What you are against may be a part of your life. But when you are against something that you hate, that thing occupies more space in your mind; for example, if you are against the extreme cold weather, you naturally focus more on the biting winds and the dense snow, and meanwhile, you focus less on those cozy, warm retreats where you can escape from the weather. Likewise, you should keep living your married life to pursue good things rather than to fight against things you don’t want. The more you fill your mind with positive things you can purse, the more satisfied you feel with your married life.
Therefore, to connect more with your husband, you should not merely grumble on some of his behavioral patterns that often frustrate you; you have to be aware that men greatly differ from women in styles of communications; and only after you fully understand his primal, inner desire in the long-term relationship, you can connect to his heart in a way that captures more of his attention and love.
And the following highlights a common frustration that women feel when connecting with their men:
If you offer advice too quickly when your man is trying to fix a problem, probably you feel unheard. Sometimes when you have a rough bad and you want to open up to him, probably he seems so distracted that he does not show empathy towards you. Or sometimes, what you want is just a simple companion, or you simply want him to be a witness to your events/stories, but he just gets cold and distant. Many times you want to strengthen the bond with him by sharing your feelings, but he just can’t understand you and even pulls away. I bet you are sort of frustrated with the situation.
You need to understand that men have a different approach to bonding.
First of all, you should be aware that your man’s brain is wired differently. Unlike women, since childhood, a guy has got accustomed to bonding with other guys by identifying a goal or problem; then they join forces to accomplish the goal or solve the problem; during the process, guys usually do not show mercy. But when it is finished, they recall what they have shared, and they revel in their success and glory.
Given the situation above, it is natural for you to be against your man’s knee-jerk “fix-it” response. But on the other hand, you are sure you love him, and you do not want him to pull away from you; although you do not have the intention of belittling him, probably you think that he is inferior to your good girlfriends in bonding and connecting with you.
Rather than be against your man’s masculine habits, why not try to seek an alternative way to flip this problem on its head – you might try to view it as a positive desire instead of something negative you are against; when you do that way, your creativity comes to life, and your deeper wisdom begins to surface. Of course, it is no panacea. Anyway, it is worth trying to shift your mental energy towards things you value instead of things you don’t want. More exactly, you might focus on your underlying desire to connect with him.
Here is a sneaky way to connect more with your man:
To make your man feel more emotionally connected to you, it is important to let him feel that you two are always on the same team. And you can practice a simple, feasible idea: ask him for more advice. Surely, it does not mean you have to adopt his advice all the time just to make him feel good, just try to ask him to offer more advice that makes good sense. Again, asking for advice is enough. When you request his advice, you convey a hidden double message – it makes him feel like an important man in your life, he feels respected, so he loves that feeling; meanwhile, he starts to look at things from your perspective because he feels the need to offer more useful advice.
When meeting with difficulties, women often look for an accomplice, a partner, a collaborator, or someone who can help them accomplish an end goal. And men love to do this type of thing for their women. A man has the instinct to fix his woman up, and he doesn’t want to just listen to her and stand idly by.
And you might put a twist on your request for his advice, the following is an example:
“I had a bad day, I feel like venting about it. I know you are ready to help me fix problems that bother me, but can you tell me how to share my frustration now?”
Probably, he will love the way you ask for advice like the above; in doing so, you do not ask him to figure out what exactly you want, and meanwhile, you offer him a way to connect with you by aiming for a goal – offering comfort, compassion, and understanding.
To connect more with your husband, you need to grow your emotional bank account in this intimate relationship:
Just like checking your spendable money balances, you need to regularly check how your emotional bank account stands in the love relationship.
The emotional bank account (EBA) can be understood as an indicator showing the balance of production capability versus building production capacity for interdependence. And in your relationship, each interaction with your man results in either a deposit or withdrawal.
When your EBA is in debt, then intimacy and trust erode. And when your EBA is full, the two of you feel loved, connected and supported.
When interacting with your spouse, your positive behavior is a deposit building a reserve; by contrast, your negative behavior is a withdrawal. The higher your reserve balance is, the higher tolerance your man has to your mistakes/faults/flaws and the more willing he is to connect with you during hard times.
When you try to make a deposit in your EBA, there are 5 major aspects that you should be concerned about:
- Probably, your man would not like to directly tell you what is important to him as an individual; but he wants you to figure it out on your own. When you try to understand him deeply and treat him according to his understanding and opinion, you make a deposit in your EBA.
- To continue to make deposits into your EBA, you need to keep your commitments; otherwise, breaking your promise can lead to a major withdrawal.
- Clarify your expectations: a lot of relationship difficulties are rooted in conflicting, or ambiguous expectations around goals and roles. So to set reasonable expectations, you might make an investment of effort and time in advance.
- Show your integrity; a lack of personal integrity can undermine your effort to create a trust reserve. Honesty requires you to conform your words to reality; and yet integrity requires you to conform reality to your words; more exactly, it means you should keep your promises and working hard to fulfill your expectations.
- You should sincerely apologize when making a withdrawal in your EBA; sincere apologies are deposits; however, repeated apologies can be interpreted as insincere, leading to a major withdrawal.
In short, every connected moment in your married life can be used to build up the savings of love and trust; and don’t assume it is so difficult to make a deposit in your EBA; for example, deposits can be made when you do sweet things for your man, when you forgive him simply, when you compromise or give up what you want so that he can have what he wants, or when the two of you share intimacy and sincere appreciation and affection…
Hence, as long as you commit to making more deposits in your emotional bank account, you can build a stronger emotional connection with him.
How to connect more with your husband when his action hurts your feelings, or when his action leaves you feeling lonely or neglected?
In this case, you need to learn how to communicate your bitter, resentful or angry feelings constructively.
If done properly, an open expression of your feelings can simultaneously raise your self-esteem, increase his attraction for you, and spur him to the right action.
So let’s talk about how to do it:
When expressing your feelings, two aspects need to be taken into consideration – your emotional reactions and your man’s emotional reactions; you should learn to find the right balance between honesty and emotional sensitivity. Surely, honesty is needed for a long-term relationship; but if a woman is too honest and lacks emotional sensitivity while expressing her feelings and thoughts, her man will easily get uncomfortable, embarrassed, unappreciated, defensive… I bet you also do not want to become that kind of woman. In this situation, you might stick to a basic formula: you can be honest about the emotions that you are experiencing, but make sure to focus on describing the bad feelings, and meanwhile minimize or leave out words that may trigger his defensive response.
If you treat him in the way above, what will happen?
No matter whether he will ask you or not, he will wonder why you feel sad, hurt, or angry in his mind. Regardless of his response, you might keep the focus on the expression of your feelings, and just let him figure out what he should do about the situation on his own. Surely, it is still ok to make one or two remarks about the unmet expectations or the disappointed hopes when he fails you, but don’t turn it into a discussion or accusation of what he did wrong. And anyway, you should not be responsible for correcting his behavior. That is his job. As long as he still values the marriage, he will consider correcting himself.
By owning your own feelings instead of pleading for him to change the way he is impacting your feelings, you do not lose the self-esteem and self-respect; and on the other hand, he can realize that you are in control of yourself and that you are independent, so probably he will spontaneously feel the need to change his behavior later. This works better than pointing out wrong things he did to you because it greatly avoids his knee-jerk defensiveness against your blame and accusations (when he feels you are not on the attack, his defensiveness naturally goes down). More importantly, it moves him to think about what he should do to improve the situation. Therefore, rather than say those things that make him defensive or angry, you might state the bad feelings as feedback regarding the consequences of his actions or inactions.
Understandably, sometimes you are sorely tempted to bring up a topic that has always been bothering you, and then you also do not control your emotions very well when speaking to your husband. Anyway, it is worth trying to stick to the formula above, and it also takes time to practice expressing your bad feelings without provoking your husband’s negative emotions.
So the next time he lets you down, you might take the focus off his behavior and instead focus on the expression of the emotions that you are experiencing. During the process, make sure to express your feelings in a gentle, honest, and open manner.
To connect more with your husband, it is inadvisable to act mysterious or play games because that will probably drive him crazy. And when he asks you what is wrong with you, you might avoid the direct question, and make a factual statement on how you felt after he did something. And again, your response to his questions should be spoken softly, with eye contact and no bitter or vengeful anger. Remember, to attract your husband, you should always commit to becoming a woman with good self-esteem. As we all know, a woman who has high self-esteem rarely expresses herself with hate or vengeful anger. And when a man is attracted to this type of woman, the woman wins the man’s attention, love, and devotion for her life.
To help you better understand this point, the following is an example scenario:
Jason: “Why do you look angry and disappointed?“
Lisa: ”I have told my family members you would meet us at 3 o’clock. I had already pictured it in my mind. But when you were half an hour late, I worried about the wrong impression we gave on my family members. I felt unimportant and rejected.”
In the example above, Lisa focused on her own expectations, thoughts, and feelings. She just told the truth, and she did not complain about how insensitive and rude Jason was. If she said something like, ”Half an hour late? How ridiculous you are!”, such a remark will bring up Jason’s defensiveness, and the conversation will tend to escalate into an argument that makes both sides feel worse.
And the same goes for your relationship; when you express your emotions openly and leave out those accusatory remarks, you act in a way that causes him to respect you and feel attracted to you, and hence he is more willing to make amends and improve himself.
For more tips on how to connect more with your husband, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to deal with an emotionally distant husband – Make him open up.
What to do when your husband is preoccupied.
What to do when your husband is not affectionate towards you.
Why your husband is unhappy with you – Understand him better.
When your husband acts distant, what is he thinking?
What you should not do when your man ignores you.
What to do when your marriage lacks passion – Get the spark back