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It is difficult to talk with them, especially about feelings and relationships, they are not able to be faithful and always avoid solving problems … The list of women’s reproaches against men sounds almost textbook and does not change over the years. Why is this happening?
“You can’t rely on them for anything,” the women complain. “All men are theirs …” — rushes from the TV screen. Who among us has not heard or said something like this? But men don’t seem to be too offended by unflattering generalizations. 36-year-old Ivan has been married for the ninth year, he has a little son. “I get the urge to run away for a few days about twenty times a year, but I never do it,” he admits. “But my wife, having decided to take a break, packed her bag both times and without the slightest hesitation went to her friend for the weekend.”
While the man is going with the flow, the woman is acting. “It may seem paradoxical,” observes Jungian analyst Maria Lomova, “but such opposite strategies of behavior are associated with our very first experience of loving a mother.” In early childhood, the boy imagines that he is literally everything to her. He discovers his mistake only at the age of three to five, when he realizes that the real object of his mother’s desire is not him, but his father.
The only thing left for boys is to keep the memory of the first, unconditional love for their mother and at the same time overcome it.
This discovery simultaneously causes him anxiety and a sense of relief. At the same time, the boy’s sincere love for his father, the expectation of reciprocity, is inevitably associated with homosexual, and therefore forbidden, feelings. “Therefore, father and son,” explains psychoanalyst Peter Kutter, “unconsciously avoid manifestations of tenderness, which increases the child’s painful feeling of unrequited love.”
The only thing left for boys is to keep the memory of the first, unconditional love for their mother and at the same time overcome it, learn to build relationships with another woman. “But many men continue to feel a direct connection with her, as if they remain in the womb,” explains Maria Lomova. “If this motherly image is associated with their companion, it prevents them from taking the initiative in relationships and provokes an unconscious fear of being abandoned, experiencing loneliness and rejection.”
Girls develop sexually differently, because the mother has a child of the same sex with her more trust, and love for the father is heterosexual. So, she has a chance to know tenderness, trepidation, respect in love. “Her relationship with her father is the first experience of a relationship in a couple,” says Maria Lomova. “It enriches the personality of the girl, gives the woman freedom of feelings and actions, but at the same time, it overestimates her love expectations.”
The meeting of a man and a woman is always a meeting of two opposite ideas about relationships, different experiences
A man is initially afraid of not satisfying his partner sexually. And a woman asks herself what it means to be a woman. Act like my mother did? Dress like a fashion model? Have kids like my sister or girlfriend?
“Femininity feels like an incompleteness, a lack of something,” says psychoanalyst Darian Leader. “Moreover, women are unconsciously convinced that only love can save them from problems and misfortunes.” Such an illusion raises love to the absolute. “But the absolute love that they dream of finding can never be embodied in a real man,” adds the psychoanalyst. — Once upon a time, women had the only refuge — the love of God. Today, they make up for the lack of ideal love with passion for their profession or love for children.
«He doesn’t understand me»
Men are alien to the torment of their companions. “A woman thinks of a relationship primarily as a verbal contract,” explains Darian Leader. Hence the frequent reproaches to the partner: “You don’t talk to me at all!” What does it mean: «You don’t understand me.»
These phrases vividly express the different psychological needs of the sexes. “Women need to express their emotions verbally,” says Maria Lomova, “most of them need to discuss with their partner the smallest details of every day they live. Thanks to communication, they comprehend their experiences, better understand themselves.
Men are wired differently. In the areas of their brain responsible for speech, there are 17% fewer neurons than in similar parts of the brain of women. “In addition, we are brought up differently from childhood: it is extremely rare for boys to talk to their mothers about their feelings,” comments family psychotherapist Alexander Chernikov, “as a result, women are able to talk about their experiences, and men prefer to use the word sparingly and mainly for transmission. information.»
«He walks away from problems!»
A woman’s need for words also gives rise to the following reproach: «You always try to avoid the problem.» Indeed, in the event of a conflict, the usual male practice is to withdraw into silence. Many claim that they do not want to upset a woman, but is it true?
“Why explain to a friend that I don’t want to see her anymore? explains 32-year-old Boris. “If I stop calling her, she herself will understand that it’s all over.” Maria Lomova believes that the apparent cowardice of men is explained by their fear of their own feelings. “Walking away from solving problems, a man seems to forget about what worries him,” says the psychotherapist. “He hides from himself and at the same time protects his self-esteem.”
“Unable to survive separation from their mother, men unconsciously act according to the model of avoidant attachment,” adds Alexander Chernikov. “They don’t open up, they don’t want to invest themselves in relationships so as not to relive disappointment and loss. Therefore, most of them are focused on solving professional problems, and not on relationships in a couple.
The behavior of many women can be called anxious attachment: it is important for them to feel intimacy with a partner at all costs. This is how both of them cope with childhood traumatic experiences. As a result, she tends to him, and he runs away.
According to Darian Leader, this flight is also connected with the special attitude of men towards death: “To make a decision means to deprive yourself of the opportunity to turn back. To avoid this anxiety, many men act as if they were already dead. Such neurotic tactics allow them to get rid of the feeling of fear, leaving the woman to act instead of herself.
«That’s all they need»
Women have sex to be loved. Men, on the other hand, declare their love in order to have the opportunity to have sex … The words “you have one thing on your mind” often mean the following for a woman: “When you make love to me, I have a feeling that you could do it with any woman. And when you say you love me, I feel like the one and only.»
Obviously, men and women give sexuality different meanings. Men don’t hesitate to say, «Sex is a need.» Freud’s followers believe that this situation is connected with the structure of the male libido, which radically separates love from sexual pleasure.
«All men are polygamous»
The betrayal of a partner, and even more so a break with him, again makes a woman suffer from the question: “Am I a real woman?” A reaction unthinkable for a man. He is more likely to be tormented by imaginary sex scenes of his partner with a rival. The male separation of love from sexual pleasure has an unfortunate consequence for women: their partners are polygamous by nature.
Even if a lady has a whole collection of lovers, she will always have one, the «real» one, around whom she organizes her life. But a man, even a man in love, never fully devotes himself to a woman. He already has one woman, whom he called mom, and this is love to the grave.
A woman needs a man to be around. A man needs distance, his own space
But “it is women who take possession of men, and not vice versa,” said one of the classics of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan. Men, enchanted by femininity, are often ready to surrender without a fight to the first beautiful stranger. However, as soon as they try to get closer to her, misunderstandings begin.
A man thinks of pleasure, and a woman thinks of love. A woman needs a man to be around. A man needs distance, his own space, to breathe freely and dream about his beloved … and she thinks that she is being abandoned, and she reproaches him. The man does not understand what he did wrong. Why is the woman scolding him? For help! Mom is back!
«Men have always been afraid of women»
Female sexuality, the female genitals have always fascinated men and plunged them into awe, says sexologist Gerard Lele. That is why, in different eras and in different cultures, a man invariably sought to dominate a woman.
You argue that men’s «fear of love» is the cause of centuries of discrimination against women. Why?
Gerard Wow: Women’s organs themselves have always evoked conflicting feelings in men. In the legends of all peoples, the vagina is described as a dark, damp place — a sucking swamp, the depths of the sea, where you can get lost … The fantasy of a wounding vagina is also widespread — because it bleeds!
Women’s sexuality has always puzzled men. Women can experience many orgasms in a row, while men are usually out of the game after two or three ejaculations. Let’s not forget about men’s fear of adopting softness, weakness from a woman, allowing their sensitivity to awaken.
How did sexual pressure come about?
Most likely, in prehistoric times, the man did not yet understand what role his sperm played in fertilization. Seeing how the belly of a pregnant woman rounded, he attributed this to her supernatural abilities. In the arms of a woman, a man knew the most vivid pleasure. The prehistoric man worshiped the mother goddess — after all, «God the Father» could not create such creatures as women.
How and when did we move to patriarchy?
Thousand 15-20 years ago, when a man discovered the connection between his sperm and the birth of a new life. Then the development of agriculture and cities began, which required the maintenance of order. This duty was assumed by the men, since they were the ones who owned the weapons. Men won power and … began to fear that a woman would again take away their “main roles” from them.