6 minute read
Getting Him on Board by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn
Dr. Deb
Getting Him Onboard
By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
If a man doesn’t want to work with his wife professionally on their marriage, what is she to do? Well, we can answer that question with some other questions:
Why is it that 70% of divorces are initiated by women?
Why is it that when people decide on divorce, less than 25% of them have first gone to marital therapy?
Why is it that studies repeatedly indicate that it is the wife (if anyone) who seeks therapy for marriage problems rather than it being a mutually agreed-upon step?
Well, the answer is very sad, actually.
It seems that men who are told the marriage is in trouble were “feeling a sense of failure and fear of judgment,” according to 2018 research in the journal, Contemporary Family Therapy.
Naturally, this would lead to defensive maneuvers such as blame, withdrawal, or aggression. Which, of course, would invite frustration and counterattacks back.
Why did the men feel the sense of failure in the first place? Why did the women not feel that sense of failure?
According to Terry Real, whom I mentioned in the last article here, the reason is that, from the day they are born, women are conditioned to serve. They’re taught to be caretakers and to put their own needs last or totally off the list.
For that reason, when the moment comes that the woman decides after 20 years that she’s had enough, she can honestly say that she devoted herself to her family in many ways and is guiltfree regarding possible failure because she made that effort.
On the other hand, men are raised in our society to be providers, protectors, and do their jobs without feeling pain. Pain is feminine, and men aren’t allowed to admit to having it. They’re allowed anger, for sure. But not pain. So they can’t “read” the messages women give them about their pain.
Men have gotten the idea that they are happy when they’re numb. They distract themselves from their emptiness with work, addictions, and the computer; they can’t feel joyous or enthusiastic about their relationships.
Not only don’t they understand the messages from their wives about the pain they’re in, but they minimize it. After all, they learned to minimize their own pain – and it worked! They don’t feel pain! Therefore, pooh-poohing the pain of their wives is simply applying to them the rule they always applied to themselves. How would they know otherwise?
Why, then, would they feel failure if their wives want professional help?
Ah. This gets us back to their childhood socialization. Not only are they taught to deny their own pain, but the message boys in our society are given is to never feel good about who they are. When they’re dismissively told to not make a big deal out of the unfairness and hurts they receive, the tone in which that message is conveyed implies that there is most definitely something wrong with them for even bringing it up.
It’s the rare parent who comforts little boys. But even when the pain is dismissed, it’s the rare parent who shows any understanding that the pain they’re suffering is normal to feel. Somehow, it becomes a problem that they even feel it.
In other words, there’s a difference between a parent’s stoically saying, “Yeah, I know it hurts, but you have to forget about it,” which would, at least, acknowledge the truth that the child was mistreated, versus an angry “get over it,” which implies that the child did something wrong to even feel the pain.
Boys are always wrong.
Well, they’re wrong when they don’t perform. Our society sets men up to only have value when they perform, according to Real. When they don’t perform, they’re as worthless as girls. Which, in turn, leads to a sense of shame. (Notice: nobody has any real value.)
On the other hand, if they make the effort and they do perform, then they can escape from the discomfort
of feeling shame. They do it by flying into a false sense of grandiosity. It’s false because it, again, is only based on performance, not on who they are.
Now, if we loop back to the original question here, which is how to get men into therapy when they have such a strong, natural reluctance, we can understand that reluctance. It’s based on a fear of shame. Or it’s based on the false grandiosity of convincing themselves that they don’t need it. Both are powerful motivators not to enter therapy.
The woman’s position is not one bit easier.
On the one hand, she doesn’t want to hurt her husband by bringing him down into shame. On the other hand, his grandiosity and rejection of the truth are so angering she could scream. But then again, she is afraid of him in that mode. So she stops in her tracks.
There is only one way to get a man into therapy who’s been avoiding the subject.
It will not come from anger because that will simply prompt his defensiveness and attacks.
It will not come from shaming him because that will either cause him to flee through addictions, shutting down, depression, or inappropriate alliances.
It will not come from pleading because that automatically casts him in the dominant role where he feels free to say, “No.”
And it will not come from your shutting down and giving up because he is still more comfortable in his state of denial than you are in your state of seeing the problem and hating it. You feel your feelings, and he makes do without them.
The way to get him into therapy, then, comes from you summoning up your kindness and willingness to be authentic at the same time. You have to be in Self for this.
What do I mean?
The “you” that speaks to him can’t be in a place of victim mode and suffering. Rather, you must feel good in your own skin, happy to be you, not emotionally drawn into the false worlds that your partner inhabits.
That, in turn, opens space for your compassion. Your compassion has to speak honestly to your spouse about his (not your) pain. It must be authentic but focused on his needs to also be authentic and live life to its fullest.
With those feelings foremost in your mind, you can say, “It’s time we turned around the problems in our marriage.”
When he “won’t” listen, it’s because he’s used to hearing complaints, attacks, criticism, even contempt. Those are the very opposite of the honest compassion that is called for. It may be that you’ve never complained, attacked, or criticized. Then you have a lot going for you. All you need is the courage to say what you need to say.
None of this is easy. It’s not easy for wives who are in pain, nor for the husbands who desperately don’t want to feel their shame. But it is doable, and I am here to help.
Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb. com/myw-masterclass.
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