This email comes in response to an exchange I had intended to answer a LONG time ago… but have finally gotten around
to.
So how do men and women really break up? And how should they?
First off… what Ryan says is true, that women tend to “break up emotionally” while they are still in the relationship. Indeed, they very often go further than that… and find a replacement before they make the jump. This phenomenon is called “branch swinging” — something most of you are personally familiar with. It feels cruel and callous to most men… and it is a dark part of female nature.
But the reality is most guys simply don’t pay attention, or don’t want to, when a woman is doing this… and this is why guys are blindsided and broken. In truth, the signs are always there.
Which getting back to the main point… is one of the reasons that men are generally the ones to be “left hanging” at the end of a relationship.
They are not in tune with the psychological and emotional flow within the relationship — and so rather than address deep-seated issues, they are blindsided when said relationship crosses the point of no return.
Adding on to the problem that women are unlikely to confront these issues directly… when the woman is the only one paying attention to this flow, nothing gets fixed. She just bounces… and usually doesn’t acknowledge her own contribution to this collapse.
(Women are more likely than men to self-rationalize —without the guidance of an older, wiser woman or a strong man they love, they tend to repeat their mistakes with increasing self-justification. This reason — far more than “sexual mileage” — is why many men have observed older women are more trouble than they’re worth to date)
Which is why most “problematic relationships” are unsalvageable so long as the man is ignorant and weak.
He MUST be grounded not only in what is right, but what is. He needs to see a woman for all of her BS and call her out on it… and be willing to leave her if she will not address it.
THIS is a man’s role in a relationship — to ELEVATE it to a different level. The woman maintains the connection, but it is the man who deepens it. And if he does not deepen it, she will not maintain it.
Men who diminish the importance of this connection might as well admit they understand nothing about women, and should consider giving them up all-together.
Which is why I consider the work I do so important.
Because while there are a number of men who will teach you have to be mentally and physically strong, how to be determined, how to be masculine…
There are VERY FEW who will teach you how to integrate all of these traits — which are in truth more about how a man relates to other men than to women— with an ability to see a woman for who she is, and to connect to the depths of her soul.
This is an advanced kind of “spiritual masculinity” that transcends the frustration and misunderstanding that is so common among regular male-female relationships.
If you want to acquire it for yourself, apply to work with me here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
