Emotional Unavailability: Husbands not being emotionally supportive or responsive.

Yeah, because if he's in his masculine, he’ll feel like a brick and he's just like, “Oh shizz…. THAT was important to you? THAT mattered to you? I didn't realize, you didn't tell me it was important to you.”

And for the feminine, that hurts.

He’s supposed to know, she talks about it all the time.

See, feminine keeps a ticker file of information on everyone around her.

Hate to say it, but – without training like this program - he's NOT naturally keeping a file of what's going on in your life and your loves and your hates, and your passions, and what you approve of and what you disprove of.

He doesn't keep a laundry list of all these random things that you say when you comment on something so that you hope that he'll notice, so that when it's time for your birthday or an anniversary, or a special night, he will go into his ticker file in his mind and like pull out the details of the things you talked about.

Unless he's writing that stuff down on purpose it’s just NOT going to happen. That is just not how masculine naturally operates. It’s not personal – even when it might FEEL personal.

Masculine does not keep a ticker file of “a bunch of random crap because she’s talking all the time about everything” (which is how masculine perceives, doesn’t make it right) unless it's relevant to his hobbies and his passions.

And that might zing.

You might feel like, “Well, but I should be his passion.”

And, you are, but not in the same way that tools in a toolkit are.

You are not an object in his life to be controlled – (not if he’s worth anything as a man, anyway).

You are this force of nature that he does not fully understand, it’s more like he’s dimly aware of the full press and details of your life.

It’s like “Oh my God, you're so amazing. You go so fast. You process so much. I can barely keep up.”

So, if he's smart, he will take notes. I do. I take notes on my wife all the time.

As for the “he's not emotionally supportive or responsive” part – No.

Because, when you start to go into your “stuff” – the pressures and pains and struggles and thoughts and feelings and wants and needs - he's going to naturally move into problem-solve mode, not validate.

Masculine communication is transactional:

What’s the point?
What’s the problem?
What relevant details or data need to be conveyed, and for what purpose or outcome?

Feminine: “Well, I do this thing and it makes me feel this way.”

Masculine: “Then don’t do that thing.”

Feminine: “I can’t believe you would say that to me. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid!”

Masculine: “Well, if it’s not that big a problem, then just learn to live with it. You’re not going to change it, so just suck it up. Why waste the energy on it?”

And a fight ensues…

Masculine is very protective of resources – testosterone has to be recharged.

We HAVE to rest and recover.

When we’re tired, we’re running out of juice – like a battery.

Masculine gets bored – which means, “of all the possible things available to me, none are worthy of my limited time, energy, and/or attention.”

Feminine NEVER gets bored – there’s ALWAYS something that needs to get done, organized, straightened, cleaned, arranged, prepared for, recovered from.

Please Note: not “women never get bored” – as we’re MORE than our polarity.

With Men, it’s NOT about “emotional availability” it’s about “what’s the point?”

This mode of communication, the feminine pattern of:

Here’s where I’m at,what I’m going through,what I feel,what I think,want I want,why I can’t have it right now,what’s pressing on me,the context of my life, andI want you to know about it all sowe’ll have consensus andyou’ll understand me andthe complexityand nuancedand thoughtfulrealityin which I liveineverymoment…

It just doesn’t resonate with him. He can’t hold all those details.

For fun, read to him from the part starting with “masculine is very protective of resources” and you’ll have him nodding along.

The simple truth is: there’s a masculine “mode” in communication, and a feminine “mode” – and, maybe it’s right brain vs left brain, the science is still out on organizing principles for polarity – but suffice it to say, if he’s getting overwhelmed or bogged down or tunes out the larger part of your communication then he’s simply not communicating in a way that you need him or want him to.

Making him wrong for that just hurts you both.

Instead, line it up for him:

“Honey, here’s what I need: I need to vent. I need you to listen to me, totally. And, after I tell you all the things, I need you to say, ‘wow, that’s a lot.’ And then ask, ‘anything else?’

And I’ll say some more stuff. And when I get done, I’ll nod my head.

And then YOU say, ‘that’s incredible. And you’re amazing. I know you can handle it.’

And then ask me, ‘is there anything specific you need me to remember or take away from this?’ And I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to remember from all of it.

And then I’ll say, ‘thank you for listening.’ Can you do that for me?”

If you frame what you need from him, then he can do that for you and you’ll both be happier. You just have to coach him a bit.

And tweak what I wrote – after all, I’m just a guy with some ideas in a general sense, you and your husband are the best people to dial in exact language that works for you both.

Ultimately, he wants to win with you. For you. You just have focus on the result you want MORE THAN the idea or attitude of “but I've made him aware and he should know what I need” – Believe me, he doesn’t know or he’d already be doing it for you, all day, every day.

This inattention or unavailability isn’t about not loving you enough, or not caring enough – it’s simple that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Emotional Unavailability

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