I grew up in a society run by privileged men. This was not an evolved place around women. I
have, I hope, come a long way towards being a respectful, loving, reasonably self-aware,
supportive man with women, but it wasn’t always so. For much of my early life, I acted out of
my habitual, societally approved lack of regard for the feminine.
I would travel a regular habitual ‘relationship circuit’.
I was very much all in for “the chase”. I brought my best side forward and was attentive,
adoring and holding space for her. But once she agreed to be in a relationship with me, I
would feel like “it’s job done”, and I could relax. I had got what I wanted and so shifted into a
different gear.
My shift into cruise control was habitually out of privilege. On some level, as a man, I
believed I was better than she was. With this conceit, I also believed I deserved to be looked
after by her and tended to (a bit like I expected her to do the main share of looking after our
home).
My conditioning was to be lazy with the feminine and to let her do the hard relationship work.
Emotionally my bandwidth was somewhat limited anyway, mostly to the anger dial. I would
watch her being afraid and sad and was relieved not to ‘go there’.
Being privileged, I soon broke the cardinal rule of relationship, which is that both parties pull
equal weight. Because she was so capable and could see my chaos, I accepted her help
and, in time, relied on her for support. I responded to her being super-capable by being less-
capable. I was so wrapped up in keeping my big thing going I did not offer her the same
support in return.
I let her mother me. Ouch! I yielded to the great temptation men face. I did not offer her the
self-containment she needed to feel in me, or the safety, so of course, she stepped up to
build it herself in our relationship. I let her take over and lead who and what we were
together.
And then, of course, I resented her for it.
I then projected my wounds with my mother on to her. My wounded boy took over, and I tried
to get her to behave the way he needed to heal his childhood pain. And, of course, she
didn’t want a relationship with a boy!
And when she wouldn’t do what my boy wanted, oh no, the pain! The familiar agony. And
what dysfunctional behaviour from me. So much closing down and running away. So much
taking it personally when she needed to be heard.
This was me, in relationship as the masculine. The man who should have been providing
containment, loving strength, good enough self-awareness, self-responsibility.
Oops indeed. I feel sad that, at the time, I was mostly unaware of all this.
If you'd like to have a look at the difficult parts of yourself, and how they might be getting in the way of you living a meaningful, connected life, I invite you to join me at :
Working with Difficult Parts of Yourself
Online Community Session for Men
Tuesdays, 2.30pm (UK)
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