Emperors of Denial

Why Men Fall Out of Love: What Every Woman Needs to Understand
by Michael French

(Page 5 of 5)

Like my friend who thought he had fallen out of love, a man can feel woefully inadequate when things go wrong and he tries to repair his relationship. He often has no clue where to start, or what the healing process is all about. Healing presupposes an understanding of emotions. As almost every child psychologist recognizes, male children and adolescents are generally not encouraged to indulge their emotions. (This was less true in the seventies and eighties, when the women's movement was having a more positive impact on male culture by encouraging families to sensitize and nurture boys.) Today, young men, starting as early as grade school, are encouraged to win, succeed, and achieve. That attitude includes, eventually, a successful adult relationship, even if males aren't always taught what relationship success means, especially from a woman's point of view. Indeed, one reason men fail at keeping their relationships together is they were never taught by their mothers, aunts, sisters, or grandmothers to relate to a woman in a day-to-day intimate context. What do women like to talk about with men? What do they like to hear from men? What are their romantic expectations and where do they come from? How do women communicate their deepest needs and how can men pick up those cues and signals? In particular, how do women communicate and deal with conflict, because rarely is it a linear confrontation. The ability of women to process and communicate what they want is often taken for granted by them. What comes naturally to women has to be learned somewhere, somehow, by men.

If his relationship fails, no matter whose fault it is, a man's entire world can come to a grinding halt. Feeling dejected and isolated, he may, like some men in this book, finally see a therapist and be given a strategy to unravel the mysteries that overwhelm him. Left to his own devices, however, anger, guilt, and frustration usually take over. Most men, rather than seek help or even admit their pain and unhappiness, will joke about their "confinement" and doubts about having chosen the right partner. If they do find the courage to confront their partners, they prefer an instant, linear, and rational solution - a traditional masculine approach to problem solving. To struggle with nuance, introspection, and the multiple dimensions of "emotional reasoning" - the ability to integrate emotion into the reasoning process, and to be aware of the emotional consequences of any action - is perceived by most men as a waste of time. The truth is not that it's a waste of time, it's that men are simply not good at it. "Emotional reasoning," is a skill that women seem born with but men have to learn. Until they do, when they run into a relationship storm, they significantly lessen their chances of getting back to calm waters.

Without the flexibility, relating skills, and patience to solve problems, many men just give up when things get too tough. They would rather walk out the door or dive into their private ocean of anger and guilt than be scrutinized and judged by their partners. Women give up on their relationships too - more often than men, according to most psychologists - but with a lot more thoughtfulness and less emotion than men bring to this process. The irony is that women are the emotional gender but can be coolly rational under fire, while men are supposed to be objective and in control but easily collapse when their emotions take over. They have difficulty connecting head to heart in any efficient way. For women, "emotional reasoning" may be a skill honed from centuries of survival. In medieval times, when men from a village went off to war, only to be killed in combat, their widows knew that to survive, and for the survival of their children, they had to adapt to a new man. There was little time for grieving, only for clearheaded thinking. Perhaps this is why today when a woman abandons her relationship there is little stigma. She's seen as liberating herself, or doing what it takes to survive, or what's best for her children. On the other hand, when men flee they are often labeled as irresponsible and cowardly. Women, hurt and angry at being abandoned, often use a man's definition of his masculinity against him. If he was supposed to be the protector and provider, they say, he failed not just his partner but himself.

But are men really failures? Are they so irresponsible or negligent? Perhaps the deck has been stacked against them and they don't even know it, or they don't know what to do about it. The truth is that a man who does not understand or feel comfortable with himself, was never nurtured as a child, never learned to trust and value his emotions, or never acquired socialization skills, especially conflict resolution, will almost inevitably wilt under the responsibility of a relationship or a family. He may not necessarily run away, but neither will he find deep satisfaction or meaning in his most intimate relationship. Men, who tend to define their relationships more by their actions (for example, "making a living" or "being a responsible husband and father") than their emotions, will often live with their unhappiness and confusion, sometimes unaware there even is a problem until their partners tell them. Too many men are the emperors of ignorance and denial.

This is not to say that men don't have emotional triggers, or that they're clueless, or that they can't fall out of love because they never fell in love in the first place, as some women asserted. Men have a different point of view. Many feel they are often driven out of love by their partners' behaviors. Among the men I spoke with, living with a controlling women was love's principal assassin. Men might be equally guilty of trying to control, but their efforts are rarely as sophisticated, subtle, or pervasive; they are not as embedded in their gender "language" as they are for women. Possessing a wide range of emotions, women have the ability to turn their feelings on and off, and jump from one to another, in the blink of an eye. Their control might come through interference, judgment, inducing guilt or shame in a partner, setting and changing rules, or withholding affection - some of which can be conveyed in a tone of voice, a hand gesture, a hurt glance, or a pregnant silence. Few men have such range or abilities. They are simply not wired that way. Yet many women are unconscious of what they do and the effect they have on their partners. That they can be intimidating to men comes as a surprise to them. Their self-image is so positive, and they are so supportive of one another, they think, how can strong men possibly be intimidated by caring women?

Copyright © 2007 by Michael French