My daughter chatted with me this morning about headaches, tiredness, and mood swings. Of course, I prescribed all the mommy-remedies: scripture study, prayer, sleep, nutrition, exercise, etc. but we both know the real and irreversible problem: she’s a WOMAN.
Life, for women, has become rather complex. Everyone knows it. In the smorgasbord world our sister-progenitors bequeathed us, we are generally, or at least too often – despite our BEST efforts – fraying at the edges. Some are coming unraveled. Knitting ourselves back together again is a daily ritual. The lucky ones have husbands who are also handy with the knitting needles; men who know how to pick up our dangling strings – and patch us back up.
It usually takes quite a while, however, for husbands to learn to purl with those big fingers. To sit quietly and listen, validating our feelings, letting us clean out toxic emotions; resisting Mother Nature’s call to action – the inborn male trait to fix things – is tough on a good guy. When their damsel is in distress, a good guy’s inclination more often than not is to take it personally. (Even if he has nothing to do with it!)
She whines, she whimpers, she weeps.
The knight on horseback feels restless. He is a hero after all (or wants to be), and a hero – obviously -- IS the answer, or has all the answers. So when the moat is filling with her tears, his options are: get depressed, get away, or get to work! And how do we frequently respond when he chooses to charge and champion (solve everything)?
You don’t understand! (more weeping) You’re not helping at all!
Gone are the days when any nice fella who could zing a bulls-eye, slay a dragon, and charm in the bedchamber (provide, protect, and procreate) was a shoe-in for Lady Marion. Today, women expect a whole lot more from their men. Psychotherapist is just one of the roles he probably didn’t expect when he showed up in his shining amour on your wedding day. Listening, validating, supporting, can be a strange, new, world for a man of action. Your job may be to gently persuade your nice guy that emotional intimacy is a BRAVE new world--- a world that takes just as much courage, if not a different sort of courage -- as life in the camps; and that, as a woman, you need him to rescue you THERE.
Meanwhile (back at the castle), give him space: room (physically and emotionally) where, and when, he can be alone, rest up, rejuvenate, work through problems, and then suit up again in his chain-mail before you send up the next distress signal.
Remember: he’s trying; a hero’s life is exhausting. It’s a long process.
Your understanding of his maleness helps him want to nurture you emotionally; and your admiration of his manliness (the beautiful things peculiar to men) will give him hope that he is not only the knight, but the “knitter” of your dreams!
NEXT UP: Wife Support Part Four: The Hunter Comes Home. Mona shares and teaches romance at Mona's Musings with a Hint of Romance and posts daily at Mona's Musings on Facebook. and is the award-winning author or With Mine Own Hand: The Musical Account of Nephi. Based on her experience and study of two fathers, one husband, three sons, two grandboys, and seven brothers, she is writing a book about UNDERSTANDING MEN (go figure). Women say her live presentations on the subject are like going to Zumba class (though she's not sure what that means). Her Relief Society version is world famous (well, Canada is on the schedule).
