Today I’m inspired to share a powerful insight my new FB friend Kristy Scher posted this morning!

I realized how truly blessed I am to have a beloved hubby just like her ‘Mr. Man’ ♡ 

In fact, here’s a shot of us heading down to Massey Hall last night to see Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which was AMAZING, by the way☆

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“YOUR desire is HIS direction.

A funny thing happened when my Mr. Man returned from his first men’s-work retreat. 

He stopped tolerating the way I would habitually hide my needs. 
He stopped ignoring my habitual closure around my desire. 

He stopped putting up with my adorable little habit of making him come in and get me.

He stopped putting up with it in the most loving of ways because that’s who he is.  He’s a lover not a fighter.

I’m the fighter.
I’m the one who’d withdraw in stony silence at the first whiff that my unspoken, unacknowledged, orphaned needs and desires may not be met.

I’d do this before I even knew I had a need or desire.
I’d do this without knowing I was doing it.

I did not see how practiced I was at obscuring what I yearned for.
How practiced I was at contorting to try to get a need met without the unbearable vulnerability of wanting it, let alone asking for it.

Nor did I see what it was costing — either of us.

It was supremely convenient that for so long my story of ‘why I didn’t feel met in my marriage’ was ‘He’s not present.’

But then he dropped his part of this sham.

In a classic case of ‘be careful what you wish for…’ I had a rude awakening: His Presence necessitated My Own.

My own presence, meaning: feeling, truly and deeply, my own needs and desires. And as a result, being Feel-able by him.

You want a Present Man?
You must be a Feel-able Woman.

I rarely speak about the man’s point of view in relationships.
But Being Feel-able — knowing, expressing, and ultimately, having our heart’s desires or our emotional needs met — can be a sticky wicket. 

So I want to dissect this little desire/need-denying move for my chicas in the back, the ones who feel that they can’t/don’t get their needs met in relationship. 

(And this goes for pretty much any relationships with any adult — not just our lovers or partners, but especially with them.)

Giving voice to what we need or desire requires a certain sense of Entitlement.  People get very hinky around that word, ‘entitlement.’

But it really just means having a sense of inherent deservedness, possessing a right to something.  It’s the awareness that our needs and desires are Rightful. 

To be ‘en-titled’ means to be given a title by law. 

So you could say that entitlement to our needs and desires is the embodied awareness of Universal Law: 

You, by virtue of being here, have a right to your needs and desires.
(You may not always get them, but that’s a different post.)

Since his return Mr. Man has had to say to me <ahem> more than once, ‘In our relationship, you can assume that I want to meet your needs.  I want to fulfill your desires.  And when you don’t assume — and act from that place — I don’t know what I can do for you.’

Said another way:
He can’t Meet Me
OR respond to my needs/desires
without My Clear Direction.

Your entitlement, your ability to own and express your needs and desires is like giving your man — or Life, for that matter — the coordinates to meet you in precisely the place in your heart that feels like Being Loved.

When I don’t give Mr. Man the coordinates to what feels like love to me, it is disorienting to him.

These were literally his words: ‘It’s disorienting.  Like I can’t find you and I don’t know why.  And then I start to wonder what I’d done wrong.’

And honestly, it just keeps going downhill from there:
He feels inept and I see/judge him as inept. 

He feels judged and withdraws. 
I feel his withdrawal as not caring, confirming my fear that my (unspoken, unacknowledged) needs and desires don’t matter……

YOUR desire is HIS direction.

Your ability to feel, approve of, and express your needs and desire Is at the helm of this whole shebang.

This, my little chickadees, is the thing we so often miss about our men: They WANT to meet us. 
Most men — I’m just gonna say it — *MOST* men WANT to do well by their woman. 

They want to give us everything they can. It FEELS amazing to them to make you feel amazing. 
(And if it doesn’t, then you’ve got some information about the kind of man you have….)

But you have to give him the means to get to you. 
You have to be willing to crack open in the places you’ve learned to stay closed, you have to unlearn the way you learned to disavow your needs and deny your desires.

Otherwise, he’s lost at sea and you are an island unto yourself.”

I loved this post ♡ I would love you to Hit Reply and let me know what it meant to YOU!

At Your Service, 

E