Ive seen lots of women comfortable with men like that, Ive just never seen one that wanted to have his babies. \:\) never mind me cobra, just nitpicking, that was good.
You are absolutely correct and it is not nit picking. I think this is very important because the contradiction can be very confusing to the man. It was to me. From my own experience, when we were dating, it seemed that my W was very attracted to men but really hated the “machismo” types. She still does. The top of the surface issues were clear to her - find someone who is not like her father, who is caring and sensitive (this sounds completely opposite to me, but at the time it was a large part of how I came off, believe it or not!)
Since she and I were not committed, she could respect my boundaries and I hers. All dating couples do this at first. There is not risk. I believe it was easier for her to express her natural feminine qualities (since there were few defenses) and the idea of kids was somewhere in those feelings, even though she proclaims to this day that as a single woman she never thought she would have children. No, I didn’t believe that one at the time either, because her body language and actions said the opposite. By that I mean she seemed consistent with the way other women acted who I knew wanted to eventually have a family.
Later, after we got thrown into the foxhole together by her pregnancy, the anxiety started to set in. Now we both felt “trapped” and the need to sooth those anxieties began to override respect for early boundaries. As confrontation rose, so did the boundaries and the defenses.
But this was normal for both her and myself. I can think of plenty of other women who would walk away from such a situation because it would be too scary and uncomfortable for them. It was not so for both of us. We had both been there before. This where I believe she has learned to respect me for standing up to her, but not out of a direct respect for strength, but rather a hatred of the weakness in her parents that caused her to be hurt as a child. Being attracted to strength can also mean being able to ignore emotionality.
So on one hand my W wants the empathic and caring man, but on the other too much compliance and “wimpiness” really turns her off. She wants me to be vulnerable, but knows that in exchange she must be vulnerable and that is just not something she is comfortable feeling. So the lesser discomfort is to be attracted to strength.
I think all this is consistent with the idea that on the inside my W and MrsHD, are all mush, soft and vulnerable, but on the outside they are tough and hard. The contradictions of that internal dilemma expresses in their thinking, emotions and actions.
Hairdog,
As you experienced last night, each time your wife lashes out at you, try to see how it is just another scale on her armor plating coming loose, and you know the vulnerability that lies beneath, even though it is unspoken. I think there is value in completely ignoring the armor and speak directly to the vulnerability. In fact, with my wife, that is EXACTLY what she was wanting – someone to rescue her WITHOUT her having to acknowledge her weakness in the first place. Once I understood this, I could also make sense of why such a supposedly strong woman would also play the victim/martyr role. Ego has a lot to do with it.
But in this really stupid, backward way, speaking to her vulnerability is the language she wants to hear and to which she seems to respond, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT PATRONIZING (remember that ego). It is a TOUGH task to undertake and you will not only fall off that path but want to jump off as far as you can get. Yet that very path is where you will find your real source of power.
