Why men are so difficult?

Most women, at one time or another, have wondered why their man was so difficult-why, on occasion, he behaved like a jerk. The answer is easy: Most men "give out" masculine energy. This, at times, is offensive to most women. What do I mean by "masculine energy"?

Every man and woman has both masculine and feminine energy within them. In about 10 percent of all men, these energies balance. Another 10 percent of all men demonstrate more feminine energy than masculine. But about 80 percent of all men demonstrate more masculine than feminine energy. These men can often seem like jerks.

These men are difficult for most women to deal with in intimacy because masculine energy is very different from feminine energy-and about 80 percent of women are naturally more feminine than masculine. Intimate relationships between a masculine man and a feminine woman often seem like a struggle between creatures from different planets. They try to communicate with one another in a language neither understands.

Many men seem like jerks to many women because feminine energy is frequently confused, offended and hurt by the masculine, just as the masculine is by feminine energy. Once understood, the differences between masculine and feminine can become gifts men and women offer to one another in passionate love, rather than wrinkles to be ironed out.

Why Does His Work Seem More Important than Me?

When your man is hard at work, it doesn't necessarily mean he's shutting you out. He's not being insensitive, turning away or avoiding participation with you. When he's focused on a project or a task, that becomes the whole world to him.

Men are either in one mode or another. For instance, a man could be having problems with his wife yet still enjoy an outing with his male friends. On a fishing trip a friend could ask, "How are things at home?" He'll say, "Man, it sucks. Wow, look at the size of that fish!"

For most women, or anyone in their feminine energy, the intimate relationship touches their lives no matter what they're doing. It's difficult to drop the relationship, get absorbed in something, enjoy it completely, then go back to the relationship.

A man who temporarily "forgets" his relationship may not be avoiding his feelings. The same thing may happen to you when you are in your masculine energy. When the masculine energy focuses, everything else disappears.

If you were in the midst of an emotionally charged thought or feeling and your partner said "Can you get the catsup for me?", it would disrupt your emotions and probably frustrate you. When you inject your emotional mode into his action mode, it feels the same way to him.

Men don't exist so much in a world of flow and feelings. To a large extent, they exist in a world of problems, functions and challenges.

Most archetypal myths of men involve battling demons, enemies, war and conquest. They involve breaking free and winning. Most archetypal myths about women involve love relationships. Men and women play in very different domains. If you want to be married to a masculine man, as opposed to a feminine or more neutral man, then part of the package you get is his modality, his ability to focus.

When your man thinks your emotions are wrong, it can throw off the whole relationship. Emotions can't be wrong, they simply are. In the same way, his action mode is not wrong, it just is. But this doesn't mean you can't gift him with your feelings, sensitivity, intuition and wisdom.

Two of the biggest gifts you bring to your man are your sensitivity and intuition. He can learn a lot from your world that is foreign to his. And you can also learn from him.

Don't disown your feelings. If you really feel it's best for him to be interrupted, then interrupt him. Just remember that you may encounter some initial resentment, because he's stuck in one mode.

Why Isn't He Aware of How He Hurts Me?

When your man gets involved in something and doesn't pay attention to you, it hurts. He probably doesn't feel he's turning away from you. He may not be aware of it at all.

When your man turns away or becomes involved in something else, you could say, "Did you notice that half an hour ago we were making love when the phone rang? Since you hung up you haven't even looked at me." He'll look puzzled, and mumble "Yeah, okay."

You could also say, "I felt a sudden shift in your attention. One moment we were passionate, the next moment nothing. Our hearts were connected, and now they are not." It will seem bizarre to you that he doesn't feel any of this, but he usually doesn't.

When I lead men's groups, we spend a lot of time talking about this. I try to convince the men that women do feel the shifts in a man's attention. The men don't believe it. They'll say, "You're kidding, right?" I'll say, "I'm serious. If you're with a woman and you suddenly turn away and begin to work, she feels it in her body. She feels your attention moving away from her. She feels hurt." The men will usually respond, "How are you supposed to live with that?"

Men often have no idea they've hurt you. When you tell them, it helps if you understand their perspective. Talk to them as if they've fallen asleep and reawakened. So rather than criticize their actions, tell them how it makes you feel. Say, "When you picked up the phone I felt hurt," rather than "Don't pick up the phone when we are together." You can tell them how it makes you feel. Then they can handle it.

But if you expect a man to know they've hurt you, they'll say, "What hurt you?" They don't sense the turning away is as hurtful as it is to you.

Why Is He So Obsessed with Perfection?

Men, or anyone in their masculine energy, typically seek perfection. It could be the perfect wax job on the car, or the perfect wave to surf, or the perfect touchdown. Women, of course, also seek perfection at times. But the feminine priority, in man or woman, is usually the desire for love.

If you, as a woman, are suffering in a poor relationship, how much will you enjoy the "perfect" wax job on your car? Many men, however, become totally obsessed with things like that even in the midst of a painful relationship. In fact, they particularly become obsessed by things like that during painful times. It's their little way of engaging in the perfection of unblemished consciousness, consciousness that is always perfect.

Our masculine and feminine ways are not only rooted in our biological roots, but also in our spiritual depths. As it has been said in many spiritual traditions, the first thing created was light. This light is the true source of our feminine energy, and the void in which it shines is the source of our masculine.

That's why many women are concerned with their radiance. They identify themselves as sources of light or energy. They want shiny hair, glossy lips, blushed cheeks, glowing skin, radiant eyes. The feminine in each of us feels akin to life force itself.

The masculine in each of us feels more akin to the void in which the light shines. Most men would rather watch women dance than dance themselves. They want to witness feminine radiance. Thus, men identify more with the witness, with awareness, with consciousness itself.

This consciousness never moves, while the feminine energy always moves. This consciousness never changes, while the feminine energy always changes. Men who stand firm and trustable in their deep truth are more sexy to women. Women who move their bodies freely in radiant energy are more sexy to men.

Men seek perfection in the external world-in their philosophies, golf games and a centerfold's body-because they intuit the perfection of deep and eternal consciousness. But they misplace this desire for perfection. Deep consciousness, or divine consciousness, may be perfect, changeless and unblemished, but life is not. Life is the play of energy. Life is feminine!

Anything that is alive is not perfect, though men try to make it so. They try to perfect their golf game. They fantasize over perfect women's bodies. They try to understand the perfect philosophy. Men seek perfection because they intuit the nature of consciousness, which is unchanging.

Changeless perfection is irrelevant for the feminine. The feminine is interested in love and life, and life includes birth and death and change. Life is not unchanging and perfect all the time.

For consciousness purists, however, change is anathema. Men, especially when feeling threatened by the feminine, want to retreat from the changes of life into perfection, voidness, or unchanging abstraction.

They become immersed in a newspaper, or in TV, something that removes them from the problems of life. Or, they become focused obsessively on perfection in some trivial form, because that's the closest they can get to the perfection of unblemished consciousness. Men are most at home in projects, sports, philosophy and ideas outside of the daily ups and downs of life.

If a woman is obsessed with perfection, she has probably rejected her own feminine. For some reason, she has identified with her masculine energy. Just as men must learn to embrace life and love in order to become whole, perfectionist women must learn to embrace the feminine part of themselves and others. This begins with an embrace of the body itself: a sensuous appreciation for the body, for bodily pleasure, for the body's wild energy, for the body's beauty, for a full, sweet breath, and a soft, open heart. This embrace of the feminine is also the cure for a man's obsessive perfectionism. If men don't embrace the fullness of life, of feminine change, then they become one-sided. Men need to learn that if they want light, radiance and energy in their life then they need to embrace all the changes and so-called "blemishes," too.

Why Is He Afraid to Commit?

The quest for freedom is most important to the masculine energy. That freedom can be financial, professional, artistic or spiritual. The most important priority for the feminine energy is relationship and love. When your man turns away from you, you may instantly feel, "I must be doing something wrong. I must be doing something wrong or he would want to spend more time with me."

Most men, if forced to make a choice between an intimate relationship or their art/profession/spiritual path, will choose the latter. When a woman is in her masculine energy she will make the same choice: freedom over love.

If you are in your feminine, love and an intimate relationship is at the core of your life. But at the core of your man's life is his quest for freedom from constraints. He will do anything to continue on his quest. If he imagines your relationship is going to limit his quest, he will not want to commit. He'll want to keep things open.

When men enter more deeply into a relationship, they feel their attention being more absorbed in love for you. This may scare them. They imagine that their freedom is decreasing, and they react by pulling out, or by refusing to make a commitment to the relationship, especially following an increased period of depth of intimacy.