Men & Women - Bridging our Differences Through Trust

One can’t generalize to the extent that all cases will be as follows. However, in many cases, men and women will enter into relationships with different and sometimes conflicting needs. Men tend to crave freedom, while women more often feel a strong need for safety and closeness. Our ability to trust one another in the beginning stages of a relationship is usually essential for whether a relationship can thrive in the long run. So how can we create a sacred space that caters to both needs when these are contradictory? In this piece, we explain how trust is the magic bridge builder and how we as women can create and grow a loving relationship based on this very foundation by empowering a man through trust from the beginning. 

Frequent situations between a man and a woman

As women, we’re complex creatures. Often it holds true that the more feminine we are, the greater the emotions at stake since femininity tends to come with an increase in sensitivity. When we’re getting to know a new person, it can be challenging to have space for the greatness of the feelings we experience. It may be uncomfortable to be in a situation where it feels like we’re absolutely exposed and vulnerable; not knowing if we’re being played or not. We then feel to reach for safety and certainty and begin asking questions such as; “where is this going?” - perhaps before a man is ready to commit.

For most men, it’s often the case that when dating a woman, they know that what she’s truly longing for is a relationship, commitment, initimity, and exclusivity - even when this desire remains unspoken. This isn’t to say that men don’t want these things too. However, a man will oftentimes feel like he’s trading in his freedom and ‘other opportunities’ for a relationship as he commits to one woman. This means that it may very well take him a bit longer than a woman for him to feel certain enough to make this commitment. 

In effect, a typical situation is that the woman is posing bigger and higher demands while the man feels pressured into committing. This pressure is more likely to push him further away, while the woman feels more and more uncomfortable, which may lead her to pose an ultimatum such as: “If you don’t commit to me, I cannot trust you, so let’s leave it”. However, this is avoidable as we get to choose if we lead by distrust and fear or with trust and love in this situation. 

Fresh beginnings over past hurt hoops

 So often we view men as a collective with the bias of previous experiences. However, it can never be a new partner’s responsibility to make up for the fact that our father left us or that other men before him treated us poorly. Therefore in each new relationship, we owe it to ourselves and to this new person to meet them with openness and trust. Unless we do this, we may set ourselves up for repeating the mistakes of the past. Because when we, in an attempt to shield our heart from breaking once more, set up a line of hoops and obstacles this new person must jump through to prove himself worthy, we actually do the opposite. Instead of assuming things will turn out beautiful; we live from the belief that this person will ultimately disappoint us. This is a pretty bad place to start and oftentimes something that can easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Truth + Trust

When in turn, we trust this person to show up for us, we can invite him to meet us where we need him to. What this requires is safety within ourselves and the courage to speak our truth. When we feel safe within ourselves, we have more patience and less need for another human to reassure us. There may be a preference for us to be in a committed relationship sooner, but we don’t need to push for it and we don’t need to act out in desperation. On the contrary, we can observe this man for longer with patience as we explore who he is. And when the time is right, we can then speak our needs and desires openly, followed by leaning back so this man himself gets to decide if he feels to meet us there. If we simply say how we feel without a need to blame, judge, manipulate or control a man’s reaction; he gets to choose willingly and without pressure, if he wants to commit or meet us where we are. And in effect, he has absolute freedom to choose, which oftentimes will draw him closer. When a man feels our trust he gets to honor it and show us he’s worthy of it. Oh, how alluring when we get to show someone how much they can trust us and how much their trust in us was rightly placed. Trust empowers us. So when we women choose trust over believing we’ll be disappointed; we offer the man a chance to step up. This alone increases the odds of him doing it.

Letting go

Should the man not feel to meet us when we ask openly for what we would like, with love for ourselves and this other person we can then decide if we have more space to offer or if we’ve extended to the maximum of our ability. Maybe we have more space to give if the man meets us in love and lays out his priorities in a way we can understand. But when we know we can’t stay true to ourselves and stretch any further at the same time; it’s easier to walk away with love even if we don’t get the outcome we wished for. Because no matter how much we wanted the romance to turn into a relationship, it will never be worth compromising our own truth or integrity over. And love with a partner that is not ready to step up when we ask him to with a trusting and open heart, is simply not a fit. It may be the timing or it may be something else, but a relationship is never worth the energy if we must force someone to be with us. All we can do is give a person the choice by inviting them to meet us where we need them to. However, this must come from a true place within us with a foundation of love for and value of self rather than from a point of pain.

All women deserve a partner who will meet her in love and make her a priority out of choice. If a man can’t or doesn’t want to do that, then he may just not have been the right one or perhaps we have more love and trust to pour into ourselves before we’re ready to have someone else do it. 

Final note

We all are much more inclined to grow and step up when someone trusts and believes in us rather than when someone makes us feel small by trying to tame or control us. Where trust empowers and grows, control erodes self-worth over time and makes us feel small. This is worth remembering in all relationships we have - not only in romantic ones.

We can only extend trust to others though when we trust and believe in ourselves. So our work must start by us showing ourselves trust and by loving ourselves fiercely. Being gentle with and kind to ourselves means choosing places, situations, and humans in our life that nourish us.

Much love,