Creating the Space for a Man to be Vulnerable: From a Men's Counsellor
Written by: Jeremy Vaughan RPC-C at The Reflectere
Often there lies a want or even a desire from a man to be able to experience sharing what is truly going on for them with their partner. Yet what tends to happen is an avoidance to go into their internal state themselves, so when their partner, who may be more emotionally open and attuned to their own emotional state, asks or even pleads with them to open up to them in a way that the partner who is asking is used to it may invoke the man’s walls to continue to be up as the intensity rises with how much may be pushed down around within the man.
This is something I see often in my practice where I work with Men on their emotional landscape, the understanding of what is going on internally, and to give themselves permission first off to go inside and feel, to recognize what is occurring within them so that they would then be able to even share in their own words.
The majority of Men experience some sort of shame around their emotions from childhood into adolescence and further on into adulthood. And this can then create a block in how they communicate and show up in relationships, especially when emotions build in intensity. The shame that is felt internally is often a feeling of a projection that whatever they are feeling is bad, potentially cascading into a feeling of unworthiness or feeling unlovable, even if they are indeed currently in a relationship.
I want to share with you some ways in which you can support a man to lean into his vulnerability, recognizing that this will look differently for many men as what is important first for a man is to understand what is going on internally:
Create a supportive environment
Create a supportive environment for him to share what’s going on within himself, which involves curiosity without prying. Asking open ended questions can support him in his own process internally. If you start using close ended questions such as “Do you feel bad for that?’, what often ends up happening is a closing up internally for the man and an unwillingness to open up more. Oftentimes, many men may think you don’t want to hear about what’s going on internally, and may also be carrying a story of feeling like they don’t want to burden you. An open and supportive environment helps Men feel accepted in what’s going on internally and can start to trust the space they are in to not shame them for their emotions.
Give him time
Recognize that Men and Women can have different outlets for experiencing and expressing their emotions. This also extends to how men tend to share their emotions. Give your man time to process what’s going on, maybe he needs to take a walk around the block or be alone for an hour to sit with what’s occurring within himself before coming back to the conversation. What tends to happen if he’s being chased after, smothered over, or if someone is demanding an immediate answer is a shut down or pushing away which means there will be an erosion of his trust within how the space feels for him to open up and share. Men tend to need a bit more time to sit with what’s going on, most of the time men haven’t grown up in environments that taught them emotional intimacy, emotional experiencing or emotional completion, so as he goes through this process give him some grace.
Encourage his agency in his own experience
Many men grow up without agency in their lives around their internal experience, often told what to do, how to feel or what they should be feeling, or having lived through traumas they have experienced they had to shut down their own wants and limited giving themselves permission to share what’s going on in their world with others, because frankly it wasn’t available to them. A way a man can start building agency back into their life is through asking themselves what they want for themselves in that moment and working through it. So a way you can support in that process is to ask questions to encourage them to work through it, such as “what do you want for yourself within what you’re experiencing right now?” or “what’s something you can give to yourself to support you through this?” or even “how do you play a role in what you’re experiencing right now?”. These questions allow him to take agency over his own experience without the feeling that you’re trying to tell him what to do or what to feel.
Ultimately, it lands on the responsibility of the man in this equation to be able to experience their internal state in a way in which they can communicate it externally to you, or to others in their life.
Creating an environment that supports his desire to go deeper into his experience will oftentimes be encouraging for him to know that he is accepted for who he is, he’s loveable for all parts of himself, and that he’s not a burden to have emotional experiences and want to share them with others in his life.