Her Emotions Should Not Be at the Centre of Your Marriage

Recently at Married Man Sex Life there was a question from a man, and the key point which Athol plucked from the email was this:

My problem, is I can’t be so Alpha that I can just completely ignore her when she gets upset like this. It tears me up inside, so I try to talk to her about it to smooth things over, and this always goes nowhere and in fact angers her to no end.

Athol’s advice, I thought, lacked depth and didn’t really address the underlying issue very well, so I left the following comment (slightly edited here), which was deleted:

Don’t worry about her feelings – as 7man said recently, her feelings and her heart are two different things. Feelings pass and your job is to not get sucked in by them – you need to be unswayed by them while still acknowledging them as valid. You can understand her feelings without having to change them.

This may sound cold, but when I am feeling out of sorts or upset over something and 7man simply acknowledges it without either trying to “make me feel better” or getting sucked under by my emotions, I recover much more quickly than if a big deal was made of it. I know he cares for my heart and that I can’t manipulate him with feelings, which gives me a feeling of safety where I can express my feelings but not dwell on them or drown in them. Furthermore, there is little emotional drama this way.

Trying to “smooth things over” with her is a mistake. Instead, give her a safe place to express her emotions (which may simply mean listening and then leading the conversation a bit) but don’t try to fix it! Men make this mistake all the time – it’s natural for men to want to fix things – but women do not want you to fix them and react badly to the attempt to fix.

If you can maintain your composure, without trying to change how she feels, you will seem more solid and reliable and thus, more dominant than her and then she won’t feel the need to be so dominant because she knows she can relax and let you lead more – i.e. be the Captain.

She is probably looking for you to claim her. You need to be the oak tree (see Roissy’s 16 Commandments of Poon) so that her emotions are not the centre of the marriage.

I won’t speculate on why it was removed but, not being one to let good advice go to waste, I figured I would reprint it here. While there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with Athol’s advice, and it is certainly true that she does not want her tears to be his kryptonite, “give her space to process the emotions” is vague and not exactly what she likely will respond to, nor does it sound like something this man feels he can do (as he stated, it hurts him to just leave her to it and since he cares about her, he wants her to feel better).

A man can be present and, like the oak tree, offer shelter from the storm. He can hold her and let her know that her feelings are natural and not scary, rather than trying to “help” her by making them go away. In doing this, he shows that she is still loveable and that his feelings for her don’t change when she is upset. She will be less likely become angered at him when he shows his masculine strength this way, her emotions will become easier for both to deal with and a greater intimacy can be fostered.

UPDATE December 10, 2011: Athol reinstated my comment.