To Do
  - Email to a Friend
  - Discuss
  - Printer Version

See Also

Archive

About the Author

Joe's latest book: Becoming One Buy it online!

    Almost every man craves it. It’s the number one reason men visit prostitutes. It’s the nearly irresistible desire that drives most of the calls made to “phone sex” businesses. It’s even the prelude to the majority of extramarital affairs. Many husbands whose wives avoid it have sorrowfully discovered their unanticipated vulnerability to women who will give it. Nearly all marriages would improve dramatically—and become much less susceptible to failure or sin—if the wife would overcome her reservations and learn how to satisfy her husband with it.

    Not just men crave it. We’ve documented just as compelling a yearning for it in most women.

    I’m describing, of course, conversation where each person feels accepted no matter what he or she says, reveals, explains, or feels. I’m discussing complete openness to another human; absolute honesty that strips one of all pretension, posturing, and protection so that he presents himself naked and vulnerable to the other. He risks rejection, ridicule, or revulsion-even humiliating exposure-because he needs to be loved as he is, for who he is. He does this praying that his partner will accept him with all his faults, inconsistencies, and idiosyncrasies. In spite of things he has done or is doing and emotions he has felt or is feeling. “Wait a minute!” you may be shouting. “Are you crazy? You make it sound like this is something that men want but women refuse to participate in? You’ve got that exactly backwards, buddy! Don’t you know anything about men and women? I’ve heard of that Mars and Venus stuff, but what planet are you from?”

    Earth, thank you.

    And as an observant citizen of this planet I don’t buy much of what I hear about how men and women are supposed to be. Having already worked with more than 20,000 couples has proven to us at Family Dynamics that many men and women simply don’t fit into their assigned stereotypical slots. While it is true that men and women may approach a need differently (often based on societal programming), thinking that only men need this or only women need that leads to crucial errors in marriage. Don’t mistake methodology for motives. The way a person seeks something doesn’t always reveal what it is that he or she really is seeking.

    Just as many men crave intimate sharing with another as do women. Back in the late 1970s I learned in a graduate level psychology class that the most common thing men want from prostitutes is for them to listen. That appears to be true even in the 2000s. I read that in many calls to phone sex lines the conversation isn’t sexual at all. The caller craves someone to listen without judgement. Thousands upon thousands of men—many of them married—pay women to listen to them!

    Not worried about paid listeners? Then think about this. At FDI we’ve discovered that relationship affairs (as distinguished from the other two types of affairs explained in Becoming ONE) develop as a man and woman begin to listen, understand, and accept the facts and feelings of their lives. They usually start innocently and progress without safety checks or barriers. By the time they recognize danger, they don’t want any checks or barriers. My experience in working with couples indicates that these affairs most often find root in couples who are best friends. One wife, the other husband, innocent sharing, deeper relationship, and then, before anyone realizes the warning signs, a full blown affair. The second most common source I see is the workplace.

    All that starts with listening, accepting, and valuing another person? Yes. The process starts slowly and picks up speed as each realizes that the other will love and value in spite of what they hear.

    So why isn’t that happening in marriage?

It all starts with listening, accepting, and valuing the other person.

    Most husbands or wives who disguise their true feelings or actions do so because they fear some type rejection from their spouse. Their fear ranges from the relatively minor (the spouse pouting, crying, acting hurt) to the moderate (heated arguments, emotional withdrawal, no fulfilling sex) to the major (hitting, leaving, divorcing, exposing embarrassing or endangering facts to others). If people experience negative reactions from the “minor category” when they share, they very likely aren’t going to risk opening themselves to the negative consequences found in the moderate or major categories.

    Therefore, it may be that a husband may have tried on occasion to share the facts of his life (his day, his hobbies, etc.) or the feelings he has (frustration, happiness, anger) only to find that his wife responded with a lack of interest. Though her lack of response is a minor negative in the grand scheme of things, it may be enough to cause him to clam up and not share more. If she reacts in a more intense way still in the minor category (like arguing, or telling him how he needs to fix the situation he just described, or laughing at his emotions), he probably won’t share more of himself. That’s why we hear from many wives that they don’t understand why their husbands won’t open up: “We don’t argue. He just doesn’t say anything!” It may well be that a minor rejection keeps him from ever risking a more painful rejection. If he decides to risk it and shares again, a moderate level of rejection will almost positively ensure his future silence.

    I continually find it amazing that a wife will complain that her husband never talks to her and that’s why they lack intimacy, but when I interview the husband I find that he tried sharing early on and decided it wasn’t worth the negative consequence. As I mentioned in an earlier article, that’s how spouses “teach each other to lie.” When people react negatively to honest, open sharing from their spouses, they shouldn’t be surprised when the sharing ceases or at the least goes through a careful editing process before being spoken in their presence.

    Yes, I remember what I wrote a few paragraphs above about not stereotyping. I’ve seen many, many women who would love to share openly their lives and emotions with their husbands but who don’t dare because of some level of received rejection. But lots of writers mention that situation. I’m trying to open eyes to the fact that men also want to share but will only do it when they perceive permission. In countless cases I’ve witnessed even the quietest most reticent man talk nearly endlessly when someone listened carefully, encouragingly, and nonjudgementally. He may have started more slowly than a verbal female, but as he “tested the waters,” felt true acceptance, and believed in the genuine interest of the listener, he shared just as much as any female would have.

    When husbands and wives allow their spouses to open their deepest feelings and most sensitive history, deep levels of sharing and understanding will happen. “Allowing” means doing nothing that will make you spouse feel that you are responding with punishment for what he or she reveals. It means accepting that the event happened, or that your spouse feels as he or she does, even if it breaks your heart to hear it.

    There is a crucial difference in not liking what you hear and punishing the person for sharing it.

    Punish and stop the flow of truth. Live with lies or deceptions. Accept, even when it hurts, and you’ll find wonderful intimacy. You may discover that your “silent” spouse suddenly shares in ways you’ve always hoped for.

    I’ll explain more about that in the next article.

    While I cannot answer every question, I will answer in this column pertinent questions that I believe are generally helpful. If you have a question you would like to submit, send it to joebeam@familydynamics.net.