Acceptant, Sublime Silence as a protestant (lower case) Stance for Peace (of mind)

 

Acceptant, Sublime Silence as a protestant (lower case) Stance for Peace (of mind)

 

              Much has been going around men’s rights forums about how and why men don’t talk about their feelings, their problems, much at all with anyone.  “Man-on-the-street” inquiries of who an individual man turns to when they need to vent elicit responses of “Nobody”, “Nobody will listen; I’m a man”, and multiple variations of this.  Not long ago, the term “Toxic Masculinity” was coined by post-modern Feminists, the “Woke” crowd, as nomenclature covering their perceptions of “Traditional Masculinity” and its downfalls.  Their claims are that “Traditional” masculine society forbids men from sharing feelings, communicating mental or emotional issues, that Stoicism teaches men to suppress feelings and show only a strong façade.

              And they’re wrong. Horribly, dangerously wrong.

              Men communicate just fine, WITH OTHER MEN.  That we don’t communicate well with women has been taken to mean that we don’t communicate well Period!  When we have an issue, we normally have a close male friend or two with whom we feel somewhat comfortable venting and trying to discern answers to problems. 

              There are two issues here. The first is that, in general, with exceptions, the feminine aspect of society appears to prefer quantity of friendship over quality.  At least that’s how it appears to most Men.  Perhaps the perception is that quantity IS quality, which I believe many of the masculine personality persuasion would disagree with.  We (in general, for the most part, with exceptions) have smaller Friend circles. Perhaps large groups of acquaintances, but a smaller number we refer to as actual Friends.  Those fewer Friends are often closer to us than the women in our lives, and we trust them deeply.

              A second issue is that men and women communicate very differently, with a different approach, different end goal, for different purposes.  When a man tries to discuss his feelings with a woman, it’s so that she can understand him better, help him find resolutions to issues, be empathetic. When a woman discusses things with a man…well, generally we end up with no idea what her intent is.  We’re told that it’s simply to vent, but the impression we get is very different.  As in many facets of male/female interaction, we end up simply confused.  I’m not saying there is no purpose, simply that the majority of men don’t comprehend it because of apparent inconsistencies and contradictions that the women we discuss the matter with haven’t deigned to clarify.

              And so if we’re going to talk with someone, it’s more likely to be with another man, and we’re exceptionally selective about who it will be.

              Going back to the discussions I’ve seen online and in articles over the last year or so, it’s true that Men tend to hold a lot in.  That isn’t because of Toxic Masculinity teaching us some poisoned version of Stoicism, or having to “Man Up”.  Ladies, YOU are why.  The women in our lives teach us, from a very early age, that talking about issues is useless, perhaps even dangerous.  At best, you’ll listen, and then begin voicing sympathy, not empathy, in very childish tones.  You’ll treat it as if we’ve suddenly become fragile decorations which have inadvertently been pushed to the edge of the shelf, and are on the verge of tilting off a precipice.  At worst…well, it’s difficult to qualify some of these as worse than others.  They’re all perfectly formulated to turn us off from talking to you about anything of substance ever again.  Perhaps what’s prioritized by us is not by you, and so you tell us that our feelings are unimportant and we need to simply move on.  Perhaps you misinterpret our reaching out as a desire for sympathy, when what we’re looking for is a sounding board to help us find solutions.  Perhaps your more emotional-base leads you to believe that a large reaction is appropriate, when what we actually need is calm.

              Or perhaps the woman he tries to open up to is simply paying lip service to it all, but the deeper reality is a desire for a Man to be a strong rock, against which all of the world’s problems crash and break apart.  Standing stout against the onslaught, we’re supposed to remain unflinching to the core.  The immense aspect of feminine society that holds this view becomes derisive.  The “boys don’t cry” narrative originates from women, not men.  From men, the narrative is “boys don’t cry until the hard work is done. THEN you’re welcome to have a breakdown. Just hold it together for a few minutes, then we’ll all go get drunk and fall apart together.” Contrast that with a noticeable proportion of women we hear about, who are aghast at their man not meeting their image of Stoic strength, and so belittle him for having human reactions.  “I don’t want to be with a weak man” is not an uncommon statement. Granted, we can appreciate the sentiment behind that, to an extent, but someone having human emotions and confiding them in their intimate partner is now weak? The narrative of appreciating vulnerability is thrown out the window.

              And so we’re scarred.  Our hearts have been cut by women we’ve loved saying “You have NO right to feel that way” and “That’s not important; let’s move on” when we’ve come to you with problems in life, in the relationship, any issue with which we’re desperately looking for a safe space to off-gas.  Imagine if, from childhood, half of the population around you told you that your feelings weren’t legitimate.  Picture being told “this group of people is better at articulating their thoughts than you/is more in touch with their feelings than you” and that group consistently, regularly berates you for having feelings which differ from theirs.

              Those scars build-up throughout childhood.  Picture yourself inside your own “heart”, beginning childhood with a clear view out, seeing light all around.  Over time that heart is cut by the very people who claim to be THE subject matter experts on feelings.  Over time, those scars cover more and more of your view out, until there are only slivers of light penetrating between them.  When we want desperately to voice what’s going on in our own heads, to release some of that pressure, the one closest to us disregards what we say, tells us we don’t know ourselves, “corrects” our priorities to align more with hers.  We try to look through those narrow cracks between the scars, only to see shadow beyond, obscuring that light we need.

              So maybe you feel that you want the man in your life to open up to you.  You believe that it will bring the two of you together (and it can) if he speaks his mind with as few filters as practical.  You want to be a soft landing pad for him when he feels like he’s on the verge of crashing.  You tell him that he can open up with you, and maybe he tries once or twice, but it tapers off, or maybe it gets cut-off like the self-amputation of a septic limb.  You don’t understand why.  You think back to the narrative you’ve been fed from society, about how men aren’t in touch with their feelings, can’t put our feelings into words, don’t communicate as well as women.  You remember studies that said women are better verbalizers because you use more words than men in a given period (again, as though quantity is inherently better than quality), and so you try to teach him to be more like you.  To speak the way you do.  You try to guide him to do things a feminine way, which in your mind is the better way.

              You get frustrated when he pulls away more.  “Must be that Toxic Masculinity” you think.

              Does it ever, at all, under any circumstances, occur to you that something has happened to change his view of you not as the light shining in, but simply another shadow concealing any light that would otherwise give him hope?  Your childish tone, intended for soothing infants, is completely inappropriate for use with him.  Your disregarding of his priorities doesn’t realign them, it disparages his perspective.  Your culturally-ingrained belief that you are more “mature” than he, and so have a higher EQ than he, with all of the related advantages, blinds you to his capacity and abilities, which might be more expansive than your own in some ways that you are incapable of seeing. 

              Do you want him to see you as the light shining through the cracks between the scars in his heart, rather than as an occluding barrier to hope?  Do you want to be an effective cushion on which he can land, rather than the hard surface on which he’ll simply crash, allowing him respite to collect himself, find new strength, and go back to being that promontory you so often shelter behind?  If you care at all about helping him on HIS terms, rather than trying to “fix” him, by feminizing him, than the best thing you can do is STOP!!!

              Don’t try to realign his priorities to match yours; you have a completely different approach to life than he.  A stereotype that I run into constantly is women caring about making things look comfortable, but not caring in the least about the strength of the foundation that comfort is resting on.  They disregard the robustness of underlying infrastructure, so long as the façade looks ok.  If this is you (and it likely is, whether you admit it to yourself or not), then shut up and listen.  Actually listen to what he says.  It’s highly likely he is choosing his words carefully.  Each and every word matters.  Not simply the words independently, but also how they interact.  You’re accustomed to talking around things, expressing immense narratives about relationships and their interplay, and not getting to the underlying point in any manner we’re able to comprehend.  You use significant volumes of implication, and believe that the meanings and loci are obvious.  Conversely, you assume we’re doing the same thing and end up disregarding much of what we say in the belief that we’re speaking with the same form and function as you.  Men tend (with exception, in general) to be more explicit, getting directly to the point.  There might be some background, but it’s because he believes that’s necessary for comprehension.  He might seem to ramble slightly off-topic, but it’s likely he’s trying to contextualize his message in the belief that you’ll have a more complete understanding.  Listen to EVERY word.  Consider how the words fit together.  Keep in mind the context of the situation when interpreting.  When you believe that he’s off-topic, he’s actually addressing a branch of the main topic that he feels is significant.  You saying “stay on topic” shows him that you don’t understand what he’s trying to say, and discourages him from opening up in the future.  What’s the use of talking with you if you won’t understand?  Instead, ask for clarification.  Ask him to explain how the two seemingly unrelated narratives actually fit together, so that you can expand your perspective of what he’s trying to communicate.  Further, he will often need you to do the same.  When he asks “You said XYZ a few months ago, and now you’re saying ABC. What’s up?”, he’s trying to understand.  Don’t blow up at him for not reading your mind; take the time to explain the difference, what changed, how the two things either don’t conflict, or why you changed your mind. Otherwise you simply confuse him, and your irritation will cause him to pull away.

              When he expresses a feeling, and you get mad at him for feeling it, now he’s consoling you for being angry about how he feels.  How can you rationally expect him to ever open up to you again?! “How dare you say that!”.  The proverbial “The audacity of him” meme.  Well, that audacity wasn’t in insulting you, it was in assuming that you were a safe place to discuss his feelings.  His audacity was in believing you when you said he could open up to you.  His presumptuousness was in believing that you considered him your equal, and would treat him as a legitimate human being.  He rashly assumed you could ever consider his perspective as valid, and listen to what he had to say with an open mind.

              I keep falling off the hill into negativity.  Sorry ‘bout that.

              Don’t treat him as a child.  That’s inappropriate, demeaning, demoralizing, and shuts him down.  Listen to what he says.  If he provides clarification when you repeat something back to him, that isn’t an attack on you.  It’s a desire to be understood.  When he vents his feelings, even about you, take it in stride and work with him to figure out why he has those feelings.  He knows that the feelings will pass.  He doesn’t base his identity on his feelings.  He does, however, know what he’s feeling and is trying to communicate an issue with you.

              Your man isn’t going to look at the world the same way you do.  Nor should he.  Men are not women, no matter how much you (usually subconsciously, but sometimes with full self-awareness) try to force the situation to be otherwise. Once you accept that, and its legitimacy, you’ll have a foundation upon which to build substantial comprehension of your man’s outlook and message.

              Recognize that he is going to prioritize much different aspects of life than you do. Please trust me when I say that you drive him utterly crazy with much of what you do. Your desire for seasonal decorations, decorative pillows, and to rearrange the living room 5 times a year make absolutely no sense to us whatsoever.  All of those changes disrupt the Peace he desires at home.  They introduce a chaos that causes anxiety.  You see them as “pretty”; he sees them as stressful. 

              Your knee-jerk reaction is to say “men are more simple than women”.  I strongly, vehemently, passionately disagree with that wording.  “Desiring to avoid unnecessary complication” is not the same as “simple”.  It means we guard our attention and cognitive capacity carefully.  We don’t see a legitimate reason to waste physical and mental energy putting up Halloween decorations, only to take them down and put up Thanksgiving decorations that’ll then be taken down for Christmas, etc, ad infinitum.  Why was the couch just fine against that wall for a few months, but now it needs to be moved? “It was boring; I wanted to freshen things up”.  Again, this makes little, if any, sense to a man.  We want to find the optimal locations for furniture, and never move any of it ever again unless something significant happens to necessitate moving things.  More than that, it introduces the idea that you’ll eventually get bored with him, with the life you’ve built up until now.  The masculine idea is “If it isn’t broken, or if the change doesn’t make things more efficient or effective in some substantial manner, then leave it alone!!”  He wants to come home to peace, not another change that he doesn’t comprehend the reason for.  That isn’t him being “simple”, which the speaker often uses as a synonym for “dullard”.  It means he knows his threshold for stress and wants a significant buffer between reality and that threshold, so that he can deal with spontaneously encountered stressors more effectively.  Changing the seasonal decorations introduces chaos and disrupts his peace.

Rewinding back to the title of this piece:  Men will go silent when we perceive silence as the only means of avoiding being belittled, demeaned, degraded, disrespected, whatever we’re accustomed to experiencing when we voice our emotions.  We will find ways to offline, to appear to be answering inquiries when we don’t actually respond with anything substantial.  Whatever the execution, it’s simply an attempt to maintain peace of mind in an environment in which we feel unsafe expressing ourselves.

We might occasionally try again, finding the courage to voice our position on something.  Perhaps she does something that we find minorly disrespectful, and we can see that it wasn’t intentional on her part.  We see an opportunity to achieve a stronger intimacy with deeper interpersonal understanding.  That attempt requires a lot of effort, though, and we go into it fully expecting disappointment.  More often than not, our expectations are fulfilled as she is offended that he felt the way he did.  She will refuse to acknowledge any legitimacy of his subjective experience because it doesn’t align with her perceptions. He is wrong for not feeling the way she does, and she will ensure he is made aware of that.

Sometimes our feelings on a subject might build up until we aren’t able to hold something back. By that time, our frustration has built to a sufficient level that we express ourselves in a sub-optimal manner, often exacerbating the tension.  This will inevitably result in our apologizing for hurting her feelings, and the knowledge that we’ve dropped back into one of the despised stereotypes of relationships.  Now she’s offended that he had a negative emotion, that he didn’t like something she did, that he had the audacity to bring up in an aggressive manner.

Yes, he would have been better served if he had taken a non-aggressive approach.  He is fully aware of that.

Is she able to see how things got to that point? That there is culpability plenty to be spread around?

              My narrative does bounce around some, but it’s all branching from the same theme:  Men and Women are not the same.  We overlap quite a bit, but it’s those areas outside of the overlap that cause the conflicts. 

              So I’ll stop at this point and try to summarize my point:  Stop treating your man as if he’s a woman.  He isn’t your female friends.  He isn’t going to view the world the way they do.  He doesn’t have the same relationship with emotions that you do.  He doesn’t choose the same words, or approach communication from the same basis as you.  That said, the two of you CAN still construct some modicum of effective communication if you both accept that there are differences.  Since this is written from the male perspective, I’m emphasizing those areas we want women to improve.  That doesn’t discount that we can do the same.  This is simply Andro-centric (just as the mental health industry is gyno-centric and treats men like broken women).

              LISTEN to what he says.  Not every other word, not to the first sentence and then stop, not in the belief that he’s speaking the same way you do and so you have to infer his point.  He is MAKING his point, explicitly and directly.  Stop looking for hidden meanings.

              If he expresses his emotions to you, he has REASONS for feeling the way he does.  He will TELL you those reasons, directly.  You won’t like it.  Tough shit.  If you want the relationship to have a solid foundation for longevity, you had better accept what he says as having some truth, if only subjectively.  If you really can’t handle what he says, then leave him in peace and find someone else who will let you be dismissive.

              Keep in mind that while you remember everything he does, putting it on a scoreboard, using it as ammunition in a magazine that you load when it’s time for an argument 7 years after the fact, HE remembers what you do also.  The difference is that 90% of what you do is simply stored in a file that is used to establish a pattern of behavior.  If that pattern is of disrespect, he will withdraw from you.  If he brings anything up, it’s with the desire to understand, to give you benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to explain so that he doesn’t feel disrespected.  If you can’t provide that, then he’s going to disengage.  Slowly, over time, it will all build up until he is physically present, but no longer actively engaged in the relationship.  Given enough disrespect, having our feelings dismissed enough times, we will find a way out, and you won’t comprehend what happened.  You’ll blame him.  He does have some responsibility for the failure of the relationship, to be sure, but you had better look in the mirror and admit your own culpability or you’ll see this same outcome repeated the rest of your life.

              And it’ll always be someone else’s fault, won’t it?