Shannon's Journal Discussion Thread, Vol. 8

[Shannon]

You are one who advocates for men to deny their own humanity then.  What you're not understanding is that what you advocate is destructive to men, no matter how strong they are.  And if you cannot show your human-ness and vulnerabilities and weaknesses to your wife then you have chosen the wrong woman to be your wife.



The fact is that humans, male and female, have strengths and weaknesses.  The developed man is strong enough to be able to accept that fact, and knows when and how to express his weakness and vulnerability, but he also understands that denying himself that acceptance and expression is not healthy to do all the time.



So a man should be aware that expressing vulnerability and or weakness isn't to be done casually or freely, but it is also not to be prevented at all costs.  You must find a balance that keeps you in your masculine center and strength, as well as which allows you to be human without self destructing trying to be inhuman.

During my relationship with my ex-girlfriend, I shared something that was very vulnerable, I opened up to her fully for a moment. It was something that made me feel less of a man and was clearly affecting the relationship. Not even 1 month later, she broke up with me and had sex with the guy who was waiting in line to get with her. Coincidence? I think not. The relationship was not going great, but sharing that vulnerability probably made her feel like I am less of a man, and she mentally checked out of the relationship.



This crushed me.

She was always the one who told me I should open up more to her, with my struggles, with what's going through my head. And when I did, look what happened. Probably the biggest heartbreak of my life.

So you are basing your philosophy of masculinity on one woman's response and how much it hurt you.  N=1 is meaningless, my friend.  You just got a lesson in what the wrong woman acts like, not how you should treat yourself as a man.  A woman worth a damn is going to be trying to connect with you emotionally, and she's going to want and need to see that humanity under the shell to really feel and be connected with you.  Such a woman, too, does not want you acting like a wimp or crying all the time, but it will be very important to her that you share your vulnerability with her.  I'll give you some examples.

My current girlfriend and I are very deeply and closely bonded.  She has seen me at my weakest, and at my worst, and she stood beside me even when it was enough to make her scream in frustration.  At my weakest, I had the whole world falling down on me.  My uncle died, my uncle's wife was constantly asking me for help it turned out she didn't really need, and I was somehow being made responsible for her and her son, and I had my own emotions to deal with, while I was also trying to run this business and handle my girlfriend's stresses over the situation.  It was an extremely bad situation and it lasted - and got progressively worse - for months.  At the end I just lost it, and on top of smashing a few things I had a nice cathartic cry. 

My girlfriend stood by me through all this, and herself became upset with my uncle's wife over what she did, and then had to deal with my stress and anger and frustration.  She and I are extremely linked empathically, and if one of us gets upset the other starts experiencing that emotion involuntarily.  It can be bad unless one of us leaves the area or we use a shielding subliminal.

But she stood by me through it all, because she genuinely loves me and she genuinely cares about me.  She knows that I and I alone can handle her at her worst and stay standing.  She values me, and she values the incredible trust we have developed between us over the years.  She would sooner die than be unfaithful to me.  I have a good woman.  She understands that I am human, and I have emotions, and I need to express my emotions sometimes, even though I am the head of the household and the breadwinner and the leader in our relationship.  She values my vulnerability, but she also needs me to be the strong man I am, because she does not have strength in the same ways or directions that I do.  As she should be, she is my balance, and she balances my weaknesses with her strengths and I balance her weaknesses with my strengths.  Together, as a team, we become more than the sum of the parts of our individual selves.

But it takes a good woman for this to work.  A mature woman, and an intelligent woman who has reasonable expectations of her man and her relationship.  She understands that by expressing my vulnerability to her I am showing her trust, and she values both.  By being vulnerable to one another, we bond more deeply.  By going through these times of hardship and adversity, we strengthen our bond and our relationship. 

Females who are the maturity equivalent of little girls don't understand these sorts of things.  Immature females, especially those raised by and addicted to social media and are only interested in what they can get out of a situation or a man.  These females are always looking for the Bigger, Better Deal.  We call them BBD girls.  For them, no man is good enough, because there is always someone better just over the next hill.  Someone taller, more buff, more wealthy, more powerful, whatever.  (And because the idiots they blindly follow and let think for them on social media told them so.) They cannot understand the value of a man, never mind a good man, and even less a real man of value.  They become angry bitter cat ladies later in life, blaming men for their own stupid choices when they should have been choosing a suitable long term relationship but instead were throwing their legs apart for tens or hundreds of guys because they thought they had all the time in the world to be stupid and there were no consequences for their actions.  (And social media idiots told them it was the trendy thing to do.)  There are always consequences.

You just need to find a GOOD woman.  And the secret to that is going to be either knowing where to look, or manifesting one. 

But denying yourself your own humanity because someone might hurt you shows weakness, not strength.  In my strength, I can express my vulnerability - as I have done above by sharing those trying times with you - and it doesn't matter to me what other people think.  No matter what I do, there will ALWAYS be someone who loves me for it, someone who hates me for it, and most people just won't give a rat's ass.  I'm not going around simping or having my girlfriend be mommy or any shit like that - but she gets access to my vulnerabilities, just like I get access to hers.  She understands that a serious, meaningful relationship relies on opening up to each other and balancing one person's weaknesses with the other person's strengths.  When and where she is weak, I fill in.  When and where I am weak, she fills in. And in doing so, we form a relationship that is greater than the individuals who make up that relationship.  We make it through hardships that we as individuals could not make it through otherwise.

This is why the relationship is more important than the individual when you get into a serious long term relationship.  This is why men who are in a real, happy marriage with a woman who is worth keeping - marriages that really make it for the long haul - those men don't focus on the player and trying to act alpha in their relationships.  It has to be a balance.  Neither one is better than the other, or more perfect.  They both have their strengths and weaknesses and they blend those together to form a more perfect whole.

There is nothing like having a woman you can trust completely.  It's unlike anything else you ever had before.  Every day I marvel at how happy it makes me to have that.  But it wasn't until I outgrew what my mother had tried to make me (a scared little boy who needed mommy) and became a man that I stopped choosing the wrong women, and it wasn't until I had the courage to manifest what I really wanted that I found the right woman.  I'm not saying that every man has to overcome what I did to choose the right women, but in a lot of cases I am seeing these guys these days get hurt and decide to self destruct by denying heir own human-ness and emotional health in an effort to hide from getting hurt again. 

You are going to get hurt in life.  That's just the way life works.  And you move forward and learn what you can learn from it, which will naturally develop you into a stronger, more resilient man.  Stoicism is the result of the harsh reality of the ancient times when it was birthed, because those men had such hard times.  Vastly more difficult than we have today.  But denying your validity as a human, as an emotional being, is how you get stuffed in a box labeled "what society thinks men should be".  It isn't healthy for any human to deny their humanity, or their emotional needs.  EDIT: Just to be clear, I mostly agree with, and embrace, stoicism as a good path for men.  But it is based on experiences of men who had conditions much different, and much worse, than we have today in most cases.

And again, at the same time, it isn't healthy to be reliant on others for fulfilling your personal needs.  Mom, dad, wife, girlfriend, anyone.  That's not being a leader, or a mature man who takes care of himself and his business.  You step up and take care of yourself and your business and you fulfill your own needs.  Then you naturally attract women who are the feminine compliment to your masculine expression, who admire that about you and wants to be with you for the right reasons, and are worth keeping, trusting, making a life and a family with.  Because once you can take care of and fulfill your own needs, you're in a position of natural masculine strength to take care of a wife when she needs you, and have and support and raise kids properly.  Your vibe attracts your tribe, as they say.