Hello again.

Yesterday I sent you a letter about a "Man's Secret Tears and What She Thinks About Them"

I promised to send you a follow up response from a respected colleague of mine, Grace Cooley, who has a deep connection with the type of wife I described in that letter.

Here it is.  Brace yourself for some incredibly honest, direct, and emotional messages.

Let me know what you think and what questions you have.  I will try to address those in another email to everyone.

*****

"A Letter to My Past & Future Lover"

"Yet he feels that she no longer wants to be that woman for him.  She gives herself and her energy to just about anyone but him.  And it makes him sad.  It makes him fearful of his future.  The sadness and fear show up in his life as anger."

Why can't we touch you in affection? Why does it take so long for us to open up to you again, to have sex again?

It all boils down to trust and safety. These are major needs for women.

 

Why We Don't Trust You (Yet)

Reason One:  Lack of Safety

Please keep in mind that from birth, girls are taught not to trust men. We are all taught, at a very young age, about how to dress and not dress, how to act and not act, where to walk at night, when it is okay to walk alone and when not, don't "lure" men. Don't trust men.

To make my point:  I had a young male client years ago who was a cross-dresser, taking female hormones and was considering sex-change surgery. When dressed as a female, he very much looked just like a female---a very attractive one. One night while walking home alone dressed as a young woman, he was sexually harassed from across the street by a group of men. They yelled obscenities at him, making lurid comments. They followed him for more than a block, threatening to rape him. Thankfully they finally gave up and let him walk on alone.

This had certainly never happened to him as a male. He told me it was the most frightened he had ever been in his young life. He said he had never really thought about that part of being a woman. He had never had to think about whether he was walking alone or not, never thought about having to plan his dress and his walking route differently just because he was a woman.

This is something, unfortunately, that all women have to think about much of the time---safety---on so many levels. This is in the "DNA" of every female.

I want to be very clear. I am not saying that every man is inherently violent or unsafe. I am also not saying that it's okay for a woman to see herself as a victim of society. I am saying that in our world, out of necessity, women are taught about their personal safety and how to ensure it, as best we can. It is the world we live in.

To women, touch not accompanied by emotional safety is scary. 

 

Reason Two:  We Need you to be Strong in your Masculine Energy

We need you to be consistent. We need you to be your own man, to stick to your values. We need you to be impeccable with your word. If you tell us you are going to do something, we need you to do that. If you can't follow through, we need you to tell us as soon as you know that---even about things that seem small to you. Or not only will we lose respect for you, we will begin to feel unsafe with you.

And without that safety, we are closed to you---and often even to ourselves. We are waiting for you to offer us the strong, directed, safe, Masculine gift/energy we need to feel safe with you again. We need to know that you are in it for the long haul, that when we open up and let you see all these held-in emotions, that you are going to stand strong and not get freaked out---that you're not going to retreat from us in horror.

David Deida puts it this way:  "But if you don't trust your man because he is undirected, scattered ambiguous or otherwise weak in his masculine energy, this will undercut your relationship, reducing your passion, your sexual attraction and your trust of each other."

 

Reason Three:  The History of the Relationship

At this point, sex may be a distant memory---if so, we may be afraid to touch you in affection much of the time. It is not that we don't want to touch you. It is not that we don't know it's important. We're afraid to do this because we have seen in the past that you take that as a green light to sex. And we do not feel safe enough yet to have sex. We do not want to send a mixed message.

When you keep touching us before we trust you enough for that and if you continue interpreting our simple affectionate touches as a sexual green light, you erode the trust even further. In fact, you risk destroying any new trust that might have been established.

So sex has to be taken off the table.

Don't get me wrong, we women love attention, touch and sex! That simple hand on the small of my back as we walk through a door tells me wonderful volumes about his love and respect for me, his desire for me. We women want and crave that too and will always want more of it---unless we are not feeling emotionally safe, unless we feel, even subconsciously, that we cannot trust you for some reason.

And are you only putting effort into the relationship when you think we're leaving you? Some women don't want to open up and "let down their guard," because they know that if they do, he will stop being affectionate, or stop putting effort into connecting with her as soon as he thinks she has decided to stay.

One woman tells me, "I'm afraid to give in, because every time I do, he becomes an emotional child again and stops doing all the lovely things he was doing to woo me. He starts ignoring me again and taking me and the relationship for granted."

 

The Proverbial Bottom Line

Most women are afraid to open their hearts again to their man, because the only thing worse than getting our hearts broken by someone new, is getting it broken by the same man over and over again. It is too painful. (Read:  We love you.)

What if he really can't (or won't) stand in his Masculine energy for us? What if he can't be impeccable with his life and his word? What if we open this huge dam holding back all these scary emotions, and he can't handle all this emotion, all this anger, this fear, the doubt?

To try and open up before we feel safe enough and trust you enough to do that, feels like a self-betrayal. It feels like we are not taking care of ourselves, like we are compromising ourselves. Like we are just giving in to please you. We know that is not how you really want to connect with us. It is not how we want to connect with you.

 

The Solution?

Please be patient with us and don't take it personally. We are working on our stuff, our blocks to opening to you. If we compromise our own safety by having sex with you before we are ready, you would lose respect for us on a very deep level. We would lose respect for ourselves.

We know you're sad and fearful and angry. So are we. We know it took two to get us to this scary place.  It is going to take both of us to get back to our loving place.

Grace is a Certified Hypnotherapist and Registered Psychotherapist in Ft. Collins, CO, USA. She sees clients and facilitates Divine Feminine Hypnotherapy workshops for women. She's a flaming, Earth-loving, tree-hugging, save-the-Planet, believes-in-faeries, bike-riding, card-carrying, spiritual but not religious, hippie cowgirl liberal poet---yep, they do exist. You can find her blog http://awildergrace.wordpress.com/ and her creations https://www.etsy.com/shop/RecycledGrace?ref=hdr . You can also connect with her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/grace.r.cooley.