For a lot of men, the fear of stirring the pot keeps them stuck in both fantasy and anger, two places that get a guy nowhere right quick.

“Nice guys” don’t want to piss anyone off, especially their women and their bosses. They stay “nice” and stuff their true desires and needs, which the mind then uses as fuel to create all sorts of wonderful scenarios that make expressing the initial need or resulting anger much harder.

Think of that which has gone unfulfilled because of your fear of anger. Think of the situations that you have shied away from or bowed out of because you were afraid of engaging in conflict with someone else. You didn’t want to create the conflict, because you risk being criticized, rejected, unloved or just generally left out in the cold. This is not good.

Is it possible to express your needs in a healthy way, that wouldn’t set you up for the potential conflict situation you think is inevitably coming? You bet there is.

Speaking from your needs and, god forbid, feelings, does actually attract people you’d otherwise consider to be non-believers (and potential conflict sources). Not going into shaming, blaming, criticizing, manipulating, cajoling, nudging, superiorizing, and in any other way, shape or form, doing anything towards the other person. Staying in your own experience, and speaking from that place of “centeredness” is much more rewarding that the joyful explosions you’re bound to create when you do conflict like you are normally used to.

I see this so much with men: guys who need stuff from their partners who don’t come right out and say it. True, both sexes can be equally guilty of this, but for the sake of working with men, I’ll talk about them on this post.

The games we play to get what we want end up creating more interpersonal conflict and disaster than need be. Because some men are not in touch with what they need from their mate, and, more importantly, understand how to language it in a way that they get that need met with minimal friction, otherwise good, decent couples end up breaking up or going their separate ways. It saddens me to see this, but the power of communication can very much be a force for the good, as it can be for destruction.

Making assumptions about what the other partner is thinking or feeling is one common trap that a lot of guys fall into. They fantasize that their partner is thinking or feeling something about them that is just simply not true at all. But, because they fail to “check it out” with their women, men tend to then react to their fantasy, not the reality, of the situation. In this way, the cycle of conflict gets worse. Conflict is fueled by assumptions not grounded in the reality of what is going on, but what is going on in the guy’s fantasy.

Also, shaming, name-calling, manipulating and “wiping my hands of” the situation are other games that I see men play in relationships to get what they want. These games are destructive, and they promote confusion, anger, withdrawal and loneliness, among other things. They undermine the foundation of a good relationship.

Being direct about what the need is is a great start. “I need attention,” or “I need a kiss after a hard day at work,” are direct and perfectly acceptable examples of communicating clearly what needs are needing to be met. Being clear, concise, and direct are things that a lot of guys have a hard time doing in relationships, but are so important in the development of it. They are the fundamentals, yet a lot of men haven’t learned these basic skills growing up. Not only did no one teach them to do it these effective ways, but what these men did learn are negative surrogate ways of getting needs met (like the examples above).

The things that make us the men that we are are largely attributable to the relationships that we have with our fathers. Our intimate relationships, in some ways, are also results of the things that we learn from how to be in the world from our fathers, too. 

Too many men simply cannot be the fathers that they should to their sons, because they never got the right role modeling. Men go on to have imperfect relationships, and don’t know how to be effective intimate partners to their wives and girlfriends. Often times, it’s a combination of two problems.

First, men learn how to be emotionally withdrawn from their women. They learn, over time from the environment they grew up in, to shut down, stay in their heads and generally not be present to their feelings. This is the nucleus of the problem.

Second, as children we model behavioral patterns from our parents. As boys, we model the ways of being in a relationship from our fathers (and mothers). Many times, our fathers never got it right, so we simply take from them what we see, because unconsciously, if we do what they did, we just might get our needs met after all. This is child’s logic, and somewhere down the road, we fail to drop those tools when they don’t work for us anymore. As kids, they might have had some basic effectiveness. But as adults, we continue to use outdated tools to create similarly neurotic and ineffective relationships today.

The key is to understand these behavioral patterns, and the emotions that we avoid buried underneath. In seeing these, often for the first time, and experiencing them in the present moment unconditionally, they begin to transform themselves and set us free from the patterns that keep us stuck in conflict and unsatisfying relationships. We can work towards freedom from these blocks if we can first see them. Our fathers might not have been able to do it for themselves, but we can for ourselves.

Here’s some ideas about what to do if your girl explodes in a seething rage on you.

1. Don’t leave the scene. Although guys have the tendency to freak out, or leave, or both, I would advise you against this decision. Stay, and let her have her anger. Don’t take it personally so quick, because you’ll react in a way that you’re probably not conscious of. Hang in there.

2. If you’re having a reaction, such as feeling scared of her anger, or feeling angry yourself, say that to her. It will flush it out of you, and it will allow her to recognize it in herself. It may open up the conversation at the critical point where most conversation will go south. You can change the course of it yourself, and not have to succumb to sleeping on the couch this week.

3. Hang in there and listen. Actively listen, and see what is going on with her. It may not be anger. It may be a host of other things, such as not feeling seen, heard, validated, loved, etc. Women are mysterious creatures, and it is very possible that something else is going on with her, that may or may not be related to what you did. Again, remember – it is her anger, and the less you fall into it and react to it, the more perspective you will have on the conflict to help yourself and slice the amount of time battling in half.

4. Don’t apologize just to apologize – then you look like a chump. If you’re truly sorry, wait a little bit of time until the conversation progresses, and then take ownership for what you brought to the conflict. But, just to apologize for its own sake, and too early, will make you look insincere, and might make her more mad.

5. Take a breather if you need to from each other, but come back and finish out the conflict in, say, ten minutes or so. Don’t let it go, and neglect it – it will just fester if it stays unattended to.

Oh, and check this post out. It relates to this topic, about better communication tips form me to you:

http://phoenixmenscounseling.com/blog/2008/09/07/say-what-you-mean-and-mean-what-you-say/

I have been struck by how many men use their work or careers to avoid certain problems in their life, or, more specifically, in their marriage. Does this characterize you? Do you find yourself investing too much in your work, and have others close to you told you that this is a problem for them?

It makes sense: in our culture, work is prized over all else. We ask strangers when we meet them, “So, what do you do?” Men are especially guilty of this. We overidentify ourselves with what we do for a living, so it becomes that much easier to escape our everyday problems when we have the safety of our careers to fall into.

So what are we avoiding? Stress at home, marital tension, financial distress, conflicts with wives, girlfriends, or partners, our own anger, guilt, dissatisfaction with family life, boredom, our own fears about connecting with others, and the list goes on.

I work with a lot of men that look back on their lives and regret the time that they spent at work, and regret that they didn’t spend that time getting to know themselves (outside of their careers) or the ones that they love. It’s sad and disheartening to me to see that, and one of the reasons that I enjoy working with guys in their 20′s through 40′s is that I enjoy seeing that process of avoidance get easier, before it’s too late.

- Jason