How to Encourage Your Man to Share His Feelings

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Joe Cuenco with Family Resources. Today we're talking about our relationship skills. Specifically, how do we encourage our man to share his feelings? Well just how do we get a man to share his feelings, because this is really difficult for a lot of guys to do. It really starts with a solid communication process. It means that you've got to have a free flow of information, of dialogue, between the man and the woman for this to happen. It needs to be full duplex back and forth. Nothing will be communicated unless both have clear minds and have a full understanding of what's taking place, or what's not taking place. The first thing that you want to eliminate is the fact that perhaps it's because of you that he's not sharing his feelings. So, sit down and talk. Ask him the question. Why is it that you're having a hard time sharing your feelings? Is is something that I'm doing? Because maybe he might feel that you're actually not listening. So, you need to eliminate that perspective first. The thing that you can do is share your feelings. Make sure that he understands how it is with positive communication and being able to share feelings. So, do by example. If he won't volunteer, then ask. Say, let's start a pattern. Honey, how did you feel about this? Or, this situation, what could we have done differently? How do you feel about buying a house? How do you feel about having another child? How do you feel about moving here? Or what do you think about this situation in my job? Or, what did you feel about the situation in your job? So, open up and have a dialogue, and explain to him how you feel positively about him sharing his feelings. And when he does open up, say that it's a positive experience, and something that's very important and key to you. So, if you need to have this dialogue started with a positive aspect of communication, and then talk about things where there may be some improvement--or some help could be used. There are workshops that can be attended, family resources, marriage education workshops and counseling, but it's important that you have a solid communication first before you can learn to encourage your man how to share his feelings. I'm Joe Cuenco with Family Resources, relationships for life."