So, the question remains: How do you get your husband to open up emotionally and to be vulnerable with you?
When your husband is not open with you emotionally, it can feel like you’re going in circles – especially if you have been fighting for years about this same issue.
“Open” does not always equate to “experienced” or “passionate” so many times it has been said that “open is not as sexy as passionate.”
Are you saying that being “passionate” does not equate to “open”?
Yes, it does. But this is because most of the time “passionate” does not mean something very open and “open” tends to be a state of being which allows one to open up.
Here is why this is so:
Most men do not understand that they have to be able to be “passionate” with their partners
While some men are “passionate” in all forms and aspects with their partner, most men are not.
They just don’t know how to be with their partners in that way.
Women, as we are emotional beings, enjoy being “passionate” with their partners, and men, on the other hand, find that very hard to do.
Most men are not used to be vulnerable with their partners
The bottom line is that most men are not used to be vulnerable with their partners.
Most men fear vulnerability. The fear of vulnerability makes it difficult for men to be vulnerable.
Men are taught to have barriers which they are taught to hide behind and most men have learned to keep their walls up all the time so they do not feel vulnerable.
While it’s true that most of them want to feel emotionally open, they are not.
Most men are used to women doing the emotional work of opening-up
While it’s true that most men are not used to feeling vulnerable, they are still used to women being emotionally open and vulnerable.
The truth is that while most men aren’t used to it, most women are.
Women want to open up but most of them are not used to doing the work.
This does not mean that women shouldn’t do the work; it simply means that men should not be expected to do the emotional work for their partner.
Most men are not comfortable around emotions
Most men are not comfortable with their emotions so they have a hard time opening up emotionally.
They have a hard time letting their guard down when emotions are involved.
They don’t know how to handle uncomfortable emotions.
They don’t know how to be empathetic and their walls are up.
Most men are taught to keep their emotions to themselves
Many men have been taught not to feel their emotions and while it’s not that women have always been taught this way, the problem is that men have not been taught this way either.
Men have been taught to keep their emotions in.
And, most of the time, when the emotions start to come out, they are not equipped to handle them.
So, men don’t know how to deal with their feelings when they are around their partners.
And that is why they have difficulty opening up.
Most men don’t know how to express their feelings to their partner because they have not been taught how to express them or because they feel that expressing themselves is something women do, not them.
Most men aren’t used to accepting others’ emotions, too
Men are often uncomfortable when it comes to feeling others’ emotions.
So, it’s not surprising that they often don’t deal well with someone else’s emotions.
They don’t understand why their partner is crying or angry and they don’t know how to react to it.
For example, when a woman is having a breakdown or crying because something terrible has happened and the man is upset with her because he can’t figure out why she is crying, he feels like she is being irrational and he doesn’t know how to deal with her.
He shuts down and decides to not get involved.
This doesn’t make him a bad guy, it just means he’s not accustomed to feeling other people’s emotions.
Most men don’t know what emotional intimacy is
Most men don’t know what emotional intimacy is so they are not used to it.
They don’t know what to do with it and they have a hard time dealing with it.
And most of the time, men don’t know how to communicate their emotions and needs and they don’t know how to express themselves and that causes so much confusion and frustration and, yes, pain.
Men don’t like having their needs and feelings ignored or misjudged
Most men are taught that men need to be assertive and get what they want and that women need to be emotional and be in touch with their feelings and that men need to protect them.
So, most men are not used to dealing with the fact that they are falling in love and have developed feelings for someone but they don’t know how to deal with them and they don’t know what to do.
They are scared and they feel confused because they have never had to deal with it before.
Men also often think that a woman who expresses her emotions is just being clingy or needy or taking advantage of their goodwill.
So they shut down and stop showing their love and emotions.
