Today I want to describe a man, I speak to nearly every single day
You may just recognize him.
He walks in the door at 6:40pm and reads the room in about four seconds. Her shoulders all tense, her tone that is heavy with disappointment and the way she looks up at him.
Before he has even taken his shoes off, he has decided which version of himself is “allowed” to be there tonight.
Maybe the funny one. …. if he plays it right.
Maybe the quiet, helpful one who offers to do the dishes, if he can even do that right in these circumstances. But always the one who says “I’m good” when he is not good, because he does not have the energy for the conversation that would follow if was to tell how he truly feels.
In fact… he learnt decades ago not to say how he truly feels.
This is not a man who is lying. This is a man managing, and he is very, very good at it.
That is the thing about men and modulation. They are required to learn it so young it feels more like a personality trait indicative to men. To Masculinity. In those formative years when you needed to be held, needed to be soothed and heard, you were told as a 2 yr old, 4yr old, 7 yr old..that men don’t do that. So you adjusted and have been adjusting for decades. By the time you are married, with a mortgage and a partner who loves you, the adjusting is just second nature and automatic. Most of the time you don’t even feel yourself doing it.
The wild thing you want in bed, you don’t ask for.
The fear you carry about money or ageing or being enough, you carry alone.
The anger gets swallowed until it leaks out sideways over something stupid, like how she closed the garage door.
You stay a ( quite a ) few percent offline in your very own home, accepting that these sorts of things just “cant be said”.
Yet….your partner is not the one holding the gate of the cage shut. It is you.
Oh…… we know she will have her own version of it. But you are the only person who can walk out of yours. And the men I talk to get to lead their partners out with them.
So what does it take?
Start to notice.
You don’t have to say it yet. Just catch it. Most men have never once caught themselves in the act, and the catching alone starts to loosen things up.
then…stop yourself saying “ I’m fine” or “I’m good” when you are not
Share more of you…. she signed on debt with you and birthed your children…you don’t owe the home “good”. You owe the home your authenticity. You passion, your surprise, your love, your appreciation and your concerns, your disappointment and your anger.
Then…..
You need a place where the unedited version can speak and nobody flinches, looks at you with raised eyebrows or takes it personally. ( Step two of the UPLVL Venting container agreement )
Start by sharing when she sits close to you on the couch, how it feels. How it makes you feel connected to her. Dont say “this feels nice” Say how it makes YOU feel. What does it stirs in you. Give more of yourself.
And then practice letting her know, when she keeps talking over you, you feel like she is not interested in hearing what you have to say.
You go out the door and kick goals in your business….. you can tell your beloved that you don’t appreciate being cut off when you speak or are trying to answer a question.
You did not come here to get smaller the longer you loved someone.
The men I work with who stop modulating do not become harder to live with. They become more magnetic and desirable. Their partners become softer around them as they can stop trying to manage the energy that does not feel truly authentic. They can stop guessing.
Sex gets weirder and better. …. more connected.
?How do i tell her that with her shutting down or taking it personally ? I hear you say.
I have one word for you……..”UPLVL”
The freedom this framework creates in relationships, with coworkers, partners, children and friends is like nothing I have ever used before.
if you are tired of thinking about all the things you would rather say, yet don’t….
If you are not so happy how ho hum the sex and intimacy has become in your relationship….
If you thought you would feel different in your relationship and thought that beig in love should have gotten you through…
And want to change it..
Lets get on a discovery call and I will share how I can support you to get back to one another so you can create the years ahead that damn well excite you.
I do NOT recommend waiting for 10 to 15 yrs when divorce is on the horizon and you are trying to repair a decade of shuffling around one another….. ….. you would neglect a business, a child or a pet that way…so don’t neglect the elephant in the room in your relationship..
I look forward to speaking to you
Always with Pleasure
M
❤️