1443. His “Guilt Locker” — Door Locked

In response to Guy’s Golden Nuggets at #1442, Her Highness Lark asked, “Any ideas how we can help unlock his ‘guilt locker’? I feel like without him doing so, there will always be a block to intimacy.”

I presume she means that he doesn’t provide enough. If she makes him feel guilty, he will respond with more or greater intimacy. I see at least three problems for that approach.

Intimacy is the woman’s game. Men neither play it well nor esteem it highly—unless they inspire themselves to do so. Women are capable of inspiring their man to inspire himself to be more intimate, but it isn’t easy. It requires a unique strategy for which women are uniquely qualified, as you’ll see tomorrow.

Women lose respect when they inflict guilt on their man. Less respect weakens his love of her. A steady diet of guilt steadily drives him away.

Men are very different than women in the acceptance, handling, and disposing of guilt. A man neither accepts nor reacts to guilt the way a woman does and wishes he would. He reserves exclusively the privilege of making himself feel guilty. Someone else trying to make him feel guilty energizes his defenses and stirs his anger. Whatever follows after that doesn’t register with him as she intended.

Masculinity provides natural emotional barriers. If a woman makes a man feel guilty, he likely reacts with anger, fight or flight, or both. Unlike women who can harbor guilt for life, men get rid of guilt very soon with the added benefit of avoiding depression.

The male nature works like this. A woman tries to induce guilt on a man. He immediately senses a threat to his dominance and sense of significance. So, he throws up prevention barriers as protection against being used. That’s why she gets his immediate negative reactions. Of course, women do it anyway because they expect men to respond as women do.  

Men sometimes feel guilty after women inflict it on them. However, resentment and unintended consequence inevitably follow and the results are short term. Neither result helps a lady in need.

Neither do men live long with guilt. When men do feel guilty, they dispose of it as rapidly as practicable. They fix what they broke, move on, and forget it. If they can’t fix it, they may apologize but it sits bitter on their tongue. (Alpha males particularly find a way to avoid apologizing. As John Wayne said in one movie, it’s a sign of weakness.) If those things don’t ease his conscience, he gets on with other aspects of life until the guilt fades away.  

A man feels real guilt under one condition only. He concludes all by himself and all for himself that he’s in the wrong. His conscience itches, guilt sets in, and he carries the burden with manly composure. This strength to conclude on his own makes him vulnerable to the female’s relationship expertise.

Those three problems should encourage women to treat men differently than females, and it begs the question: But how? The answer tomorrow at post 1444.

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