How Your Masculine Energy Is Affecting Your Relationship

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm so glad you're here today. Today I am talking about how your energy, specifically your masculine energy, is affecting your relationship. I'm excited to dive into this topic today because I have so many women Dating, married, who are struggling with this concept of femininity, masculinity, and how it shows up in their relationships. And sometimes they're not even aware that they're struggling with it, but it's causing some effects. So we're going to talk about that today. But first up, as always, my win and my fail. First, I have to say, it feels so good to get back to this microphone. I love talking to you guys. And I visualize you as I'm sitting here in my shed in the backyard recording this episode, but it's so good to get back, and that leads me to my fail. My fail is I have been dropping the ball with posting these episodes. I'm just gonna own it. It has been probably a couple of weeks, I hope not a month, but possibly since I have recorded a podcast. And well, the funny thing is it hasn't been that long since I've recorded. It's just getting to be that long before I publish. So I've got a lot in the backlog. Life has been really busy. Good, but busy. Just life. And so my only excuse for not getting these podcasts out is just life. But I also feel myself judging that that's not a good enough excuse. I want to be on here getting these podcasts out to you guys, and I love that you guys have reached out to me, and you're like, where are you? I'm right here, and I'm balancing all the things, including this book whose deadline is quickly approaching. And so I have been pouring a lot into it. I'm very excited about this book. So my fail: I haven't gotten the podcast out ideally. This is a weekly podcast that goes up on Tuesdays. Reality is it's been going up every few weeks. My win: So here's an interesting win. My sister told me about this app called Swimply. It is a place where you can go and list your pool, essentially your backyard and rent it out, kind of like Airbnb, but you're only Airbnb-ing your backyard. Well, I was curious. I put some pictures up that just pictures that were already in my phone, and I put it on this app, and the very next day my backyard was booked. So it's very interesting. I'm Airbnb-ing my backyard this summer, and it's been a lot of fun. I love to people watch, so that's a whole nother thing, but it's been It's been a really fun process, and hey, it's put some extra cash in my pocket, and I haven't even had to purchase a cabin or a house to Airbnb. I've got a lot of wins, but let's go ahead and just dive into this podcast episode. I will record the other wins on my next episode. So let's talk about this: how the balance of your masculine-feminine energy is affecting your relationship. So I wanted to talk about this today because so many of my clients complain that their men aren't showing up for them in the way that they. Want to. And this is women who are dating, and this is women who are married. And I'm beginning to realize this is an epidemic. We have a big problem on our hands, and I foresee that in the next couple of decades, it's really going to get worse, both for women and for men. So what am I talking about? I'm talking about this imbalance of masculine and feminine energy that I see in relationships, and this is keeping relationships from even ever getting off the ground, and this is destroying marriage relationships. So what I'm going to talk about might also feel kind of controversial to some, but as independent and feministic in my thinking that I am, I am also keenly aware of the real biological hormonal differences in men and women and how those differences truly create our psychology. So I'm going to get into this energy thing, but first I want to talk about just the reality that men and women first are equal, of course, but we're different. And I know in many ways women are actually emotionally stronger than men. I often think, when I think about women and their strength, that it was at the cross of Jesus, it was the women who stayed when all the men, including his 12 disciples, left. Time and time again, in both my personal life and my professional life, I have watched women wade through horrific things All the while being the emotional and psychological glue that has held their family together. The strength of men is different. Men possess way more physical strength, we know that, but ironically, science has proven that women have more stamina and endurance than men. And I think this holds just as much truth emotionally as it does physically. Essentially, men can hold more weight, men can lift more weight, but women can do it longer. Now I want to be clear, this is not a man-bashing episode. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Men are amazing creatures, and I believe we were made perfectly for each other. And when you have 2 healthy, equally yoked partners in a marriage who respect each other's strengths and weaknesses, there is something so majestically and spiritually powerful. It's exactly What God created us to be as man and women. And we also know, of course, it's healthy for children to be raised in households where there's both a masculine and feminine energy. So thank God he didn't make us the same. We need to value our differences and our strengths, but we need to honor them. We need to be clear about what they are. And so that's what I'm talking about today. And all that said, I feel that many women, especially high-achieving women, We're losing. We're losing in the dating game. They're losing in the marriage game, and many of them are not happy. Now, I think there's a multitude of reasons why this is happening, and a lot of that has to do with our shifting culture. But one of them is that women are losing our grip on our femininity. I also think we're losing respect for it as well, for good reason. We're still paid less than our male counterparts. There are still consequences when we have gaps in our resumes. Motherhood and femininity has not been proven to be valuable in our society, although we give it tons of lip service—lots of it. Mother's Day, we give tons of lip service, but I don't think we actually walk that out in our culture—the value of femininity, the value of women, the value of motherhood—and so it's no wonder why so many women don't value it as well. And the flip side is that men reap the benefits of women who express their masculine energy, all the while they are repulsed. by it at the same time. And so we have this, we have this contention, we have this conundrum. And this becomes a problem because in order for a male-female relationship to work well, both of these energies, masculine and feminine, need to be present. And I think men might know this way more than women do, but they feel silenced by society to speak about this much because this idea that a man would want a feminine woman has actually been deemed to be toxic masculinity or some patriarchal agenda. Yeah, ironically, we don't necessarily think of a woman who may want to have and nurture children or desire a man who can be a good provider to be toxic femininity. It's just simply a natural desire for women that we understand. So in men's defense, I don't think it's fair that their natural desires are deemed toxic, but that's kind of a whole nother topic. But it does have a lot to do with this valuing of feminine masculine energy. So I say all of that to say that when the feminine-masculine balance in a relationship is off, the relationship feels less rewarding. If this happens in the early stages of meeting or dating, then the relationship will fail to ever take off. Often that leads a woman to wonder— they're confused. Maybe the date was going so well. Maybe you guys were chatting it up and you had so much in common. And it can be so frustrating. Now, if this balance is off in a marriage, then the marriage will not be happy and will be equally as frustrating, or more, really, honestly, more. So what I'm finding is that women are losing their natural sense of femininity. And when I begin to talk to them about walking more in the feminine, they actually get confused. They confuse cooking a meal or doing the chores, or even, God forbid, Giving a man money as taking care of him. But what they're missing is the importance of letting the man take care of them. Now, some men are actually very confused about what masculine energy is, and they might demand a level of care and respect that they have not yet earned. But this is also another conundrum we're not getting into today. It's a big issue. But first, let me talk about how not walking in your feminine energy is hurting your relationship. Now a system, any system must have equilibrium. A relationship is a system. And when there's an imbalance in a system, it has 2 choices. It can either overcorrect to bring back the balance or change roles to create balance. Now, if you're walking in your masculine energy in your relationship, your man's natural response will be to puff up and assert his dominance, what we call toxic masculinity, right? Or to recoil and become passive. Which, by the way, is also not what most of us women really want, if we're honest, although we might be creating it. So my question is, how is your masculine energy showing up in your relationship, and how might this be impeding your relationship? First, it's the I've got it syndrome. It's masculine energy. What is I've got it syndrome? It's taking over and declaring, not necessarily verbally, but in your body language and your behavior, Basically declaring to your man that you've got it. You can do it all by yourself. You don't need him. So I'm going to tell you this story, and I don't really want to get much into my dating life because that feels weird, but I also strive to be very authentic with you guys, and that's just a reality of where I am right now in this stage of my life. So I'm dating someone— see how I said that with this like hesitation? So I'm dating someone, and I had to ship this large crate at the airport. So he came with me and this crate took up the entire back of my backseat. And so we got to the airport. So I immediately got out of the car, opened the back door, and started struggling to get this crate, this huge crate out of the backseat. And I turned around and he was watching me and he just said quietly, why am I even here? And I looked at him and I was like, huh? And I had gotten out of the car and started struggling with that crate so quickly, he didn't even have a chance to get around his side of the car and do it for me. I circumvented his ability to help me, which is what he intended to do, which is what he wanted to do. And yet I quickly thwarted that. But what I didn't realize, and what is amazing, is that I was sending a very clear message to him that said, I don't need you. Men need to be needed. And he's a wonderful man. And he wasn't saying, why am I even here? In a way, That was rude. It was really soft, actually. And it was like, Zoe, what are you doing? Why are you struggling with that when I am right here? And we had a whole conversation about it later, but there is something so deeply biological in a man that he needs to feel needed. Now, I would never sit and watch a man do something physical, and if I wasn't doing it, I would never wonder, why am I here? I know why I'm here. And it has nothing to do with whether I can lift something or not. And I'm not saying that to make fun of or to simplify a man's needs because their needs are real and so are ours that might seem trivial to them. And so when your masculine energy is showing up and it's there for good reason, you've gotta take care of yourself, right? You can take care of yourself. You are sending these messages to your husband or to your potential partner that you don't need them. And that can impede a relationship Because when men don't feel needed, they slink away and their value in the relationship, as far as they're concerned, is significantly reduced. And I know that for many women listening, they might feel like, oh, so I've got to pretend like I need help. Well, no, it's not about pretending that you need help. It's about allowing him to help you. I didn't need him to take that package in, but you better believe I always allow him to do that because for him that matters. And we got to sit down in the car and have a really deep conversation about that, and it was so rich and it was so good. But also because I was open to listening, and so we're going to talk about that too as we move on. So when it comes to this feminine masculine energy, there are three types of women that I am seeing in my practice. The first is the woman who wants to fight against the patriarchy and often sees anything masculine as toxic, and is very much standing in her masculine energy and declaring to the world, "I can do this all on my own. I don't need a man." Right? These women. Even if they have some sort of faith, feel like they almost have to denounce their faith in order to stand up and be themselves, in order to stand up against the patriarchy. And this can be incredibly disturbing, and it can cause substantial internal turmoil, and it also impedes relationships. Now, the second kind of woman is the woman who doesn't align with feminism in any kind of way and espouses very traditional roles and reports feeling very comfortable being in the feminine role. She follows much of the traditional ways that the opposite genders interact in a heterosexual, very traditional relationship. She believes very much that she should be submissive. She was often taught or role-modeled this, and she feels a significant amount of shame or guilt even thinking of stepping outside of this role. She also tends to have trouble caring for herself, putting herself first. And she's often also depressed and anxious. Then there are those who haven't thought about relationships and the complexities of them, but they have just started recognizing that something isn't working and they don't know why. And I'm sure there are those women out there who are actually balancing it all very well, but of course they're not going to tend to end up in my practice. So I want to propose what I call a third option. And I know I just think I talked about 3 women, but anyway, I'm calling it a third option because it's In the middle. It's not on the edges of the pendulum swing. This third option for being in a relationship is one that doesn't swing the pendulum so far right that you don't know how to be interdependent, but it doesn't swing it so far left— and I'm just using right and left arbitrarily— that you don't lose a sense of yourself and have to abandon yourself daily to make the relationship work. I also feel strongly that although our modern Christianity is highly patriarchal— yes, it is still— that is not what Jesus modeled in his his life on earth. I can denounce the toxic patriarchal behavior and treatment of the church and not lose my faith in a God who demonstrated when he walked on the earth as a man that he valued men and women equally. And part of this third option of thinking boils down to owning your femininity. And this is such a hard topic to talk about because there's so many nuances regarding what makes us feminine. But let's just start with chemically. Even the fact that we live in a day and age where I have to defend the fact that there's a real difference between the genders is astounding to me. Now, I'm all for people doing and being whatever they want to do, but to try to deny biology, I believe, only hurts us as a culture. Female brains from before birth are bathed in estrogen and a host of other supportive hormones, and male brains are bathed in testosterone and a host of other supporting hormones that we just can't deny. And these hormones create very different brains, not to mention different physiologies. And our feminine and our masculine energy is born out of that process. Now, I believe that much of these differences, or the purpose of why God put them there, have to do with child rearing. Feminine energy is more nurturing, and masculine energy is more protective. And both of these are in service of taking care of families and the continuation of our Now, an interesting caveat is that as women and men age, this hormone tide actually begins to turn. And with the lowering of estrogen, women's ratio of testosterone rises, and then the opposite happens for men. Now, of course, this was all God-designed because women no longer need to care for their young in the same way. And so we're given space to be more assertive, be more self-caring, and men are given the space to be less dominant. Now, of course, we're still living in a body and a psyche that's been bathed in these hormones for half a century. So there's still no getting away from these differences between men and women. But there needs to be some adjusting in relationships when we enter this midlife. And I truly believe that it's one of the reasons that there's an advent of gray divorce. Couples in middle age are divorcing at astronomical rates. And there are some very real cultural and societal reasons for that that we're not going to get into today. I do believe that The hormone balance and tide shift is a small part of that. But back to the topic: What does feminine energy look like? True feminine energy is the strongest expression of strength on this planet. Feminine energy is not about paying attention to how you look, although yeah, maybe that's a part of it. It's not about being vulnerable, although we can definitely throw that in there too. It's about recognizing your strength as a woman and not feeling like you have to mask it with masculinity. Or fake femininity. Feminine energy is a connecting and nurturing energy. It offers the space for vulnerability and emotional bonding, and it helps create a sense of intimacy and understanding. Masculine energy provides clarity and stability, and we all have a mixture of both, but imbalances in the relationship can lead to conflict, hurt feelings, disconnection. Too much masculine energy may feel very insensitive and dominating, while too much feminine energy can feel overly passive and emotionally unhealthy. True masculine energy is not dismissive or insensitive; it provides a deep sense of safety actually in the relationship. It provides a sense of direction, groundedness, and an energy that says, "I've got you." Now, a woman's healthy energy is just as strong as a man's. But it represents strength and vulnerability, which I think a lot of women misconstrue as weakness. When women allow themselves to walk strongly in their feminine energy, they have a strength that cannot be conquered, and they drive their men a little wild. This is not a manipulative type of strength, but an energy that says, I see you, I accept you, I love you, and I will care for you. If either person in a relationship feels a need to suppress their natural energy, either because it's seen as weak or it's seen as toxic, the relationship will become off-kilter. Now, I believe that most women are naturally feminine. Given the hormones that their brain has been bathing in, it's hard not to be. But there are reasons why we've learned to shut off our feminine disposition and lean harder into the masculine. When a woman begins to lose respect for a man, she ceases to feel safe, and she feels that she's got to protect herself. And she does that by shutting off her feminine energy and moving into her masculine. She may become more cold, distant, logical, less understanding and nurturing. Ironically, a woman who has yet to feel that she can trust a man when she's in the beginning of a relationship, Will do the same thing. My answer to that is to remind yourself that you don't have to protect yourself from someone else. Yes, it's hard for a woman to receive, open up, and let go when she doesn't feel a sense of strong safety from her male counterpart. The conundrum though is that it's hard for a man to find his footing in his masculine energy when the woman is matching his, and the relationship is gonna tend to fall apart or never get started or have both people jockeying for this role in the relationship. So, so, so how do we walk in our feminine energy? At the heart of femininity lies empathy, nurturing empathy, sensitivity, and grace. Now, this can also feel like vulnerability. And so I hear so many women saying, well, when he's proven to me that I can trust him, then I'll let my guard down. Then I'll allow myself to be more vulnerable. And I know it's scary to feel like you're being vulnerable with someone whom you don't know you can trust. And I say, you can trust yourself. You can let your guard down. You can trust yourself that you are enough, that your emotions aren't too much, that you can be strong and feminine. And if he doesn't accept it, you will be okay. Femininity also embraces emotional depth. We women are not more emotional than men. Men are plenty emotional. We just have easier access To our emotions. We just don't have to work at it as hard as men do. On top of that, men are socialized, of course, to be not so in touch with their feelings. And when we are, when we are in touch with our emotions, we give them a sacred space that they can't access anywhere else to open up and be more in touch with their emotions and our emotions. We make them feel safe in an emotional way when we are in our feminine energy. How do we do that? We get curious. Feminine energy is curious and it is caring. Feminine energy gives way for a man to connect deeper with his own emotions. With feminine energy, we make men feel emotionally safe. With masculine energy, they make us feel physically and environmentally safe. We take care of each other in that beautiful dance. And what early dating women fail to see is that if they meet their men only with quick wit and intellect, they don't give men the ability to see how they could be emotionally safe with them. Now, I know when I say this, women say, so you want me to hide my intelligence? You want me to pretend to be dumb? Absolutely not. I just don't want you to hide your femininity and pretend that you are masculine and dominant, because most of us are not. We use that as a mask to keep ourselves safe. And in a marriage, yes, we do need to use our wit and our intelligence to approach our husbands, but we need to do it in such a way that they don't feel demeaned so that they feel safe emotionally, even when we are challenging them. Now notice, I never said feminine energy is about cooking him food and washing his clothes or cleaning the house. These chores, first of all, are completely inappropriate for a dating relationship. Although they certainly have a place, actually they're needed in a marriage, right? But these chores in and of themselves have nothing to do with your feminine energy, so don't get that twisted. So I encourage you to run a temperature check in your relationship and ask your partner: number one, how do I make you feel emotionally safe? Number two, how do I make you feel emotionally unsafe? And then number 3, what could I do to make you feel more safe? And if you're dating, I want you to ask yourself, how am I showing up in an open and inviting way for his emotional self to relax into? How am I in tune to my own emotions and inviting his into this space with me in a healthy way? And for both, I want you to ask yourself, how am I allowing him To care for me? And how am I not sitting in my I've got it energy? How am I making him feel needed? And when I think about that word needed, I think, do we need a man, some arbitrary man? No, we don't. Can we take care of ourselves? For most of us, absolutely. But when you find a partner, you need him. Not just a man, but you need him because God created us that way. And it's okay to express that to your partner. I need you. These are the ways that I need you. These are the ways that you are valuable in my life. These are the ways that you take care of me, and I see it and I appreciate it. So I want you to ask yourself, how am I making him feel needed? Now there's a whole nother talk to be held for men about them sitting and their healthy masculine energy, but that's not my lane. That's for somebody else to talk to them about. So let's focus on changing you, not them, because that does change everything. I know the whole conversation about feminine and masculine energy, number one, it's kind of a buzzword, but number two, it can feel very confusing, especially because we've been so socialized in the past couple of decades to move away from that. And to try to pretend like we're all the same. And yes, we are all equal, but we are definitely not the same. And so I encourage you today to start paying attention to, being curious about your own feminine energy, what it feels like to relax into it, because it's almost hard to put your finger on it, but when you see it, you know what it is. And so I tried to put my finger on it a little bit today, and I hope that that is helpful for you, but please definitely ask yourself those questions. This is all in service to healthy relationships with ourselves and healthy relationships with others. You've got this. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get some encouragement from me, and have a strong week. See you next week.