I've seen men date 10 different women
and tell all those 10 women I ain't got time,
I can't be on the phone all the time,
blah blah blah blah blah.
Meet that one woman they thought was the one,
that sucker is calling her every single day,
texting her in the morning, all right.
And got all the time in the world all of a sudden.
(Music)
Why is it so hard for a man to open up?
All right, so here's the thing,
number one, how many people in this room by a show of hands
feel like men struggle opening up?
All right, the vast majority of you all
and some of you all probably think so,
but didn't raise their hand anyway, but all right.
So, anyways,
(Laughs)
if you think
men have a hard time opening up, all right.
So, here's the thing.
There's a couple things to consider
number one, a lot of times
a man not opening up to you
is because he's not really into you like that, all right.
Let me explain a little bit,
yeah, that one hurt
that one punch you on the gut.
I told you all
I'm going to hit you all with some stuff,
be ready.
I don't play games up here, all right.
I give it to you all real,
but let me explain, let me explain, all right.
Because there's more to it, there's more to it.
So, here's the thing.
When a man meets a woman
that he has a genuine connection with
he's much more willing to open up,
be transparent,
and communicate with her.
I've seen men date 10 different women
and tell all those 10 women I ain't got time,
I can't be on the phone all the time,
blah blah blah blah blah.
Meet that one woman they thought was the one,
that sucker is calling her every single day,
texting her in the morning, all right.
And got all the time in the world all of a sudden.
So, there being a real connection
does make a huge difference,
but let's consider the other side of this.
Men do have a struggle opening up
because we are not conditioned and trained
to express ourselves, all right.
And so, what I do believe can happen is
sometimes a man has attempted to open up to you
and you mishandled the situation.
Women can be very...
They can lack a lot of tact
in that moment
(Laughs)
that the man opens up
and exposes himself and is vulnerable at that time, okay.
And you have to understand that yes,
because we are not accustomed to doing it,
because we don't give that to everybody
if you come at us the wrong way in that moment
we will shut down and it's game over, all right.
So, you do have to be very mindful
as a woman, are you creating an atmosphere
that allows him to open up?
Are you making him comfortable
to be honest with you?
Don't say you want honesty
the minute he tells you the truth
you're snapping back at him,
you're jumping down his throat,
and you cause all kinds of problems,
then you don't want the truth.
And so, what he starts to do is
and I'm not saying this is valid or okay,
but he starts to lie,
he starts to not tell you
what's really bothering him
because he doesn't feel like you're going to handle it
the way that he wants you or needs you to.
And he may still stay with you
because there's benefits to staying with you,
but communicating with you is very difficult.
So, I'm going to give you an example,
I just spoke to a friend last night
who's married and I've counseled them before
they also went to a different counselor recently
because they're on the other side of town
and we didn't have time to do some sessions.
So, anyways
they've been married for I think 12 years
and the counselor had them do an exercise where...
And this is a great thing if you're a couple
or when you're in a relationship to try this.
They spoke to each other
the man would say something to her
and she told the woman
repeat back to him
what he just said to you.
The whole time she kept paraphrasing
and changing what the man was saying.
And it was like she finally had a light bulb moment
where she realized...
And this happens to a lot of women
you don't take his words at face value,
you don't accept the specific thing
that came out of his mouth.
You come up to your own conclusion
of what that meant
or what he's trying to say no, no, no.
He just said what he said
it's plain and simple,
take it as it is.
So, you got to be able to repeat
exactly what your partner said to you verbatim.
If you can't, you got a problem,
and we got to fix that, all right.
But that's the answer to the question as far as men opening up.
You got to create that environment,
but yes, some men are not conditioned to it.
So, it's not the most comfortable thing
for a lot of guys,
but I do believe that in a lot of situations
a connection is just not there.