“Why can’t he just open up?” If you’re wondering why your boyfriend or husband seems like he’s guarded or hiding his emotions from you, this episode is for you. It is very common for women to get frustrated when their man doesn’t seem to want to open up about what he’s feeling, no matter if it’s about his day or about a conflict. So, why does that happen? Why does it seem like even when you try everything, he’s not being vulnerable with you? That’s what we’ll explore in this episode. 

Key Takeaways:

• Is it that your man is guarded or is he not used to accessing his emotions? 
• What causes men to be guarded or not open up. 
• Why it can be harder for men to access and express their emotions? 
• What you can say or do to get him to open up? 
• Why the answer isn’t to just become passive with your man. 
• Why you’re frustrated when your man doesn’t respond the way your best friends would. 
• How you can make a invitation for him to open up through being vulnerable. 

Links:

How to Join Woman Men Adore Group 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/womanmenadoregroup/

How to connect to Bob Grant :

Website - https://relationshipheadquarters.com/

Podcast - https://relationshipheadquarters.com/podcast/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/Relationshipheadquarters

A man being guarded is just sort of his natural state. And it's not, it looks guarded compared to women, but it's not so much guarded. I mean, he's got more testosterone than a woman does. This is Bob Grant from Relationship Headquarters and you're listening to Relationship Headquarters Podcast where I talk to women who want to grow and experience the intimate relationship they've always wanted. I'm Bob Grant from Relationship Headquarters, and today we're gonna talk about why men are guarded. Now, Jordan Peterson had a interesting video and normally I would check stuff out research wise, but I'm assuming since he quoted it, he's done the research. I hope to goodness he has. But he had said the people from Google, some of the nerds had wondered what the ultimate female fantasy was, and they did all this data analysis and they statistics and Nerdish smart people do, and they came up with that.

The ultimate fantasy was beauty and the beast that the woman's love, that her, um, charm was able to tame the Savage Beast. Okay, that makes sense. There's a reason why that movie's so popular and as much as women would will talk about, at least what I get with clients is, you know, I can't get him to open up. I can't get him to share. Why is he like that? So let's start with why men are this way first and, and then sort of get to what to do with it. So, you know, a man being guarded is just sort of his natural state, and it's not, it, it looks guarded compared to women, but it's not so much guarded. I mean, he's got more testosterone than a woman does. We talked in some other videos about the corpus callosum that thing, that joins the two hemispheres.

It's, uh, thicker in women than it is with men. And so because of that, the feeling and thinking, at least the theory goes, doesn't go back and forth as much. And so men tend to be more likely to either be thinking or feeling as opposed to a combination of both. So it may look guarded. Um, most of the time what I tell clients, especially women, is I said, it's not as much he's guarded as much as he just doesn't have access to it, not like you do. Whereas I can talk to women and most of them will, will, you know, have a feeling about how something is, how it's thinking. It's kind of intertwined. They're all enmeshed with each other. And now because of this, because men tend to go back and forth, is that, you know, when men really think about something, we really think about something.

But when we feel stuff, we really feel stuff. And the analogy I've used lots of times is take a man to his favorite concert. Or if you go to a sporting vet, I'm here in Georgia and at the time of this recording, my Georgia Bulldogs have won two national championships in a row in football. They should have won this year, but they didn't. It's almost everyone here where I live, especially men, are really into the Georgia football. And so if you go to one of their games, I promise you men are loud there, they scream, especially if you add beer with it or alcohol, then they scream a lot. So it's not that men are emotional, I'm encouraging too, but I mean, men are quite passionate once their feelings are involved. So it's not that men don't feel it, but that when we do it tends to be overwhelming, which is a great thing.

If it's something we like, if it's the game, it's really close. I mean, men will scream like crazy, make noise, holler, I mean, as though the coach can actually hear them, you know, 300 feet away. But they're screamings of the coaches right near make this play or don't do that. The same thing if his favorite concert. You know, when when something happens, you've lately, you've been with a man concert or something, he really loves, you've seen this. Maybe it's a car show, could be art. So men do feel intensely, but when we feel that we're not used to it. So what looks guarded to us is more like we don't access it as much. So therefore we need a stimulus. We need something, an inspiration, an uh, an event to actually access that part of our brains. This is where you come in as a woman and the best part for you is as much as I would love to tell you 14 tricks and three phrases and do these words, and we'll do stuff like that from time to time on different videos.

But the core part of it is just the fact that you're a woman. I mean the, because you're a woman, you, that's just what you do. You stir up emotions. You, you stir them up just when you walk in the room, when you sit down next to him, when you do what you do. And that's why you'll find a lot of times, I will bet you, if you think back to some time when it seemed really effortless, I seriously doubt you were following an outline or a program, which I know is frustrating for a lot of women I talk with is, is there like why'd he open up, why was he so, it was so flowing with he and I, what was I doing? And it wasn't anything you're most likely consciously doing. If there was a short version, it's most likely that you got out of the way is that you weren't trying to do anything because thinking and planning, while as much as anyone, I love the idea of let's have a strategy, let's have a plan.

Love that. Part of the biggest plan is more of how to get you outta your head. How to get you outta thinking so much. So, so men have this, you've seen this, this desire, this craving. We have, well, we'll put it this way, um, men tend to be thirsty for these experiences. There's a reason why men seek out women. There's a reason why men seek out addictive stuff too. Not, again, not that women don't, there's a reason with this is because all the logic we have, all the focus we have, it gets lonely, it gets tiring times, it gets overwhelming. And so therefore the love of a woman, the touch of a woman, the sound of her voice is soothing. Depends on where you're at right now listening to this, if you've had a hard day of work, and this sounds like I'm talking about poor, pitiful men, or you need to dumb yourself down, I'm not, I don't mean that at all.

And am I saying that you need to be soft all the time and you need to always lean back. My friend Sammy wonder, one of the things when she got her start was she would teach women about leaning back. Okay? And that's a great, she's not the only one that says this, but that's a great picture to do. But a lot of women have taken that to mean that they should always lean back. They should always just defer to the man or let him have his way. And that's not what she's saying at all. But she's talking about tapping into that feminine part of you that, that part of you that actually he's wired to be receptive to and that it stirs up something inside of him. If you've ever seen a man with his daughter or even with a little girl, for most men, you know, what you'll find is, is that when he is talking to her, his guard naturally lowers because usually the little girl, she's soft, she's fragile, she's smaller than him, and men respond, respond well to someone smaller or more specifically a woman that's not being competitive.

So, you know, if you're at work and we're all equal at work, I understand politically there may may not always be the case, but work with me on this one. If we're all equal at work, meaning that we're all expected to do a job there, we're performance based. This is not about who can be feminine masculine. This is about getting the job done, about completing a project. And we can still take our personalities with that and integrate that. Like some people do better with one type of leadership, some do better with another. Absolutely. But as a whole, our overall goal is to produce a product, deliver a service, help the company. So in that sense, we're all masculine. Or we're very task oriented. And that when we do this, you know, in that setting, it's perfectly normal for a woman to be like that. I mean she can be, the problem becomes them as far as when she takes that outside of work and she does that most of the time.

What it feels like to a man is that, okay, we're in task mode. Where about fixing problems? We're just about shooting the breeze. It's almost like she's a buddy, it doesn't matter. She looks really pretty. A woman can look really attractive and a man can still treat her like a buddy to her that may look like his guard's up. That's not so much his guard is up as much as that's his natural state. Now let's make a distinction between this and his guard being up like his natural state versus literally his guard is up. So when a man's guard is up in the sense of he does, has a hard time connecting, of course that's almost always some type of injury. There's something going on. There's a past relationship that was awful. Perhaps he softened his mom and dad, they fought all the time. His dad treated his mom awfully or perhaps his mom was just at tyrant with his dad.

Usually there's some combination of both. And I'm not here to rag on parents per se. Most parents I know do the best job they could, even if it's not a great job. So we're just pointing it out. So his guardedness in that sense would be anti injury in that sense. That's guarded for protection versus guarded being in being his natural state, guarded in his natural state. And I'm, I'm saying this so women don't get it confused. It may look the same, but one of the ways we can tell this is, is if you want him to open up, if you want him and you want him to open up the way other women open up, which is gonna be, I'm gonna share a lot of details and talk about a lot of stuff and then he's just gonna jump in there, me sharing a lot of details, he's gonna know that that means the invitation is there for him to jump in and be a part of it.

And we've said that for men, that comes across like talking over each other. If men do that with each other, that's too competitive. It's insulting If, if I did that with a man, he would look at me like, why are you interrupting me? If he didn't know me, he, he might say something or he might just stop talking and I know what he's thinking. You know, what a shmo, why is he doing that? Well what, what's up with that? You are asking inviting questions. Remember to get someone to open up, we need an invitation that they see as an invitation to get someone to open up. They have to feel that you want to hear what they're willing to share. They're not going to take your way of doing it and just automatically read your mind. This would apply to men also. If I'm talking to a man and you know, you feel like you can't connect with her and you ask her what's wrong and she says nothing, you say, okay.

I say, well that's the way it would work with another man. That's not the way it works with her. With her, you may ask her that she says nothing and you just stay there. Just stay there. Don't do anything. Just stay there and sit and wait and let her know that you are not going anywhere, that you're picking up that she's upset, you're aware that something's bothering her. You can sense it and you don't necessarily know what to do, but you're there with her. That she's not alone. You probably wouldn't do that with another man. 'cause with another man that's gonna feel like you're intruding into his space, it's gonna feel like you're trying to force the issue. So we, I would tell a man the same thing, that you don't want to just try to get a woman to open up based on what's familiar with you as a man.

Same with you as a woman. If you're wanting him to lower his guard, let's determine what kind it is. If it's an injury and you're sharing with him and then you're pausing and you let him catch up and you're asking him and you're waiting and he just won't, yes, let's pay attention to that. 'cause if you're being respectful and you're not challenging him and you're not telling him what to do and you're not teaching him, put it this way. If you're making it emotionally safe for him and he's still won't open up, I tell clients this all the time, I'm like, pay attention. That's not a you thing. The things I'm worried about is if you're explaining, talking down to him, raising your voice like I'm doing now, you know, I'm not saying he's fragile and I'm not saying you have to do it perfect, but if you're doing those things, is he likely to want to shut down a bit?

Yes he is. Sure, absolutely. Those are easy fixes. Those are easy ways. If I've got, back when I used to have clients in my office pre covid and I'm talking to someone and the woman's talking, I'm modeling for her and I'm pausing and I'm saying, I said, just just give him a second. 'cause he's hesitant and she wants to fill the gap. She wants to. So to me that looks guarded. I'm like, that's not guard us that he's overwhelmed. He, he just, he's got a flood of emotion you just shared with him. I said, he'll be okay. I said, just give him a chance to catch up. And I'd have her wait. And that would make her agitated. That would make her squirm. That would make her, Hmm, how do I, how do I do this? How do I, but if she'd wait, it would usually come, maybe we'd ask some questions later because that's unfamiliar for him.

And remember, his guard is lowered based on how you make him feel. Not by the logic use. It's 'cause if we're gonna prove to him and tell him why he needs to tell me and what's going on, I mean, you know, it almost sounds like a man talking to him. And if he's feeling, if you're feeling frustrated or agitated or nervous, it's okay to share that. That works really well. Now it's vulnerable. And one of the things is your vulnerability is what's gonna have the biggest impact. So if you say, when you're quiet like this, I don't know if you're mad at me, I don't know if you're overwhelmed at work, I don't know. So I thought I'd ask and see that's about as safe as you can make it. That's about as easy an invitation as a woman can give. And if I do something like that, knows how, it starts with being authentic, not telling someone this is what you're doing.

Either way, if a man tells a woman this or a woman tells a man that, whether they realize it or not, it comes across as insulting. We don't wanna be telling someone, this is what you're doing. I guess you should probably say that for worst case scenario, we wanna be sharing how it comes across to us, how it comes across to me as opposed to what you're doing. 'cause once I start getting into, you're doing this, that's actually not me being vulnerable. That will come across as being accusatory. And the worst thing is, if you're right, it's one thing to say something to someone, you're just projecting and it's, and you're being a little ridiculous or you're exaggerating. That's actually makes it easier for someone to not take you seriously. If you point out something that you're spot on and you grind it in and you keep emphasizing it, you know, that was awful the way you talked to our daughter.

I mean, that's just one of the cruelest things you could have done. I mean, that's the kinda stuff that daughters remember growing up and they end up hating their father for you do that because it's really close to the truth. The problem with that is that will, that's the kinda stuff that makes the man start to hate you so that that doesn't open him up. That reinforces his guarded to be protected. That may seem obvious, but notice the reason I would do this, because I'm so angry and I'm so upset. So instead of me sharing how it's affecting me, how much I'm in pain or how anger upset I am, I'm, see I'm not doing that as much as I'm accusing and I'm trying to dump my anger, I'm trying to punish it. I'm using it as a weapon. You don't want to use your emotions as a weapon or you're just gonna make it more guarded.

And you, if you, you can, if the goal is just to vent and dump, but that's how you poison a relationship. And the phrase every woman watching, I'm gonna ask you to lose this phrase, 'cause I've heard this before and men hate this. So you say or do something and you say, but I was just angry, but I was just upset as though that makes it okay. It's not the same thing. So you can leave a comment if you want, but I can tell you how I'm gonna respond if you say, but if I tell, if a man said, and I've had men do this, I hit her because I got angry. I don't care. The courts don't care. God doesn't care. No institution care. Don't hit a woman. Just don't. Maybe under some bizarre circumstance, she's got a gun pulled on you. Something bizarre.

But you have to stand before the court and a judge, don't hit a woman. Just, I'm, I'm telling you, I don't care how mad you got. I don't care how what she called you, I don't care what name she called you. You don't. So I'm not saying this is on the same level as that. I'm doing that just for emphasis. It's not the same level. But don't threaten a man. Don't, don't. You can tell him the consequence gonna happen. But don't threaten him. Don't. Because once you do hit guard goes up and you're reinforcing the very thing. 'cause there is no, but I was mad. He doesn't care. Of course you were mad, but I was just angry or you know, what I hear is, well, I didn't mean it. I was just upset. If you say that, that makes you come across like a 5-year-old, not trying to be ugly.

But I am trying to let you know how it comes across. And I'm not saying it's all your fault because if you did something that you're upset about, he did something you're really upset about. That's totally understandable. Why you're upset. Don't use that as an excuse though, right? So today we talked about why men are guarded a few reasons, but think first in terms, let's separate guarded being his natural stay, which is more of being disconnected. Men don't access emotions. That's not necessarily guarded, but it looks that way. And we compare that versus actually being guarded. And that's a response to injury. Childhood issues, um, been hurt, abandoned trauma, perhaps even abuse. And that when a man's got injuries like that, that's not something a woman alone has the ability to heal. That's, I compare that a lot of times to someone that's an alcoholic, a woman's love and beauty will not make a man stop drinking.

Women can't save a man from pathology. Women can help. I mean, if a guy's trying to get help, she can help with that. She can encourage, she can breathe life into him, but she cannot motivate beyond what he's willing to do. I hope you enjoyed this new episode and if you did, the highest compliment I can have is you sharing this with your friends and leaving a review on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Also, if there's a question you want me to answer, a topic to cover, scroll down to the show notes or go to relationship headquarters.com/podcast. And I've enjoyed having you and being with you this time. I'll see you next week for a new episode.