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Married Life: My Wife Says I’m Not Emotionally Available?

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For a woman to say that her husband is emotionally unavailable in a marriage is not at all uncommon – in fact, most women aren’t sure if their husbands have any emotions at all! Fortunately, this is not a sign that he doesn’t enjoy being married to you or wants to be someone else. What it is a sign of is that he’s a man and wasn’t taught how to talk about his emotions or express them growing up. Guys, if you’re in a marriage, it’s time to grow up and learn what being emotionally available means. Ladies, here’s how you can help your man learn the language of emotion.

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What Does Being Emotionally Available Mean?

Being emotionally available to your partner in a marriage is a very essential component to making the relationship work. Guys, you have to be at least willing to share a little bit of emotion with your partner. You need to be able to respond to your partner’s emotional needs and meet them without trying to “fix” them. Instead of trying to “fix” a sad partner, try to share a little bit with them and listen to them express why they’re sad and what made them upset. Most of the time, listening to your partner express what they’ve got going on and what they’re feeling will help them to get it out and get over it. Guys, most women can’t stand trying to be “fixed” or being told that they shouldn’t feel a certain way because it’s not logical. Women are going to feel whatever they feel whenever they feel it! Listen to her and allow her to express her feelings without being critical and without trying to offer a solution. She just needs you to hear her out.

For The Ladies: It’s Not His Fault

Ladies, you need to realize that men weren’t born and raised in an emotional environment like women were. Men were taught to hide their emotions – if they were sad, they didn’t talk about it. Dads didn’t teach their little boys how to talk about their feelings. Instead, they were taught how to hunt, fish, bowl, etc. to deal with their emotions. Men usually have two emotions that they express freely – happiness and anger. Any other emotions that crop up get pushed deep down or get dealt with by his retreating to whatever activity helps him to relieve stress and not talking about it. This can frustrate women to no end, but it’s not his fault! It’s just how men have been programmed to deal with what is going on in their lives and how they feel about certain things. They don’t know how to be emotionally available or how to talk about what they’re feeling. They literally don’t know the language. They don’t know what words to use to express how they’re feeling inside, so they usually just put it away.

For The Ladies: Help Him Learn The Language Of Emotion

It’s up to the ladies to help their male partners to learn the language of emotion. Guys, you have to be open to it though, or her efforts are going to fall on deaf ears.Emotions are a many layered thing, and it’s possible to feel many different things at once. This is usually what overwhelms a man and causes them to retreat – they’re not sure how to deal with that many different emotions at one time, or even one really strong emotion. Offer to listen to your partner and encourage him to talk about how he feels if something comes up that makes him upset or sad. Did he get frustrated at work? Why? How did what happened make him feel? You can offer up how you felt in similar situations without being critical so he can begin to understand how different situations can make people feel many different emotions. Don’t criticize him if he can’t think of how to express what he’s going through – instead, gently prompt him on the words to use to illustrate what he’s feeling inside. Guys, try not to shut your partners out when you’re feeling upset, sad, frustrated, angry or all of the above. Instead, allow them to be there for you. Allow them to listen to you and be there for you. She just needs to hear you out. This will make a huge difference in your relationship, whether you’re just in a long term relationship or you’re married.

How To Know When To Move In Together

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Moving in together prior to marriage, a.k.a. cohabiting, is more and more common these days. If you live in a fairly expensive city, it can be particularly tempting to combine forces with your significant other. Better to live with your girlfriend or boyfriend than some random roommate, right? The problem is, that isn’t necessarily true. Though it may seem more fun at first, if things start to go sour, breaking up with someone you live with can be extra disastrous. That means that this is a fairly weighty decision. Living with your boyfriend or girlfriend is effectively like being married, minus the marriage license and the shared bank account. Keep that in mind, and you’re more apt to give this decision the consideration it deserves.

Questions To Ask Before Asking Your Partner To Move In

If you are thinking about asking your S.O. to move in, what questions should you be asking yourself? First and foremost, do you really love this person? If you’re not at the point in your relationship where you can say, “I love you,” you’re not ready to live together. That doesn’t mean that you need to wait a year before you call the moving company. It just means that you need to know that you have strong feelings for each other. Secondly, you need to consider your compatibility with them. Imagine that they’re a stranger. What criteria would you want in a roommate that wasn’t your significant other? If your S.O. wouldn’t live up to any of them, you may need to question the logic of living together. If you wouldn’t reside with a roommate who was sloppy and made erratic rent payments, just being able to sleep with your S.O. probably won’t smooth over those problems.

Thinking About Situations That May Come Up When Living Together

Yet another major point to consider is how you’d handle bad situations together as cohabiters. The economy is rough out there. If one of you loses your job, will the other person be able to shoulder the rent for two for a while? That can be a high pressure situation, but if you love someone you’ll make it work. If you feel that you would, you’re probably ready to live together. If you disagree about levels of cleanliness or the balance of chore handling, will that ruin your relationship? If you think you’d be able to compromise and work around it, you’re golden. If you think you’d blow a gasket, then you probably shouldn’t sign the lease just yet. If any of the pressures of living together would likely ruin the relationship that you two have going, hold off for the time being.

What Happens If You Break Up?

The final point to consider is a biggie. If you eventually break up, are you prepared to deal with how much harder living together will make it? If you care about your significant other so much that you’d rather risk a more complex future breakup than live alone without them, then you’re ready to go. However, if the thought of divvying up your books and furniture in the future makes you cringe, think twice. That means that you better know that you intend on marrying or staying with this person forever before you move in with them.

Living together can be a really wonderful thing, or it can turn out to be surprisingly bad. That’s why it is important to treat it with an appropriate level of gravitas. If you wouldn’t rush into marrying someone, you shouldn’t rush into signing a lease with them. Just because it isn’t the ultimate form of commitment, doesn’t mean it’s not a big form of it. Keep that in mind, and ponder the aforementioned points before you make your decision. Taking a moment to clearly think things through will pay off in the end.

How To Cope With Being In An Interracial Relationship

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We live in a modern age and consider ourselves to be quite evolved, but backward things like racism still exist in our world. If you’re currently in an interracial relationship, you’re probably very aware of this fact. You can’t let other people’s bigotry keep you from being with the person that you love. How, then, can you cope with the additional problems of interracial romance?

How Being In An Interracial Relationship Can Affect You

You will most likely meet with varying levels of judgment over the course of your relationship. You may get stares on the street, or overhear disapproving remarks from random passersby. Terrible as that is, the passing of time will increase your ability to ignore the ignorance of these strangers. If you find that friends, family or co-workers feel the need to show you their inner racist side, that’s a whole other story. When facing bigotry from familiar sources, you must first and foremost remind yourself that you are both happily in love and a good person. Hard as it may be, this is your chance to be the bigger man or woman. Don’t go into hysterics or make a scene when your great uncle makes a crack. Take a deep breath, look him in the eye and calmly say, “Uncle, that may be your opinion, but it doesn’t make it right. I don’t want to hear talk like that about someone I love.” If this unsavory individual’s behavior continues, politely announce that you don’t want to be around someone who feels the need to spew hate speech. Then leave the event. Inform other friends and family that you don’t desire to be around this individual again unless they can control themselves. Remain calm, don’t stoop to name-calling, and provide a unified front with your significant other. It may be difficult, but it will get results.

Problems That May Come Up Within The Relationship

Cultural differences can also cause some problems. Religion can become an issue, particularly when you start to think about marriage or kids. You need to address this issue early on, and then again once you decide things are becoming truly serious. It’s important to establish whether or not one of you values religion more than the other, whether there’s an expectation that you convert or raise your possible children within a certain religion, etc. This is the sort of thing that could prove to be a deal breaker for many couples, so don’t wait until it’s too late to talk about it. It’s also important to learn about your partner’s cultural background in general. Showing your knowledge of common customs in their culture can impress your mate’s family. It also shows your partner that their background is important to you.

How To Keep Your Relationship Strong

The best thing that you can do for your relationship is be open with each other. Whether that means discussing how to handle a problematic relative or talking about what parts of your heritage are most important to you, you’ll be glad that your partner knows where you stand. There may be times when you or your significant other feel that you can’t understand each other because of a cultural difference. In moments like these, the openness you’ve established can save your relationship from falling apart. If you can feel comfortable saying that you don’t understand this particular aspect of your partner’s personal beliefs, but would love to have it explained to you, the situation may soon be resolved. Likewise, your partner needs to be understanding when you can’t relate to something due to your own background. Be honest, be supportive, and be open to the new learning experiences that your differences will provide. If you can do all of that, you will be able to get through the specific trials and tribulations of interracial romance and come out the better for it.

Enough With The Complaining About Your Significant Other!

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Maybe you’ve hit a rough patch in your relationship, or maybe it’s time to move on, but if you’re regularly complaining about your significant other, you need to reevaluate some things. There are many reasons that we feel compelled to complain about issues in our lives—sometimes we just need to blow off steam, and sometimes we have serious problems that require others’ help. When you’re constantly griping about your boyfriend or girlfriend, however, you’re doing no one any favors, least of all yourself.

Assess The Issues You Have With Your Partner

Before you can get a handle on your complaints, you need to take a moment to assess them. Do you have one or two big problems with your significant other, several small problems, or a combination therein? If the source of your complaint is something major—say, your boyfriend is cheating on you yet again—then you should probably just end things. There is no point in putting up with a problem of that magnitude, especially if it’s a repeat offense that you’ve previously addressed. If you’ve got smaller things you’re complaining about, however, then you need to decide whether those small problems outweigh the good aspects of your relationship. You also need to determine whether or not your expectations for your partner are unrealistic. Then you should discuss all of your feelings with your S.O., not your friends and family.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Your Relationship?

How best to go about this process? If you’ve decided this isn’t an obviously a problem worthy of a break up, you have to start weighing the pros and cons of your relationship. Sure it may annoy you that your girlfriend baby talks to your cat, but if you dump her over it, you would also lose all of the support she gives you when you’re having a bad day. When you look at it that way, her cooing and calling your kitten her little fuzzy-wuzzy-face may not seem so bad after all. Secondly, you need to have a reality check with yourself, because odds are that you have at least one habit that annoys her. She’s probably not so keen on you leaving your dirty socks all over the apartment, but she overlooks it because there are lots of other things she loves about you. You should take a page from her playbook and stop whining about this rather negligible issue. Then wait for a moment when you’re both in good moods and mention the problem to your mate. Bring it up in a non-accusatory way, for instance: “I’m so glad that you love my cat, but my aunt baby-talked to me well into my teen years and it carries a bad association for me. Do you think you could try to cut back a little, please?” Making it about your own issue, and not about the other person’s, always helps. If you discuss the cause of your complaints with your S.O. in a non-heated moment, you’ll likely see him or her make an effort to modify their behavior. At the very least, you’ll feel better for being proactive about addressing the problem.

Should You Just Break Up?

Oftentimes the assess-and-discuss method above will help alleviate your issues much more than complaining about it to uninvolved parties. If it doesn’t, perhaps you need to question what’s really causing your complaints. Maybe you’re really just looking for an excuse to break up with someone who no longer holds interest for you. If that’s the case, just end it. There’s no point in dragging out a bad relationship—you’re just making you, your partner, and all the people you’ve been whining to miserable. No matter what your situation, you should also give serious thought to who you complain to about your relationship problems. You put your friends and family members in an awkward position when you constantly gripe about the person you supposedly love—especially if those friends and relatives like or have befriended your S.O. You also risk them telling your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse that you’ve been regularly complaining about them, which could be disastrous. Better that your mate hears it from you than through the grapevine. Regardless of the outcome, you need to take steps to cope with or eliminate the source of your complaints—otherwise your relationship will never be a healthy one.

When Does Baggage Weigh Down Your Relationship?

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Baggage can be a total burden, whether you’re talking about the suitcases you take with you on vacation or the issues that you bring from your romantic past into your present relationship. Ask anyone who saw the recent movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (or read the graphic novels the film was based on)— if you’ve encountered relationship baggage, you can relate to the tale of Scott. He has to defeat his girlfriend’s “evil exes” before they can have a happy, successful relationship. The whole movie is an allegory for how baggage from previous relationships can cause your current love match to fall apart if left unmanaged. The key is to figure out what things are worth taking away from your past experiences, and what things are better off forgotten by all.

How To Tell Which Of Your Baggage Needs To Go

What, then, is baggage worth getting rid of? Anything that gets in the way of your ability to trust your current partner is definitely a problem. If you find yourself constantly doubting your significant other’s honesty just because you had a previous bad experience, you’re only hurting your relationship and yourself. That’s not to say that you should venture forth blindly into a new relationship. However, if you’ve been with someone for several weeks, and they’ve done nothing to warrant your suspicion, then you need to allow yourself to further trust them. People are not all the same, and getting into that mindset is a dangerous thing when it comes to relationships. Trust and communication are truly key to a relationship’s success, so any baggage that’s hindering you in those departments needs to be dealt with, pronto. Besides, you’ll enjoy every moment of your relationship so much more if you’re not constantly trying to catch your mate in a lie.

How Low-Self Esteem Will Destroy Your Relationship

Another type of baggage that can be extremely detrimental is the type that leads to low self-esteem. It may sound like corny self-help-speak, but you really can’t love someone else until you learn to love yourself. Maybe when you were younger, you had a major crush on a classmate who wouldn’t give you the time of day because you were too tall/short/skinny/fat/smart/ditzy/etc. Odds are that the object of your heartbreak was probably oblivious in general, or perhaps just really mean, and you were never as ugly or awkward as you were made to feel. Odds are also good that you’re a pretty different person now than you were then. Maturity has many benefits. If you continue to go through life doubting your appeal to others because of a past mishap, you’re hurting not just yourself, but your potential dates as well. You can’t let negative baggage convince you that you’re not worthy of someone else’s romantic affections. Start focusing on all of the things there are to like about you. Confidence is attractive—self-doubt is not. Remind yourself that all that bad stuff happened in the past and should be left there. You’re a more evolved person in the present.

Learn From Your Past Relationships

Of course, though there is much bad baggage that should be gotten rid of, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t value what we’ve learned from past relationships. If you really want to make the best of your previous experience, focus more on what those old relationships have taught you about yourself than about the other involved parties. Instead of letting a bad break at the hands of a cheater teach you that all members of the opposite sex aren’t to be trusted, take away from that experience that honesty and open communication are very important to you. Be sure to express that to your next boy- or girlfriend. Maybe your last long term relationship was filled with nasty fights because your ex preferred to spend way more of their time with their friends than with you. Instead of freaking out the first time your new significant other mentions girls’ or boys’ night, recognize that you’re someone that wants a lot of one-on-one time in your relationship. Calmly bring this up, and work with your new love to find a good friend-time and romantic-time balance. However, if your current guy or gal keeps trending toward the same bad habits as your ex AFTER these conversations, you probably should consider a breakup. Just don’t let your baggage make you jump to conclusions before you’ve had a heart-to-heart or two.