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Written by Eric Anfinson, LMFT, Radiant Living Therapist

We are living in a time of incredible social change. Gender roles and expectations for heterosexual couples are open to discussion. For many reasons, most couples have shifted away from the housewife and breadwinner mentality to dual income. While an increasing number of women in the workforce is a great step forward, there hasn’t been an equal change with men stepping up at home. Many women are now expected to work a job and be the primary care for the home and children. The problem also doesn’t stop at the division of labor. There are still far too many men out there who are operating from what is now an archaic perception of how men are supposed to act when it comes to expressing and feeling emotions.

Men, it’s not your fault that you’re in this position with your emotions.

Our society has done men an incredible disservice by preaching toxic masculine values, shaming their emotions, and refusing to educate them on how to help at home. It’s also not just men that are the issue here, plenty of women have been indoctrinated with these toxic values and help to perpetuate these norms.

My own grandmother yelled me out of the kitchen one holiday when I tried to help with the dishes because it wasn’t my place. That woman certainly wasn’t teaching my father the things he was going to need to teach me. So, it’s not fair, but that doesn’t make the current state of so many relationships okay. Once we acknowledge that there is a problem with ourselves, then it’s our responsibility to fix it. I couldn’t tell you how many books on emotional intelligence my father has read since discovering he needed to grow in that area. This is a healthy masculine trait. When we see a problem, we feel responsible for fixing it. So why not apply that to ourselves?

“I’m not an emotional person” – most Minnesota men…

One reason I see many men throw up as an attempt to explain away their lack of emotional intelligence is that it’s just who they are. This is total bull, and it gets used to defend harmful behaviors. For example, a man might say to defend his outburst, “I just have a temper”. A temper isn’t a character trait, it’s a distinct lack of emotional awareness and control. Emotional awareness and control are skills. They require education, and then to be nurtured and developed. Men also like to forget that anger is an emotion. I’ve seen too many stories of men who say “I’m not emotional”, then scream at the TV and punch a hole in the wall when their football team loses. That’s emotion. We all feel emotions. Sure, some people feel it differently than others, but we all feel the full spectrum of emotions.

3 Ways For Men to Start an Emotional Intelligence Journey

Step 1: Pay attention to and identify your feelings

This starts with simply asking yourself on a regular basis how you feel on a given day, or about a certain situation. If you feel like you could use some help on emotional vocabulary, I’m a huge fan of emotion wheels. They start with core emotions in the center and then spread out into increasingly specific feelings. The more accurately you can express yourself, the more successful you will be at being heard. You can practice this on your own or with a partner. Each day just review what emotions came up that day and what they felt like. Before we go any further on Identifying and feeling emotions, let’s talk about why they’re even important in the first place.

Step 2: Validate your emotions!

Once we start developing skill with identifying emotions, we can start using these skills to solve problems. As men we typically love solving or fixing problems, we’re wired to do it. Unfortunately, this habit often gets us in trouble because we don’t see emotions themselves as solvable problems, so we ignore them. 

Example: Let’s say you’re excited to be intimate with your partner, but they’re not up for it.

Now you’re probably feeling hurt and rejected, and you’ve got an emotional problem to solve. How we “solve” emotions is through empathy and validation. When emotions are validated it allows them to be released and allows us to move forward. You can validate your own emotions, and have others validate them too. Validation is all about letting yourself or someone else know that they’re allowed to feel their feelings and that their feelings make sense. Validation feels good, we all crave it and it makes us feel better. If you can give that to yourself or to your spouse you’re doing great.

So, for our intimacy scenario here, you could say to yourself, “I was really excited to connect with my partner and now I’m feeling like she doesn’t want me, that really hurts. I deserve to feel down for a minute here.” Once that’s validated you can start to move forward.

If you don’t identify and validate those feelings it can be easy to have them build up and explode in a tantrum. You could also express that same thing to your partner and have them validate your emotions. “Hey honey, I was really looking forward to getting the chance to feel connected and intimate with you tonight and now I’m just feeling like you don’t want me.” You’ve expressed what you’re feeling and now she has the chance to respond, “I’m sorry, it really sucks to feel rejected. I do want you and would love to be intimate tomorrow, I’m just incredibly exhausted from work today.” This kind of exchange is going to lead to a great deal more connection and less argument. The other half of this is that you can be helping your partner with their emotional distress.

Step 3: Listen to understand, not to respond

We do this in the exact same way but in reverse. Start by listening to your partner without the intent to respond, just to understand. Next, paraphrase what you just heard them say to show that you’re listening, and to be sure you do actually understand what they’re saying. Finally, validate what they’re saying by putting yourself in their shoes and letting them know that they have a right to feel what they’re feeling. 

Remember, these are all skills. They take practice, and you don’t have to be amazing at it right away. Many men feel very disadvantaged in emotional conversations with their partners because most women have been doing this their entire lives and you’re just trying to learn. I can tell you that learning will mean a great deal to your partner and improve your own life as well. Take your time, make mistakes, but don’t stop learning. 

Consider Therapy for Men in Plymouth, MN

We would love to help you through this unprecedented time in the world. You don’t have to set out on this emotional intelligence journey alone. Our Plymouth, MN-based specialist in men’s therapy, Eric, would love to help you. To get started, simply:

1. Schedule a free, 30-minute consultation with Eric to talk about counseling for men
2. Meet with a skilled and licensed therapist who specializes in treating men
3. Feel more comfortable and validated expressing your emotions in all aspects of life

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Other Counseling Services at Radiant Living Therapy

Our problems have many layers. Men’s therapy isn’t the only service we offer! We know these issues are complex so, we can help you at our Plymouth, MN counseling office, or anywhere in the state with online therapy in Minnesota. Our professional therapists offer a variety of options for supporting your mental health needs. Our counseling services include individual counseling for anxiety or depression therapy, counseling for teens, marriage counseling and couples therapy, EMDR for trauma therapy, therapy for postpartum, and more. Radiant Living also offers more of these mental health services online. Let us help you live your best life, starting with online therapy. 

Also, if you are a helping professional looking for help, or a therapist needing supervision or consultation services, we can help you, too. No matter the need, our therapists look forward to connecting with you!

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