If you’re just popping into this article now, it may benefit you to start at the beginning by reading ‘When A Great Man Stops Loving You’ so you can get the full understanding of the process from beginning to end.
In my last article I covered how we can enter a relationship with a man and it be great in the beginning and then it seems to decline in needs going unmet, less romance and him no longer seeming interested in us or the relationship. Everything feels more of a push/pull, maybe a power struggle, or a feeling that you are no longer in partnership, a feeling of alone in the relationship - some or all of these may be true. Whatever it is, the relationship changed from what it was and something is telling you that it isn’t just the honeymoon phase being over. It’s more than that.
First off, you are asking yourself, has he stopped loving me? Likelihood if you are still together the answer is ‘no’, he hasn’t stopped. I use that language because it’s possible that it feels like he has stopped loving you. If you have an anxious attachment style, you are likely caught up in all the ways he doesn’t want to be with you and constantly reaching out for more of his attention and nit picking which is likely pushing him away, because how you are doing it is emasculating him further - a form of punishment. If your attachment style is more avoidant, his response to you has probably meant that you have started pulling away more, closing down and shutting him out even more - withdrawal as a form of ‘punishment’ for what you are seeing as his ‘bad behaviour’ - because you avoid intimacy and conflict this tactic is your most likely one. These methods are done unconsciously. Only now beginning to read these articles are you starting to understand what you have done and I will also get onto possibly why you did it too (in a future article).
Here in this article I’m going to share how you did it. How you stopped a great man from loving you. I will also share some of my own learnings and be honest and open about what I did too. The main people I will reference here are Federico my ex-husband and Will, my ex-partner (names changed to protect their identities online).
So, here goes…
Federico and I met in Italy and although not overly affectionate, only now that I look back with fresh eyes and full understanding of who he is, only now am I seeing how much love that man offered to me.
When we were living in different countries at the beginning of the relationship, Valentine’s day came along and because we lived so far away I had hoped and assumed that he would send me something. He didn’t. From my very deep disappointment I expressed to him this. Within a week or so an MP3 player arrived at my home with some songs on there that he wanted to share with me. A modern-day mix tape. I loved it! What a beautiful gift to receive. And although I appreciated that gift, there was also a part of me which felt resentful - he should have known anyway to send me something earlier. I shouldn’t have to tell him. And although I thanked him for the gift I also made it very clear how upset I was about this. Not even realising or acknowledging that I had never communicated that this would be important to me. My disappointment and how I voiced it, with frustration, was the first step towards emasculating Federico.
I eventually went to go and live with him in Italy and it was there that things began to ramp up. He tried so hard to ensure that I was supported with finding work, getting settled, adapting to a new life culturally, emotionally and financially. Whatever he did though was never enough - and I let him know it. I never shared appreciation for his efforts. There was a certain ‘expectation’ from me of what he should and shouldn’t do. And if I’m going to be really honest, with a sense of entitlement and arrogance. ‘I have chosen to move here to be with you and I deserve to be supported in the way I want.’
Some ways that I emasculated Federico and that you might be doing too…
I never shared with him thanks or appreciation - as I already wrote above, for me there was this sense of expectation and entitlement, and, it never seemed to be enough or in the way I wanted it - even more making him feel not enough and not good enough. The times that he did do something, instead of recognising the thought, care and attention he had paid to it, I looked for the ways in which he ‘didn’t understand me’, ‘he didn’t do it in the way I would like’. This meant that I was gradually pushing him away. Telling him that what he was doing wasn’t enough.
Controlling what he did and how he did it, as though I couldn’t trust that he could do it the way I wanted, whether that be gift buying, date planning or doing the cleaning, needing to have the control, over time damaged his self-confidence.
I would never share with him ways that I admired him. Always looking instead for the opposite - the ways that he could do or be more. He had a lot of gifts and intelligence that I respected but instead of acknowledging those and sharing them, I chose instead to focus on the places he was lacking - his job wasn’t good enough, his income wasn’t good enough (another way women emasculate men), he should do more, be more. I struggled to accept him for who he was and even notice the varying attributes he brought to my life and our relationship.
I didn’t trust him to make the right decisions. When he made mistakes (which we all make) I would get frustrated and make him aware of them. Whether that was how he was cleaning the bathroom or making a mistake with the shopping, I would let him know my disapproval. In fact, often what I did is take over something I gave him to do. He would start a task and if it wasn’t down how I wanted or as quickly as I wanted I would go and finish it myself.
I pointed out frequently where he wasn’t doing enough - around the house, in the way he did chores, how he organised time with his parents. I found anything and everything to criticise and blame. He would sometimes, due to having a lot on his plate, forget something - which then became a place of banter - at his expense.
Frequent dismissive words, passive aggressive comments, side-glances, eye rolls, huffing and puffing, put downs, impatience to name a few of the other ways I emasculated Federico. Comments about housework, his financial situation - I found plenty to find fault with. For men, comments on what they are earning and it not being enough can be extremely difficult to hear. In times when for most families 2 people are required to work and women are beginning to climb the financial ladder, there are more men, who once saw themselves as provider, who now don’t have that role. Naming it can be extremely hurtful and damage their relationship to their masculinity.
For the most part they weren’t really severe - they were little digs of frustration. Small comments. Quips. Remarks. Over time though, they build up, and each one is like a dagger to the chest.
And the thing is, I see a lot of women doing it too.
In the supermarket, exclamations and eye rolls as the husband picks up the wrong brand of beans ‘you know we don’t eat those’ voiced with an air of irritation.
Comment sections on Facebook which laugh at the expense of men for not having ‘common sense’ around the house. Attacks of men being ‘lazy and unmotivated’.
Many of us also have expectations that men should be walking around behaving like women. That when they do things that we don’t understand or don’t do it how we would, that in fact it makes them wrong. The other option could be curiosity - ‘why has he done it this way?’
Blowing off their suggestions or ideas is a way I see many women take away a man’s power. Also interrupting them or shutting down their storytelling. In essence the various ways that a woman stops a man from speaking, belittles his shares or indirectly saying we don’t want to listen, don’t care or aren’t interested. I know what will come in here in response with ‘whataboutery’ - mansplaining - quite often I have been frustrated with this too. However, as I learn and understand men, I am seeing this totally different and will share in a future article in this series what this is.
Women who laugh at dismiss or mock men for their passions and don’t show interest or support. Some women instead look for ways to bring the attention back onto themselves rather than encouraging and seeing their hobbies and interests as a way to understand men and learn about them - particularly their own partner.
Mothering men, including young boys to the extent that they feel smothered, feel treated like a child, controlled, he no longer challenges your methods, he can’t seem to make decisions and/or he expects to be waited on are all signs that you have mothered him into being childlike - as he has given up being a man and being in his own power.
Ignoring them, pushing away their advances (in a non-loving supporting way and never having a conversation around sex and when best to have it, avoiding the conversation completely), and removing the ‘fun’ from the relationship are ways that women withdraw, pull away and disconnect from men as a means of punishment and emasculation.
I see men doing kind gestures for women, sharing kind words or offering them things and they shut them down by not believing the sincerity of the action or words. They then voice that the men have done it for an ulterior motive - that they aren’t being true. Yes, of course, it can happen that the smallest percentage of men do have an element of entitlement or ulterior motive. However, 95% of men are doing the thing because they want to impress you or genuinely want to make your life easier - because that makes them happy - seeing you happy. By not receiving that, we push them away and deflate them.
When a man tries to do something to impress you such as by sharing an achievement or by doing something for you, when you put him down, ignore it or make light of it, this feels like a strong rejection. Men so desperately want to impress us. Impressing us is them showing us that they choose us. That they respect us and in return want to honour that respect by making you aware of their presence. By not responding to their attempts at impressing us, it is in the same theme of not showing appreciation or admiration. Many men also want to do things, acts of service or other as a way to impress us, by not giving them the opportunity to do so we are removing their sense of feeling good about themselves, feeling loved by you and also feeling chosen by you too.
I have experienced with male clients their absolute pain when they have shared words, gestures and facial expressions around their virility or ‘sexual performance’ from women - whether that be in private or ‘joking’ with friends. This is extremely cutting for men and quite often a large part of their identity as men and how they relate to their masculinity.
A phrase I hear a lot from women in the modern age is ‘I don’t need a man’. And, in all fairness, this is true. Women can make their own money, buy their own house, do all the things that men can do in this world - so in practical terms this is absolutely true. However, if you are telling men you don’t need them or you are meeting them with this energy, what role or purpose do they have? The feeling of being discarded and on the scrapheap - especially when men acknowledge that they absolutely do need women in their lives.
When I began doing my own inner-work I began to notice the stories I had in my head about what Federico was or wasn’t doing. I was making his ‘bad behaviour’ mean something about me, or who I was or how he felt about me. Inner-child work led me to understand that actually, Federico was very likely having a similar human experience to me. I began to see him as less of an enemy and began to change how I communicated. I started to trust more what he could and couldn’t do. I relaxed and let go. Surrendered.
With Federico I learned to share so much more respectfully what I wanted and much of my work with women around getting men to use more initiative around the house came from my own personal learnings and changing how I spoke to my own husband.
However, when I moved onto a relationship with Will, although I had learned to communicate in gentler and nicer ways, I had assumed that the emasculation had stopped. Upon reflection and due to my most recent studies and learnings, I have reflected that the emasculation was still there. But so much more subtly.
There were still the the little criticisms - although they weren’t shared with passive aggressive comments, I was still wanting him to ‘listen to me in this way’, sharing with him how I felt (negative emotions) around some of the things he was doing. The same message that Federico had received I was still passing onto Will - you aren’t good enough.
The difference with Will and Federico is that Will had better boundaries. He spoke up frequently that all of this was affecting him and how he did’t feel good enough. I was following a lot of men’s coaches - coaches who support men. They were all saying that men need to be better space holders for women, that men have the ‘not good enough wound’ that is affecting their relationships and they need to heal from that because it stops women sharing their truth. And although a certain element of this is true - there is also, how we do it which is important. Even my training in communication with couples, I was beginning to understand that what I was teaching was suitable for women to receive - but not men. They needed to hear it, sure, but the delivery needed to be different - if not, it emasculated them.
Will received a lot of my shares as complaints and criticism, which, if I'm honest, underneath all of that they were. And with the complaints and criticism was the message ‘you are not enough’. I did try frequently to say, 'it’s not that you are a bad person and I want to change you, it’s that I would like the behaviour to be different.’ Which for men still interprets as ‘you are not enough’.
Some of the ways I emasculated Will was comparing him to other men. ‘Look at this men’s coach, he explains how to hold space for a woman, you need to do it like this.’ I would say how I shared vulnerable parts of myself with my husband and he could hold it, and pointed out that Will didn’t. It was never intentional to emasculate Will in this way - I just wanted him to see that what I was asking for is possible if he just applied himself. Me showing I was impressed by how other men were able to do it affected how he felt about himself.
A really big one for Will was my lack of trust. My past wounds of being let down by men and having been cheated on I brought to the relationship. Will showed up very differently to how those boyfriends had, in the way he loved and cared for me, however, that frightened and wounded part of me couldn’t let and go and continually saw Will as someone not to be trusted, that he too might cheat. Pushing him away even further. And trust doesn’t need to look like cheating. Not trusting can also be when we don’t trust they will do something or show up, when we voice we don’t have faith in their abilities or capacities.
There will be some of you reading this experiencing a lurch in the stomach as you realise, ‘oh my god, I do this too and didn’t realise’, some of you that realise ‘yes, I do this too, but I feel justified because of X, Y or Z’ then others who will deny it and blame the other party - that are hung up on how men are or aren’t doing things and ‘if he changed first then I wouldn’t feel like this’. This article is for the women in the first and second category - not the third. The reason being is that we can spend all our lives getting angry and frustrated at not being understood, blaming others for how we are treated. However, if information comes to light that shows that you can build better relationships - why not use it? The choice not to, generally comes from a place where it’s more comfortable to stay the victim - I know, because I too have been there. (How Being A Victim Held Me Back)
So my invitation is now, to be honest with yourself and take a look at how you treat the men in your life, partners, fathers, sons, brothers, colleagues, even the man on the street, what are the ways, large and small that you have been emasculating men?
And essentially, pushing them away.
Read the next article which talks more to how we push men away in 'Great Men Want To Be Needed'
Carla Crivaro is a trauma-informed and certified Sex, Love & Relationship Coach, she works with men and women internationally to reach their goals in delicious sex, profound love and authentic relationships. Carla helps men and women understand themselves and each other, sexually and relationally, in and out of the bedroom. You can reach her at hello@carlacrivaro.com.
Other resources which are supportive around this topic are:
Comentários