Dear Jack,
I spoke to Jil yesterday and in the course of our conversation I asked after you, about your relationship. She was self-contented that she had a relationship but wasn’t happy. Wishes you’ll talk to her more, especially during the week. Now I know you’re busy at work (she knows that too). But you’ve got to engage her. You’re not naturally disposed to such emotionalism I know but there are things we do for the sake of happiness. You’ve got to try. Need not always be vocal conversation. Text or its cousins can supplement.
Engagement is important to women. They don’t do passive relationships well. They want to feel they’re part of your life. That connection is important to women. And they like pouring out their hearts. It’s a listening ritual for many married men. Since you’re serious about the relationship you might as well start learning. You’re acting husband. As a man you have to develop the emotional capacity to listen to your woman. That can seem like an extra burden. (It IS an extra burden). But we listen because she won’t be happy otherwise; and if she’s not happy you won’t be happy. You need emotional patience to hear her out. Emotional patience is not the same as patience in general. Patience in general leans more towards tolerance, not being reactionary, long suffering. But emotional patience requires absorbent capacity. Her problem becomes yours. She’s not necessarily asking for solution to the problem though she sometimes is. She’s more or less fulfilling an obligation of sharing of burden. At that moment she wants to be sure you’re listening. Sometimes the problem has no solution really. She just wants to talk. It’s because she wants to look up to you emotionally. That’s why she wants to burden you. This emotional leadership is important if you want to be her man.
You need emotional patience. We can define it as being open, listening, absorbing and being “involved.” It’s a capacity. Emotional patience is you hearing her out even if it could have been said in just two sentences. Emotional patience is you not rushing to pronounce the solution as she’s laying out her case. Let her talk. The laying out of her problem is more important than whatever solution you have. If you interject with your solution, she’ll feel you cut her off. She has her logic planned. The talk must follow the sequence. After the talk you must act engaged. Don’t be dismissive with your answer. That will hurt her.
One of the best ways to learn emotional patience is to go shopping with her. Trust me, you WILL learn emotional patience! You don’t know how a woman shops? It’s important she goes round the store looking at items she wouldn’t buy. She can spend an hour going round and not buy anything. That will appear indecisive to a man and he loses patience. You see, her shopping happiness is not centered on what she needs. It’s based on exploratory experience. There are thus two emotional needs – the material item she wants to buy and the shopping experience. Men go for what they want in a store. A woman is an explorer – a consumer Mungo Park.
Her discussions follow the same logic. The solution is as important as the verbal navigation, sometimes less important. But they are two separate things. Bible says you dwell with a woman with knowledge. This is knowledge. Emotional patience is you accepting the mantle of maturity she confers on you. It’s her looking to you for solution to a problem that may not even be a problem. Emotional patience is you listening to what Bunmi did and Bunmi said and you wondering why she doesn’t just ignore Bunmi.
Emotional patience is you being the sounding bag (not board) on what she wants to wear to that event. She’s made up her mind and planned it out item for item for a week, even tried on the look. Just wants your approval. No, not approval of the clothes. Your loving approval of her look and beauty for you. If you don’t understand the logic of that illogical statement you still have a lot to learn!
Emotional patience is you enduring another indirect question on a simple request. Emotional patience is you being able to accommodate 1004 questions on things that seem so straightforward. Emotional patience is endurance of millimeterisation – the breaking of a simple centimeter plan into 200 millimeters. You can’t have a successful relationship with a woman if you’re not willing to allot emotional capital to her emotional needs If you don’t pay attention to those needs she’s going to be frustrated and feel you don’t have a relationship.
There’s a difference between titular relationship and substantiated relationship. Men are okay with titular relationship. Women are not. Titular relationship is simply based on officially acquiring the title “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”. It’s a status. If it’s not substantiated with engagement and affection, the woman is going to be frustrated.
Men tend to treat relationships like something bagged and kept in a safe deposit box. Not so for women. A relationship has to be an interactive experience for a woman. Women need engagement and constant affirmation. A woman suffers as an emotional orphan. Don’t let another man supply her emotional needs. You may lose her.
Communication matters to women. She can’t stand being ignored, or not being paid attention. She wants to be the centre of your universe, to take a journey with you through galaxies, to be carried along. If you can’t find something to say or don’t know how to open a conversation, send an emoticon. Your phone has a few hundred: a smiley, a kiss, a heart, a darted heart, an enveloped heart; even a vibrating heart! (You can tell when women got involved in the design of emoticons. When men designed emoticons there were only ten. Now there are fifty varieties of heart alone).
What are you waiting for? Send an emoticon my friend! 🙂
Your mentor, LA.
©Leke Alder 2013