Hi there,
The Magic of Relationships seminar is coming up on the 18th December. To get us started, allow me to share with you some ideas that will help foster better understandings towards one another.
Men are Like Rubber Bands:
Which means they like to pull away, they like to stretch out to create distance, but then they have to return - often springing back. Its the male intimacy cycle that involves getting close, pulling away, and then getting close again. Women don't tend to realise this rhythm and feel distressed when the deep romance surrounding a relationship abruptly ends and when the man wishes to focus on something else. It's a common misinterpretation because women tend to pull away for different reasons: when she doesn't trust him to understand her feelings, when she has been hurt and fears being hurt again, or when he has done something wrong and disappointed her.
Of course a man can pull away for the same reasons, but he will also pull away even if the lady has done nothing wrong. It could purely be a male thing - the need to have space - even though he loves and trusts her. But like the stretched rubber band, he'll come back. This need for space is like the man going into his cave: its a place of solitude, independence and autonomy. He'll soon feel the need to spring back and automatically pick up the intimacy at whatever levels required, even just before he pulled away, without the having to go through a period of getting reacquainted again.
If properly understood, this male intimacy cycle enriches a relationship, but can cause havoc when misread and misjudged, or even mis-timed. Usually, the man can give and take less readily than the woman, so the women thinks that her man is not reciprocating her love. Women naturally give and take more readily and can easily express their sentiments. But when they don't see this happening with the man, they misjudge him and think that there's something wrong with him. Anxiety builds up when she tries to 'fix' him - that's not what he needs...rather he wants to simply pull away to have his own breathing space: whether its in the shed, out with friends, strolling, watching a movie or reading. She continues to get frustrated when he wants to ignore her and she develops ideas that he doesn't love her, or worse still, think that he has got someone else! A confused state of affairs soon arises.
Women should understand the need for a man to pull away. Its good for him and her (and any children). He'll spring back with power and enthusiasm. Men however need to remember that it may be easy for them to get to intense levels of intimacy as he was before pulling back, but the woman may need to time to catch-up and re-familiarise - particularly if she's been through a state of confusion or panic (she doesn't know what she did to switch you off)!
It is very confusing for a woman when a man pulls away because something she says or does often triggers his departure - usually when she begins to talk about feelings. The talk of feelings creates intimacy and the man can be defensive and not open-up, hence begin to pull away. It's not that he doesn't care about her feelings as at another point in the intimacy cycle those same feelings will draw him closer. So its not just what she says but rather when.
When a man gets too close and doesn't pull away, common symptoms are increased passiveness, moodiness, irritability and defensiveness. And the women builds a huge amount of dependency on the man that can lead to a high degree of unwarranted trust, such that if he does pull away, she feels totally dejected for 'doing something wrong' or misappropriating the trust. She may begin to resent him and hold bitter feelings towards him unjustifiably. When women don't understand the male intimacy cycle, they can unknowingly obstruct it in two ways: they are (1) chasing him when he pulls away; (2) punishing him for pulling away.
Men must be sensitive to the needs of women (I'll come on to that later) but also understand the requirement of pulling away. If timed, done well and worked with, a high degree of satisfaction can be engendered in the relationship such that the natural rhythms of both the man and woman are held to a better standard. There's no need for guilt or blame on either side. The man needs to go to the cave every now and again, grow and become wiser....he'll return to with a freshness that the women has longed for and will be better prepared to hear her share her feelings. The patient woman who understands this will love and trust her man, share with him as needed, and allow him to open-up in his own time without demanding it to be so.
This single insight into the male cycle that has been represented as mimicking a rubber band can replace so much confusion and unnecessary pain with that of care and understanding.
Soon we'll take a look at how women act as waves....
For Success and Contentment,
Asad Khan
