Posted: 10 May
Giving and receiving TRUE love is very difficult for some men.
The concept is a bit of a mystery to them.
If you grew up in an abusive or cold, unemotional household, giving and receiving love won’t necessarily come natural to you.
You wanted love as a child….all children do….but it just wasn’t available to you.
For some of you, despite your cold upbringing you’ve managed to become the opposite of your family – you’re a warm, loving individual and that’s wonderful.
But for others, love and closeness will be difficult…almost alien to you.
It feels unfamiliar and not what you’ve been used to.
It may even seem a bit scary and intimidating.
To avoid this, you might have decided you need some protection; you may have put up emotional walls or defences to stop you getting hurt again.
Protecting your precious heart.
You may have decided it’s safer to not go looking for love at all, that way you can’t get rejected again.
For many of you, the kind of love you needed was denied you as a child.
Your parents were either too busy, too damaged or they just didn’t know how to love you, because they hadn’t been shown love either.
So you grew a hard shell and you just got on with it.
You decided love wasn’t really worth it.
You could live without it.
You formed the belief that deep love was for other people.
It was never going to be available to you.
As an adult your relationships became about sex and/or shallow connections.
You go through the motions but you don’t experience any really close bonds.
The love can’t get in or out because of your defences.
You may have had many short term relationships with no emotional depth.
Or you may even be married, (because that’s the done thing), but there’s no deep bond between you and your spouse.
There’s no REAL, deep love.
If you do somehow start to form a deep connection, it might panic you, so you sabotage it or run away.
The thought of needing love or coming close to love and being rejected again is just too painful to risk.
This is such a sad state of affairs.
I believe true emotional fulfilment comes from the relationships in our life.
The deeper the bond in the relationship, the deeper the fulfilment.
This applies to all relationships, not just those with a sexual partner.
Relationships with our children and our friends apply equally too.
Your bank balance and your fancy car won’t give you comfort when you’re on your deathbed but your loved ones will.
I’m happy to say regardless of your background, it’s never too late to learn how to love.
In the 1990s Gary Chapman wrote an excellent book called The 5 Love Languages – The Secret to Love That Lasts.
It’s a New York Times Best Seller, and although 30 years old, still as popular as ever.
I highly recommend it.
His premise is that there are 5 distinct languages we all use to express love.
The 5 love languages are:-
1. Words of Affirmation – expressing love through your words.
2. Quality Time – expressing love through spending quality one on one time together.
3. Receiving gifts – expressing love though the giving and receiving of gifts.
4. Acts of service – expressing love through doing things for each other.
5. Physical Touch – expressing love through physical touch.
The idea is that we all have a primary love language.
If our loved one “speaks” to us in that language we feel more loved.
If they don’t, we don’t.
The love doesn’t “land”.
Chapman compares it to one partner speaking Spanish whilst the other is speaking Chinese.
You’re not communicating as effectively as you could be.
Although the original book relates to couples and romantic love it can also be applied to parental and friendship love.
Learning someone else’s’ primary love language can work wonders, so it’s a great place to start.
There’s a quiz you can take www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes that will tell you what your primary love language is.
Why not take a look?
I have two favourites (as I find it impossible to choose between the two).
My two primaries are words of affirmation and physical touch.
With my loved ones, I like to be touched and I like to be told!
Chapman states in his book that roughly 20% of the population relate to each of the 5 love languages, but in my coaching practice I haven’t found this to be the case at all.
By far and away, the most popular love language with my male clients is physical touch.
This will be a series about all 5 languages, but for that reason I want to start with this one.
It’s partly because men are thinking of sex, but mainly because so many males are starved of any kind of physical contact at a very young age.
Because boys are brought up so differently to girls the cuddles stop very early on.
From the age of around 7 boys are encouraged to not be a wuss, to man up, be a man, be strong and not to cry.
They often don’t feel they can ask for a hug or a cuddle.
They have to go it alone.
This can cause real physical cravings for loving touch.
Physical touch makes you healthier.
Research proves it!
Massages, hugs and holding hands reduce stress and boost the immune system.
And they feel really good!
No wonder men crave physical touch so much.
Gary Chapman’s book is a great place to start your journey in learning how to love, but if you’d like some more in-depth learning then please get in touch.
My Method has so many ways to help you learn to love.
It’s never too late and it’s so, so worth it.