him around. He retaliates violently. Whats the response?
Ray Rice is an abuser that doesn’t respect women.
Its the man’s fault for not reacting properly to a woman attacking him and that woman is not accountable or responsible for her own actions. But oddly if you swap the genders suddenly a woman shouldn’t be held responsible for getting violent with a man that’s attacking her.
(Mind you this isn’t exactly what Karen is talking about but I do think its related.)
Sounds good in theory but in many cases will have negative results. “Avoid conflict” is a reality. To keep peace and by all means attempt to avoid a potentially volatile situation. In the two scenarios you presented, the women’s “perception” was off … I have to wonder why she had that perception in the first place. Why do women see these men, men who obviously are not how their women see them, see them the way they do? You Said “What’s now clear is that my complaints were an attempt to express my fear: That I didn’t feel safe with… Read more »