It has never been more important for women to try to understand the psyche of men and to show compassion. For eons women have been submissive with the best of intentions, but it hardly ever seemed to work.
This week’s question comes from Mamaroke in Fourways, Sandton:
“Why does my husband keep putting me down? I make him dinner. I make his bed. And I service him in the bedroom. For love, I submit to his whims in an effort to gain his respect, yet I consistently fail. All I get from him is rejection. Would it be better to try and be his equal?”
Deeply ingrained in men and women are layers of unspoken bias against women which play out in their relationships.
I speak to many women like you, Mamaroke, who complain about being put down by their partners. In the aftermath of International Women’s Day we notice how many rise in an attempt to empower themselves, yet they suffer in their closest relationships.
Consider that dislike, contempt for and ingrained prejudice against women were born in ages when the effort by men to diminish the source of their turmoil was attacking its source: women. Why do women create such inner conflict for men?
Sam Keen, who wrote Fire in the Belly: On being a man, claims that women’s influence over men is both literal and archetypal, which he calls the “women in our heads” and the “women in our beds and boardrooms”.
Although men joke about women being less than they are, because they lack a phallus, according to Keen, it is an issue for men to accept that they are never going to be like the women who carried, birthed and nurtured them in the womb.
Men were severed from the umbilical cord of women and this represents something that they can never compete with.
They confuse their mother’s influence in their lives with the women now standing in front of them, whom they married.
When a man who is naturally competitive is also wounded by unhealed mother issues, it is really hard for him to realise that his wife is an individual with her own feelings.
Deep inside he knows he is never going to be a woman and because he is still dealing with the pain of letting go of his umbilical cord, he projects his feelings on to his partner (you).
His childhood pain which is deep in his subconscious, stands between him and his showing love for you.
Just like women evolve from drama queens to queens of hearts, men also experience maturation when they start to see their women as human beings rather than symbols of their inner conflict.
To help your partner heal the hole in his soul, consider that his actions in putting you down are driven by his fear of being ridiculed and laughed at.
If you treat him with the respect that you desire and continue to do so despite his actions, you allow him to grow into the lover you want him to be. In time he will see that you are not the enemy.
Allowance is a wonderful form of love that we can only bestow on someone else when we too are healed.
What you view as rejection can change into an understanding that your partner’s actions are not directed at you, but what you represent.
A conscious relationship is not about exchanging transactions where another rewards every good deed. Sometimes the rewards come much later. In a society where women are given every opportunity to excel, men find it hard to come to terms with who they really are. They will always point their frustrations to those they love the most.
* Adelé Green is a transformation specialist coach and author of Can You See Me Naked: Grow in a conscious relationship. She provides answers here when posted on www.adele-green.com/askadele/ or contact her for coaching.