People Pleasing and Masculinity

One dynamic I am seeing in my practice more and more is men who are having difficulties in their relationship because they are prioritizing conflict avoidance and avoiding their own needs, desires and healthy boundaries. To be fair, there are many, many women and gender non-conforming people who are living with the same struggles, and I see these folks in my practice too. The difference is that these people have usually already been exposed to messaging that tells them that they "should" be able to have boundaries, stand up for their needs, honour their desire and live their best lives. This is the gift of feminism. The challenge that men are facing is that they are not receiving these same messages in the same way.

Good Men Don't Want to Be Toxic

The messages men are receiving are pretty extreme. The Tate brothers, Clavicular and the rest of the Manosphere tells men to be the alpha, get what they want even in the absence of consent, and not let women or other less powerful men tell them what to do. Many men have also been harmed by other men while they were growing up, either in situations of outright abuse, or by witnessing women or other boys being abused. We also have the messages coming from all the women who have been abused and assaulted by men and are bravely coming forward to speak about their experiences and how awful it was. Many men, especially those who have been abused in the past, see all this and have promised themselves they will not contribute to toxic masculinity. If the only men you see getting what they want are assholes, it's not a far stretch to conclude that getting what you want means you're an asshole.

Can a Good Man Get What he Wants?

The problem arises when there's a conflict between what our good man wants and what someone else wants, particularly his female partner. If he's decided he must avoid being an asshole at all costs, engaging in any kind of conflict can be pretty dicey territory. It risks turning into the sort of conflict where real anger or even rage might arise, which can be terrifying. Is he turning into his father? Is he an asshole after all? The other option is to push down and ignore his own needs, desires or opinions in favour of pleasing the other person, which can work well enough in the short run but eventually morphs into anxiety, depression and increasing emotional or sexual distance between himself and his partner. Now there might even be conflict in his relationship after all, with his partner unhappy that he's "not really there for her". It's a lose-lose dilemma.

Equality is for Everyone

The path through this involves moving towards equality for everyone. Men do not have to please women at the expense of themselves, just like women do not have to please men at the expense of themselves. Everyone is allowed to have needs, desires and opinions, and nobody is allowed to dominate and get their needs, desires or opinions met at the expense of others. This can be easy enough to understand intellectually, and challenging in practice, especially if you've grown up with insecure attachment, complex or developmental PTSD, and/or a high ACES score. When everyone is allowed to have needs, desires and opinions, and sometimes they are different from others, we will most likely run into some amount of conflict in the process of working out who gets what. Securely attached people know that conflict is normal and trust that connection can be repaired afterwards, but people with insecure attachment and developmental/relational trauma may have never had any experiences of moving from conflict through to an effective relational repair.

Repair is the Key

When we trust that repair is possible and we know how to do it, then differing needs, desires and opinions are no longer the devastating threat they once were. We have an increasing sense of our own goodness and our right to have our own experience, and less fear, shame and terror around emotions like anger, sadness or frustration. This often comes hand in hand with healing attachment wounds, grieving the developmental needs that didn't get met, and growing up in many ways. When we're the adult in the room, we can relate to our partner in a more mature way, and we can also take care of the scared kid we once were, who is afraid that our needs will break everything apart forever. We can tolerate the discomfort of differing needs, desires and opinions, knowing that it's temporary, we've got the resources to handle it, and repair is possible.

Want to know more, ask questions or begin working on this issue in therapy? You can schedule a free 20 min consultation call here.