There are so many wrong ideas out there about men’s emotions.

So often we are seen as emotionally incompetent and poor at sharing our feelings. Sadly, men often feel this way about themselves as well.

In reality, men aren’t primarily lacking in emotional intelligence, it’s our society and each of us as members of this culture that are failing to give men what they need.

This week’s video discusses this predicament and how to easily change it.

Watch more videos at www.FullFrontalFatherhood.com.

There is so much chatter about why men are unable to feel and express our emotions. And so many misconceptions about what happens for us. The reality is that men feel a huge array of sensations. Science has even shown that we experience feelings more intensely than women, but we often do not feel safe, nor have the place to share our feelings. We do not typically feel like there is someone who will really hear our vulnerable emotions without some negative reaction.

Us, like you women, feel a lot of doubts about whether or not we are good enough. It is simply part of being human in our current society. There are also fears about our relationship and about our ability to be successful in the world. It is all extremely uncomfortable to acknowledge, feel and express.

But given a safe person with whom to open up, we will happily pour out our hearts. As a couples therapist, I can not tell you how many men I have worked with where their partner said he is incapable of being in touch with his feelings. But once he feels safe with me, a whole world of complexity opens up. It is often shocking for the woman to hear what is actually happening inside of their partners heads and hearts.

So how can we as men and women create a place where it is safe for men’s feelings to come out, and at the same time create a space where it is safe for the women’s feelings to really be heard? Often the reality is, as much as you women want to hear our feelings, it is quite hard for them to hear what we actually have to say. Just like it is hard for us to hear their feelings.

What’s so Hard about Supporting your Partner?

When we are attached to somebody and thus identified with them, it is very hard to be there for their emotional intensity. With a friend it is quite easy to support them in their doubt, fear and anger. Their struggles don’t directly affect us so we can more easily be compassionate. When it is our partner, it means a lot more to us. If they are upset or insecure, it can make us feel upset and insecure. Given how life can be so overwhelming, we want our partners to be calm, happy and stable. When they are not happy, most of us have a reaction to try to stop them from feeling bad so we will stop feeling bad.

It’s always said that men want to fix women’s problems when they just want to be heard. The reality is that both men and women have a hard time listening to their partner’s feelings and holding back advice. We all want to tell our partners how they can make themselves feel better so that we will feel better.

Why Honesty is so Important

Being in a relationship for many years requires dealing with a lot of hard truths: our own insecurities about being good enough, getting old, losing our beauty, our strength and even our attraction to our partners. There are a lot of subjects that are very difficult to discuss. So often they are just left to the side. Unfortunately, that quickly leads to a dead relationship.

To have a really solid relationship that can last decades and deal with all the complexities that life throws at us, we have to feel safe enough to be honest with one another about everything we are going through. Whether or not it is our fear about our genital size, or how long we last during intercourse, or the natural fluctuations in attraction to our partner, if we are able to share it with one another and have it be received with open-heartedness, without judgment or cheerleading, it is wonderfully healing. Having such a truthful relationship really supports both people to have a much happier life.

What to Actually Do

When your partner comes to you with feelings, just be there, turn towards them and look them in the eye. Try to not fiddle with anything and just listen. Keep your mouth shut and show them your presence with your eye gaze. Mainly, do not respond. Just being heard is so deeply healing.

When they are truly done and there has been a significant pause, if you have a natural compassionate response, then go ahead and share it. If nothing else, you can say, “Thank you.” Mainly we all just need to be heard. We need to feel that somebody is receiving us so we do not feel so alone with all these complexities that we go through.

When a man or a woman knows that they can share whatever is happening inside them to their partner, they can relax, knowing there is a safe place in the world. Having such a refuge and support, makes us all a lot more powerful in the world and much more capable of handling what comes at us.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of Full Frontal Fatherhood. I would love to hear your thoughts about these difficult subjects. I know it is intense to share in a public forum, but if we can all be more honest about what we are going through, that makes it safer for all of us to just be ourselves. Be a little courageous if you can, and I’ll see you next time for another episode of Full Frontal Fatherhood.

Take care,
Julian

Gay parents aren’t restrained by the same societal norms that quietly push straight parents into confined ruts of conditioned patterns.


Freed of these constraints, they typically do a number of things that make for a more thriving family.


Here are 3 of the ways that we can learn from their experience.

Read it below if you prefer.

Watch more videos at www.FullFrontalFatherhood.com.

Gay men often make better dads than straight guys, not because they are inherently better at it, but because their situation forces them to parent far more conscientiously. As dads in heterosexual relationships, we have strong societal norms and thus easily fall into ruts where we hand over the parenting responsibilities to the mom and whilst we stand back. As I talk about extensively in my main video, Why Modern Family’s Struggle, it leads to an imbalance in the family and has a wide range of detrimental effects. Most notable is a real strain on of the love between the parents and thus the potential for joy within the family.

Characteristic #1: Equal Footing

The first characteristic you find in a lot of gay families, that unfortunately you do not find in a lot of straight families, is a real sense of equal footing between both parents when it comes to providing for the kids in the parenting situation. Both people feel equally empowered about their ability to provide. Of course, discrepancies exist, but not in the deep conditioned way that you so often find in straight families, where everybody in society expects that the mom is the care provider and that the dad is the second class parent. Because of this equal footing, there are two people to handle every tough situation.

One person does not feel overwhelmed by the inherent difficulty of being a parent and the other doesn’t feel like a lesser parent. Both people can enjoy the wonders of being really close with their children and the deep relief when the other parent can easily take over in tough moments.

How to do this in your Relationship

As I talk more extensively about in my main video, 1 Key to Being a Great Dad, the crux of obtaining this equal footing involves us fathers facing any doubts about our ability to be an equal parent. We have to step into those moments of uncertainty and give ourselves a chance to master parenting. If we don’t step forward, the women will typically just take care of the situation. This has a short-term ‘benefit’ for us as we don’t have to deal with whatever is happening for our child, but this quickly relegates us to a disempowered position with the mom running the show. It’s so easy to just stand back and let the mom do it, but it painfully perpetuates this hindering inequality.

We can further empower ourselves and thus prevent this dynamic, by getting information about how to handle those tough moments. If you have an issue you’d like to master, just Google it or head to Full Full Fatherhood.

Lastly we have to talk to our partners about our desire to create a have equal footing. They may be used to just doing it and their motherly instincts will likely drive them to quickly manage whatever is arising. It really helps to tell them so they know to give us space. Just say ‘Hey, I would love a relationship where we are both providing. Can you give me some space and support me to step forward?’ It makes a big difference, but it requires women to resist their strong instincts and I talk about how they can do this in the video 1 Key to being a Great Mom.

Characteristic #2: Space to find their Nurturing Hearts

Along the same lines, gay guys have an opportunity to really find their nurturing side when the baby comes. So often we hand these responsibilities off to the mom thinking she’s better at it. The reality is we are all very nurturing beings if we give ourselves the chance. For the gay guys, there is no one to hand it off to, so each one is given the space to sit there and hold their baby, stare into its eyes and fall in love.

As dads in a straight relationship, we have to choose to take that moment. We have to choose to find that side of ourselves and create the love with our babies. Set aside regular time to just hold them skin to skin and staring into their eyes. When they goo, we go goo. We follow them and we fall in love. If we are caught up in our business, our phones and our work, we do not have that chance to really bond, we leave it to the moms and things get out of whack.

Characteristic #3: Strategizing

The third thing that gay families often do that straight families typically don’t, is to strategize and plan. They are going into a situation without the societal norms about who is supposed to do what and when. Everything has to be thought through. Everything has to be planned.

Having a collaboriative plan makes a huge difference. If you are not prepared for having a kid, it is going to wipe you out. It makes all the difference if you’ve previously thought through things like who is going to take care of the kid when it wakes up at one in the morning. What are we going to do when there is no sex? What are we going to do in terms of fun in our relationship? All these types of conversations need to be had if you don’t want to find yourself overwhelmed and on unequal footing once the situations arise.

Fortunately for gay families, they have to have them because of the lack of default. Do not fall into a default. Take the time to sit down, if it is before your child is born or even if you are already ten years into it. Plan out how you want to parent, how you want your family to go with your partner. That kind of collaborative conversation that we so often find in business is so often lacking at home. How could it be different? How can you get to that place of difference? Do not just accept the status quo that you are in. Strategize and make it what you want it. I cover how to do this extensively in How to Baby Proof your Marriage.

• Hopefully, we can take what from what these gay guys are doing and:
• Find equal footing with our partners.
• Find our nurturing sides.
• Strategize about how we can make our families thrive.

Regardless of your sexual orientation, if both parents are empowered, the family balance is maintained and everyone thrives.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of Full Frontal Fatherhood. I would love to hear your ideas about how we could do this. Please join the conversation below and I will see you next time for another episode of  Full Frontal Fatherhood.

Take care,
Julian

I hated hearing these words from my daughter.

But sometimes our kids really don’t want us and all they want is mom. It’s a really horrible feeling to be so thoroughly rejected by someone we love so much.

Unfortunately, our responses to these painful moments often make it much worse and can even devastate our relationships with our children.

Fortunately, I have helped a lot of dads get out of this situation and this week’s video gives you some concrete steps to finding your way back to a joyful and loving relationship with your child.