The 2 Worst Ways Women Emasculate Men

Being very controlling. So it's, it's very emasculating. And this kind of goes in with another point that I have about mothering, which is a little bit different. I'm going to talk about that in a second. But being very controlling. So trying to overly dictate or control your man's behaviors, his actions, the things that he says, where he goes, who he hangs out with, this goes hand in hand with that withholding. Fun. Just generally what happens when a woman starts to become more and more rigid. And ladies, you've probably experienced this in a relationship. The level of controlling can go up and up and up and up and up. And my good colleague and friend Dewey Freeman says that where we control, we lack trust. Where we control, we lack trust. And so this can happen on a number of occasions, right? Maybe the trust has been broken, maybe there's been a betrayal, maybe there's been lies, Maybe there's just been, you know, he's dropped the ball a number of times and you feel like you have to step in and control. And I get that. I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that there aren't times where it feels like you have to sort of take control. What I'm talking about is when that's not necessary, when that's not needed, and you're operating in a way, sometimes from your own anxieties, sometimes from your own fears, sometimes from your own unwillingness to be vulnerable or be playful or be connected and intimate, you start to try and control. And the control is a mechanism that not only emasculates your partner, right? It emasculates the man who, you know, wants to be able to provide, wants to be able to lead in some ways in the relationship, wants to be able to feel close to you and connected to you, but it makes him feel small. Right? Whenever we are in the controlling position, we feel very big. We feel very powerful. And whenever we're in the controlled position, we feel very small. And so it's very common for a lot of women who enact this hyper controlling mechanism, which is very emasculating for a partner. Right? Like, you know, why didn't you take out the garbage when I told you to? Or how come you didn't take it out the way that I asked you to? Or why didn't you put the dishes in the exact way that I told you to? Or the bed isn't made this way, or, you know, why did you say that that way? Or whatever it is, you start to nitpick every single Behavior, action, choice, speech that that man says. And slowly he feels very constricted. So the most important thing to men, the most important thing to the masculine, is freedom. And so slowly, as you become more and more controlling, it's emasculating him because he feels like he has less and less and less and less freedom. And this is a recipe of for disaster in a relationship. It builds up resentment on both sides. Neither of you are happy. So that's another way that emasculation can happen. I only have a couple more, and then I wanna hear your thoughts in the comments below. Big, big, big one is trying to change you as a man, right? There's a saying that I think I said on a podcast recently that men try to fix problems and women try to fix the person. And so oftentimes, what will happen in a relationship is a man will, you know, try and he'll hear his wife or his girlfriend is upset, she's got some issue at work or with her parents, and he will be thinking about, how do I fix this problem for her? You know, what do I do? Or she'll be saying, oh, I want to lose 10 pounds, or I don't like the way that I look in this dress. And so he'll think about, how do I help her solve this problem of losing 10 pounds or fitting into this dress, right? He'll fix it on the problem. But for women, what will happen? This is just a generality, but I've found it to be true. Most of the time, women will focus in on the person. So a man might say, you know, I don't like my job, or I want to lose 10 pounds or whatever it is. And she'll start to try and change his behavior. She'll start to try and change him. She'll start to focus in on his actions, his choices, his behaviors, his likes, what he does, who he spends time with. And so she'll try and start to change him out of. Right? They're both good intentions out of either seeing where he could be better. You know, where he's struggling, where he's hurting, where he's lonely, disconnected, whatever the case may be. But the more that you try and change the man that you're with, the more that he will feel emasculated because the more that he will feel like, you don't love me for who I am. You are trying to get me to be a version of myself that you want, and so you don't actually accept who I am. You want me to become who you want me to be. And for a man, again, the masculine in us craves that freedom. And so that doesn't feel like a free choice. That doesn't feel like a direction that he can move very freely. And for a lot of guys, what will start to happen is they'll start to check out because they'll feel like, oh, you're just trying to change me into who you want me to be. And so it can create a lot of tension, a lot of resentment, a lot of conflict within the relationship when a woman is, you know, constantly trying to change him. And what's fascinating, and, ladies, I love you because you always want to support your men, but I think this is one of the things that I see time and time again. I get so many questions from women saying, how. How do I get my man to do the work? How do I get my man to come out to your weekends? How do I get my man to read your book or tune into your podcast or whatever it is? And I always say the same thing, which is, stop trying to change him. And then maybe you'll have the answer. And for a lot of women, that's a very hard thing to hear, because most of the time, you're trying to change your man because you see that he's in pain, you see that he's suffering, you see that he's hurting you, you see that he's frustrated. And so when you can let go of trying to change him, you can actually start to see who he actually is and reflect that back. You'll actually be able to have deeper conversations with him about what he's struggling with and understand where he's at and why he's making the decisions that he's making, and to some degree, love where he's at. And when you stop trying to change the man that you're with, the man that you're with has the freedom to change. I really want that one to hit home. When you stop trying to change the man that you're with, the man that you're with has the freedom to change. He's got the air to breathe. For a lot of men, it is incredibly. They feel very encroached on when they're. The woman that they're dating or married to has identified that they're struggling and then is just constantly peppering them, trying to get them to change. You got to go to therapy, you got to hire a coach. You need to, you know, do this course or whatever it is, and constantly on him to change, create invitations, create openings, say, hey, I bought you this book that I thought you might like or, you know, I'd love to listen to this podcast with you without the expectation of you need to be somebody different in order for me to be happy with you.