So, women, do you know how the overwhelming majority of men is not brought up to be able to name and process their emotions? And that 98 out of 100 men automatically look to women to tell them what they feel and what to do with it? Because having a vagina somehow magically qualifies one to be an expert on emotions?
OK, if you know this, then I’m sure you realize why it’s a bad idea to say to a man things like “You don’t love me,” “You don’t even care about me,” “You are so insensitive,” etc. No matter how he really feels, he probably believes you are a much greater authority on feelings than he is. So he might just end up believing you.
I made this mistake once. I started with the “You don’t love me” thing not because I believed it but because I wanted reassurance. I knew the guy loved me to bits, so I wanted to get him into an enjoyable “Yes, I do. – No, you don’t. – Yes, I do” exchange. Instead, though, the poor creature looked completely devastated and decided he’s not even capable of love if what he’s feeling is not considered love by the Great Expert on Feelings, aka me.
It is so much more productive to switch to “You are a very sensitive person,” “You love me so much, “I can see how much you care.” Even if it’s not true, he is more than likely to end up believing it.
Clarissa's Blog 
How does one develop the skill of naming and processing one’s own emotions? I wasn’t brought up to do it either, and while analysis and being in a 7 year relationship with someone who’s far more competent at it than me have helped, I’d still like to get better at it because having to rely on my bf to tell me when I’m upset and what might have caused the upsetness sucks.
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The only way is slow painstaking practice. Whenever you feel something, start to unravel the emotion back to the point of origin. It’s frustrating as hell but like any skill it gets better with practice.
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“it’s a bad idea to say to a man things like “You don’t love me,” “You don’t even care about me,” “You are so insensitive,” etc.”
I thought it was a bad idea to say those kinds of things to anyone because they’re manipulative and dishonest.
One of my best friends ever was a lesbian who found herself in a relationship with a pitiful creature who needed constant reassurance and was busting out “you don’t care about me at all!” on a regular basis.
She made the mistake of answering with “Of course I care about you!” and later confided that every time she was guilt tripped into saying it she felt it a little less…
“And that 98 out of 100 men automatically look to women to tell them what they feel and what to do with it? ”
Is this a Russian speaking thing? I don’t recognize it from my US experience. It’s true that boys (and then men) aren’t encouraged to examine or deal with their emotions but I’m unfamiliar with looking for women. A lot of US women are very fond of telling men what they’re feeling but I’ve never known a man who actually put any stock into these pronouncements….
I’m also wondering about russophone gender roles here, do russophone men ever pull the “you never loved me!” card on women and if so how do they react? yawn? scream? laugh? Or is this mostly female to male there?
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The post is humorous (see tags) but I do believe that “in the beginning was the word”. The more we name something, the more real it becomes.
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