General Articles
I want to find the right man!
By Judy Churchill
This is one of the most frequent pleas I hear from clients and one that sparked off a very lively debate at our last New Women Networking meeting.
Whether you’re already in a relationship and feeling emotionally short-changed or unable to find your perfect match, it helps if you start by understanding the reasons why it’s so tough. There is a reason and there is someone you can blame for all this and it begins with an ‘H’. It’s not who you think it is it, no it’s not HIM it’s your hormones! Your hormones are your biggest traitor, the reason why you make the wrong choices, the reason why you jump into bed with prince charming and wake up with Shrek and the reason why most unwanted pregnancies occur. Hormones are the reason why you are left feeling bitter and neglected in a relationship and wondering how the hell you got yourself into this situation. It doesn’t matter what age you are, we women have such an army of different hormones working against us all through our lives, that whether you are in puberty, menopause or in between, they are responsible for most of the bad relationship decisions you make or are about to make …….
We can’t change our hormones but we can change our approach and override them. If we understand the why we do certain things, we can start working on the how to change our behaviour and hook up with the man of our dreams or at least understand what we can and cannot have and understand how to make a relationship work for us. So the ‘why’ you can’t find the ‘right’ man is the subject of this article and how to find the right man and change your approach is what we do in one to one coaching sessions and has to be tailored to suit your circumstances, personality and aspirations.
I’m going to look at the typical complaints I get about male/female relationships and explain what’s going on:
Q. He can’t share his emotions. He doesn’t seem to share the same feelings as me and as for writing loving messages – forget it! I do this all the time and I feel completely short changed emotionally. Why is this happening?
Men cannot share emotions. Their left lobe dominance focuses on THINKING. Women recognise emotions faster than men which explains why when you are sad or feeling cheesed off, he doesn’t even notice. Female right lobe dominance focuses on FEELING. Men’s brains are not wired for emotion, they are wired to do business and solve problems. As cave men, emotions would have been a huge handicap. Men needed to be sharp and think rationally to go out and catch their prey. Nothing has changed.
Women have more biochemical (hormones) such as oxytocin and serotonin, which help them bond and share feelings. Men have a lot less. Women can therefore bond quickly with babies, children and other women, all skills necessary to create a care and support system that allow women to survive and take care of the family. Nature is very clever but not compassionate towards the needs of the modern day woman.
Men have a smaller corpus callosum (separation between the right and left brain lobes) and can’t shift fast from thinking to feeing. The exceptions to the rule are left handed guys and gays who can shift from right to left lobe fast in the same way women do. The most emotional boyfriend I ever had was left-handed!
So ladies don’t waste your time asking a guy how he feels about something unless you want to wait two weeks for an answer; ask him what he thinks about it.
Q. But in terms of relationships, what advantage is there to a guy being unemotional?
For a man getting emotional and bonding with a woman early on will not help him play around sexually or focus on other gaols. And yes I’m sorry but jumping into bed with as many women as possible is what nature intended men to do. They are here to spread their genes and procreate to help the human race survive. Nature intended us to be here to bear and look after their offspring. If we select the wrong guy the consequences are much higher for us. We will bond and fall in love fast. He can move on quickly and if you have chosen the wrong one, he inevitably will.
It’s important to understand although politically incorrect to say so, but love drives woman and sex drives men. You might not like that version of the facts but that’s the way it is. Nature likes balance so it’s a trade off. Women give sex to get love (or money) and men give love (or money) to get sex. Knowing this and understanding the truth makes it easier to deal with the issues and in coaching we work on how to do this so that the relationship works for both sides and meets both sides’ expectations.
Q. Why does nature have to screw things up like this?
Nature didn’t screw things up we did. Unlike other mammals, we humans have over-romanticised love (you have the French courtly love movement to blame for that – even Elizabeth I got caught out) which tried to romanticise and civilise nature’s genetic agenda. But nature will not be thwarted. The truth is that the real battle is not romantic versus unromantic (these are games that can be learned or unlearned) it’s Testosterone versus Oestrogen. Remember once again: men learn to give love for sex and women learn to give sex for love. Women often want sex for value and approval, men want sex for sex, it’s as simple as that.
Q. Why doesn’t he listen to me?
Sexually guys function with their eyes and not their ears. The sexual organ you need to stimulate is not their penis but their eyes. They are visual. Men are constantly ogling women as that’s what they are programmed to do and why they love porn. That’s why hidden messages don’t work for guys. You as a woman are programmed to listen; your most powerful sexual organ is your ear. You want to hear nice, romantic things and if you do, you will be incredibly turned on and far easier to seduce. That’s why many of the wrong guys succeed with you because they learn to say the right things and hey presto you believe them.
Q. Why do I keep waking up after 3 months and realise I’m with the wrong guy?
It’s simple: for three months you’re on a sex hormone rush. You get a huge dopamine rush and then the euphoria and carvings start and before you know it you’re addicted to him. After ninety days the addictive effect wears off and other milder hormones such as endorphins enter your system which having a calming, stabilising effect. So never make any major relationship decisions in the first ninety days because you won’t be acting rationally. This is another nasty trick nature has played on us to make us produce a baby as quickly as possible. You maybe using birth control or even beyond having babies but nature doesn’t know that.
During the first three months you will waste time doting on him, ignore his bad points, neglect your friends and family, and certain biochemicals will impair your normal functions so basically you are no good to anyone. Then if you find out you made the wrong choice, you’re going to start the whole process all over again with someone else but not before you’ve gone through a whole load of nasty hormonal withdrawal symptoms.
So it really does pay to make better choices of whom you fall in love with. Most women if they are honest with themselves, are looking for success, resources and protection in a man. The emotions that are associated with these things in a man are ambition, dependability, intelligence, compatibility (values) love and commitment. Notice I haven’t mentioned romanticism and emotional availability.
The falling in love feeling never lasts and for many men the actual ‘falling’ bit lasts precisely seven seconds (during ejaculation) so it’s pretty important to make sure you at least commit to someone who will love and commit to you for longer than that! You can also turn around a stale, dull relationship using the same techniques we use for new relationships.
I have only scratched the surface here and as I mentioned, the how to change things comes from working through coaching sessions. I use many of the techniques I learnt from Dr Pat Allen and her Androgynous Semantic Realignment method. I first came across Dr Allen when attending her TA workshops at the International Transactional Analysis conference in San Francisco back in 2005. These methods are no-nonsense, easy to understand and apply and they work. If you would like to know more just get in touch.
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Judy specialises in transformational coaching on both an individual and team level.
If you would like to receive coaching, communication skills training or language tutoring from Judy, you can contact her on: judy.churchill@orange.fr, via Facebook messenger and www.judychurchill.com