Why Men leave

There is one thing that men always say to me when they are talking about their relationships, and men only talk about their relationships when they aren't going well. It has a few different forms but it all comes down to one truth. It goes something like this

"She's impossible to please"
"Nothing I do is ever enough"
"No matter how hard I try it's never good enough"
"I work my arse off trying to figure out what she want and give it to her, but she just complains anyway"

Are you starting to see the common thread here? What each of these men (and every man who has ever walked out on a relationship) is trying to say is

"She won't let me make her happy"


Yes, that's right. the one thing that a man can't stand, that is absolute torture for him, is not being able to make the woman he cares about happy. He'll go without sex for years if she is happy doing that. He'll work his butt into the ground if by doing so he makes her feel secure, and therefore happy. He'll sacrifice his hobbies, his friends, his dreams and his life if he has to, only so that she can be happy.


And if he still can't, after trying everything he can think of, he will do the only honourable thing he can - he will vacate the position so that another man can have a go. He will walk away from his house, his kids, his life, his friends and (most painful of all) his wife, because he truly wants her to be happy and he can't do the job.


"But this can't be true" - "men are selfish, insensitive, egotistical and only care about what they want". If this sounds like you don't worry, your not the only woman who says this.  Why women believe that, and why they are so wrong about it, is a topic for another blog. However it is the act of believing it which is at the root of this whole problem.


You see, if this is what you really believe about men then their is no way that a man can ever make you happy. No matter what he does for you, you will see it as an attempt to get something from you. No matter how much he sacrifices, you will see it as merely what he owes you to make up for his selfishness. No matter how much he does to support, protect, contribute to and care about you it will never be exactly the way you think it should be. If he tries to do something for you, you will see it as trying to imply that you are not capable of doing it yourself (hint: He knows you can take the garbage out, he just doesn't want you to have to soil your beauty with the yucky stuff). If this is what you believe about men, then the only thing he can do for you without being in trouble for it is the things you demand of him, and then you resent him for it.


While ever you see him as the selfish perpetrator to your innocent victim, he will always be your enemy. He is someone you have to guard against and defeat. He is someone you have to disempower so that he can't disempower you. He is, as they say in the classics, a "necessary evil" - something to be tolerated. Most importantly of all, he is someone you can never afford to show vulnerability and need to, lest he use that to dominate you.


Women know that men want them to be vulnerable. Men want you to need them. Men want you to let them do things for you. But Why? It's because he wants power over you, right? Because he has this massive pathological ego that needs to be dominant, isn't it? Would you like to know the real reason men need you to let them make a contribution to your life and be useful to you?


It's because they can't figure out why something so beautiful, so charming and so inspiring as you would have anything to do with them. It's because their need for the love that you can bring to their life is so strong that they will do anything to get you to give it to them and not the next bloke in line. Its because all they have to secure that love (lets face it, we're not all Brad Pitt) is their ability to use their physical strength, their intelligence and their competence at doing things to give you something that (hopefully) makes you happy.


Want to make sure your man doesn't leave? It's easy - be happy (and I don't mean pretend because we are not that stupid). Be happy. Let us know what makes you happy, let us do it for you, and let us know it worked by showing us that you are happy (because we're not mind readers either). Is that too much to ask? Is it too much to ask you to let us make you happy?

Why men won't read this blog (mostly)

I often hear women complain that they can't get their men interested in 'working' on the relationship.

No matter how many books they leave on the coffee table, artfully opened to the page they REALLY want them to read, they don't. Similarly, TV shows, documentaries and newspaper articles are ignored. These women find this very frustrating because they are sure that if their male partner would just take the time to understand them a little better all would be well.

Usually, after years of failing to attain the desired response, these women give up and come to the conclusion that he really doesn't care. This is a tragedy, because nothing could be further from the truth. Men would love to understand women better, constantly complain that they can't seem to manage it, and spend much time shaking their heads in wonderment.

The problem is, we are different in some truly fundamental ways. Allison Armstrong, one of my favourite authors on the subject of understanding men puts it like this - "Men are not hairy women". It's true. Leave that book lying around on your girlfriends coffee table and it will be read to within an inch of it's life. But ask a typical man to read it and you will see a slight glaze come over his eyes and notice that his body is desperately trying to get out of the room. You might a well be asking him to bake a wedding cake and ice it with little pink flowers and an original haiku poem he wrote for the occasion.

You are asking him to do something that he simply is not equipped for and will almost certainly fail at (we will look at why failure is so threatening to men in a later blog). Right now he feels trapped because he knows that you are going to be upset with him if he refuses, and he knows that you are going to be upset with him if he tries to do it and still doesn't 'get it' (which he won't). At this point you will most likely receive the standard male response to being trapped in a no win situation, which goes something like "sure honey, I'm a little busy now but I'll try to get to it later". He figures the best thing he can do is buy time and hope that you forget about it.

Its true that not all men will do this. If your man is one of those who has a more developed relationship with his feminine side than most, he might be able to get his head around it. But most men, through a combination of genetic inclination, hormones and socialisation are way too 'masculine' in their psyche to make head or tail of the world of feelings. Most men see the world in 2 shades - the things I can DO something about, and the things I can't (and therefore ignore). When it comes to talking about things like feelings and relationships most men haven't got the vocabulary or the internal experience to make sense of them. If you're lucky they have figured out that if they sit there and nod their heads a few times they might get away with appearing to listen, and then you won't be upset with them (you may be noticing by now that a very important goal in 'manworld' is you not being upset with them).

So what to do? Well girls, fair or unfair, I'm afraid that it's down to you. If you want something really heavy lifted, ask your man, he's happy to help. If you want someone in this relationship to be taking care of keeping it juicy and alive and all gooey and romantic, I'm afraid that is going to have to be you. Robert Johnson, another fantastic writer on relationship issues, puts it this way.


"Traditionally men serve as guardians of the outer world, acquiring resources and defending against threats relating to the physical survival of the family. Women serve as guardians of the inner world, taking care of what the family needs emotionally".


Of course that has changed a little lately. Feminism has encouraged women to develop their masculine side and economics now requires that many women also work in the outer world. Unfortunately it has changed for men to a far lesser degree. Men are very much still raised to fulfil their traditional roles and conditioned away from their feminine. Men are still required to be highly competitive, which means having to be low on empathy for those you are competing against and high on measurable actions that produce an outcome.

Today women are demanding that men take more responsibility in the inner world, but a lifetime of conditioning leaves most men ill equipped for the job. The fact is that in the majority of cases, it is still the woman who is best equipped to be the guardian of the inner world. The reality is that most men will not read this blog, or anything else to do with relationships for that matter, because doing so would achieve no useful outcome.

Want to know what the good news is? Getting what you want from a man is easy. You just have to remember that he isn't a hairy woman. No amount of subtlety, inferences, suggestion or hints is going to do the job (like it would with your girlfriends). Want to know how to get what you want? It's simple - ask him for it in such a way that he knows it is important to your happiness. Oh, and I mean ASK, not demand or in anyway infer that you shouldn't have had to ask. We're not all that good at this relationship stuff but we've learned to recognise that 'tone' that says you're upset with us. Even better if you understand that we simply don't get it and stop getting upset with us.

Really, its true. Your man is constantly trying to figure out how to make you happy (see next blog - why men leave) and he loves it when you make it easy by just telling him. "Honey, I'd really love it if you could find the time to sit with me for half an hour an let me tell you about my day. Can you manage it?". I'm serious. No matter what he has planned (unless it is something that is vital to being a good 'guardian' of the outer world) he will move heaven and earth to make the time and be so appreciative that you straight out let him know how to make you happy. To him it's a gift.

Now, two things you need to remember though. He won't respond like your girlfriends, he doesn't know how, and he may try to fix things if you tell him about your problems (still trying to make you happy). Just tell him you want him to just listen (sweetly please, he's just trying to help). Oh, and remember to let him know that it made you happy by appreciating it (we need to be told because we don't pick up the subtleties very often).

Yes, it can be that simple, and it is. Just ask for what you want, let us know why it will make you happy and then show us that it did.

ciao for now