Counselling -

How Women Who Don’t Speak Up

Hurt What They Treasure Most

If you ask a hundred women what they value most in their lives, they will produce a list that is centered around the quality of their relationships. Unfortunately, even in this day of abundant amounts of information, far too many women are holding onto patterns of behaviour that chip away at the relationships they hold in such high regard.

It’s such a small thing really, yet so many women find it almost too much to handle: asking for what they want. There are certainly a number of reasons I could share that explain why this occurs regularly with women, but it would probably be better to look at the effects of this type of behaviour.

Women who value the notion of being married will do well to look at the issue from the man’s perspective for a moment. One of the top reasons men get frustrated with the wives is due to this issue of her not asking for what she wants. Men end up feeling handcuffed as a result and their agitation levels can rise dramatically.

A man wants to do a good job of making his wife happy; of contributing in meaningful ways to her sense of well being. This cannot happen on a consistent basis if he is unclear about what she desires, what she has needs for.

Strangely enough, men end up being hurt because they interpret her not talking as a means of trying to control him. If she doesn’t tell him what she wants, without whining of course, he feels like she is setting him up for failure. Fears of rejection can begin to dominate the man’s line of reasoning, infecting his peace of mind about himself and relationship.

Once a man gets destabilized by these fears, be they true or imagined, he is quite likely to sabotage the relationship as a means of not being the one who gets dumped. Neglecting to tell a man what you want, is a viewed by him as a form of neglect, a means of getting even or punishing him. In his eyes, you’ve now crossed over into a parenting role and he is being relegated to childlike status.

If this line is crossed, he will then become rebellious or passive and create more distance between himself and his mate. He believes that his spouse no longer has his best interest at heart and is trying to trip him up by not giving him clear boundaries to measure his competence by. He feels that the expectations continue to change, or are never really precise enough for him to be able to get a sense of his worth as a husband.