How Can I Get Through to Him?

“They go forth [into the world] with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds and undeveloped hearts. An undeveloped heart - not a cold one. The difference is important.” - E.M. Forster

It seems like it’s a common complaint at the moment – from women whose male partners are emotionally unavailable and unwilling to share their feelings.

“I’m not that kind of man.”

“I’ve never talked about my feelings. I’m not about to change that.”

“That’s who I am. I can’t change who I am.”

This blog post is inspired by some of my women clients and their obvious frustration. If you're struggling to get through to your man or he refuses to open up about his feelings, there are some perspectives and skills that will make a difference.

How patriarchy f*cks men up

So let’s be clear about the context for this perspective. In western culture – UK, US, Europe, Australia, South Africa – women are brought up to be empathic, with the ability to experience, express and talk about feelings. Men are not.

In patriarchy, emotional expression is not considered masculine; it’s considered a sign of weakness. The only exceptions are anger and lust. But men aren’t allowed sadness, love, joy, grief, guilt or shame. So these emotions get firmly repressed and sometimes alchemised into anger. Unfortunately this can cause considerable distress to the man himself and to his family.

In some men, this pattern may have been reinforced by trauma, especially childhood trauma. For instance if he grew up with an abusive parent he may have adapted by shutting down. Or he may have learned to wall off because a parent was intrusive, perhaps confiding in him inappropriately.

Similarly men who were sent away to boarding school as boys also learned to shut down, even more thoroughly than those who stayed at home. For ex-boarders in particular, that shutting down of feelings came to form part of their survival personality. It was the only way to stay safe at school, but it’s become an entrenched pattern that’s persisted into adulthood, and it seems like this is who he is – rather than just a mask he has been hiding behind.

The problem is that women no longer want the strong and silent type. We want our men to do more than fix the car and remember to empty the dishwasher.

We want him to be there for us to share in our sorrow and our joy, to share his feelings and to want to do these things. We don’t want to hear “All right then, if you must, but I need to go outside and change the oil in the car.”

You can try pushing him to open up, but believe me it rarely works. When she pushes or probes he backs off. And this can turn into a spiral – the more she pushes the more he backs off and the more he backs off the more she pushes. What we call ‘the more the more.’ This either ends in a blazing row or in someone slamming out the door or retreating to the shed.

It clearly doesn’t work, but we continue in the same pattern because we just don’t know what else to do.

Check in with your own communication style

If you’re finding it difficult to stay calm and centred with him, it’s worth exploring your own communication style to see whether you are in fact using one of the losing strategies. Terry Real, the couples therapist and founder of the Relational Life Institute, has identified five losing strategies:

1. Needing to be right all the time

2. Trying to control the other person

3. Unbridled self-expression

4. Retaliation

5. Withdrawal

To help you identify which (if any) of these you tend to use, take my Relationship Styles Quiz.

So how do I get him to open up?

The answer is you can’t get him to open up. He has to choose to do so. Your role is to make this easier for him than it has been so far. If he really believes that this is who he is and that he can’t change then your challenge is all the greater.

But even men who believe that this is who he is, there are opportunities for growth and change. They usually appear during a crisis when the mask breaks down.

Whatever has prompted you to make this choice, you will need patience. If you try to go too fast he’ll dig in his heels and resist.

Before you attempt anything, attend to your own security and self-worth. You need to know that your sense of safety and security does not depend on your partner opening up emotionally. You definitely deserve a man who will open up to you, but whether or not he does so says nothing about your worth. Make sure it’s as healthy as it can be on ‘your side of the fence’ – this simply means taking responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings instead of blaming them on him. If you’ve been getting angry or upset when he shuts down, you may have to start some kind of practice to support your own emotional regulation so that you don’t get triggered so easily.

1. Now that you’re in a well-grounded, centred place, it will be easier for you to create a sense of safety for him. Men with who have rigid boundaries and find opening up difficult, need more time to build trust and emotional safety. This means you have to be patient with him and give him the time he needs.

2. Don’t try to control him. Don’t push him to share or tell him that he would feel better if he did. Simply let him know that if he wants to talk you’re here for him.

3. Move from complaint to request. Instead of complaining "You never talk about your feelings," try asking "You seem a bit down - could you tell me what's going on for you right now?" It may feel more vulnerable to you, because there's the chance he might say 'No'. But it's a lot more relational to ask instead of complaining.

4. Replace any judgement with curiosity and compassion. If you notice that he looks agitated or upset, you can tell him what you’ve noticed and be curious about what he’s feeling. You can also be curious about what stops him sharing. If he tells you it’s just the way he is, be open to accepting that this is what he believes right now. That doesn’t mean he’ll believe it forever.

5. Listen to him deeply. It doesn’t matter what he shares with you – whether it’s his frustration about a situation at work or that his team lost a match – honour his confidence by listening with nothing else on your mind. You’re not thinking about how silly this is or that he’s taking the wrong approach with his boss and you’re not coming up with advice. You’re simply listening and if you can, follow up by reflecting back what you heard when he’s finished speaking.

6. Ask questions that connect with what he has told you, rather than probing. Probing questions will feel intrusive. Gentle, curious questions will help him recognise that you care about him and are interested in what he has to say.

7. Model emotional sharing for him – we all learn by watching and modelling others’ behaviour. Even if he doesn’t respond the way you would like him to, you can still entrust him with your own vulnerability. For instance at the end of a difficult day at work, you can tell him that you’re feeling tired and stressed and ask him for a hug. If he offers you advice (which he may well do, being a man), don’t reject it outright, but ask him if he can give you the hug before the advice!

This may be a long game, but if you stick with it and remain compassionate towards him and yourself, you’ll be helping him to discover the joy of connecting more deeply with his own inner world and with you – that is relational joy.