How to get a man to open up

I was going through my website statistics today and saw that someone Google-ing ‘How to get a man to open up’ had landed on this site. They then spent 20 minutes trawling through the posts. Thing is, I’ve never explicitly written about the topic but thought it would be a challenging one to confront. So, here goes.

Could the real caveats please stand up?

Not all men are the same – and I’m not going to speak on Man’s behalf. Also, the things someone may want them to ‘open up’ about will vary in degrees of seriousness and cultural sensitivity. Finally, any answer to this topic will be layered in naive generalisations but since that’s something I’m apt at, I thought I’d give it a go. Finally finally, when I’m throwing those generalisations around, I’m assuming a female partner is trying to understand her male partner – and how to get him to open up. I needed to simplify things so that I could actually generate a point of view.

Your ‘open’ isn’t his ‘open’

Word on the academic street says that women speak on average 2-3 times more words each day than men (a ratio of something like 20,000 to 7,000 – Google it). So if you’re trying to get your man to open up and you’re expecting him to hit your own highs of verbage, it simply may not happen.

He will also probably not use your language. Read any self-respecting self-help book about expressing your emotions, and there will be instructions about changing your language from “You make me feel…” to “I feel… when you do that” – in other words, shape your ‘feedback’ by owning your emotions and not blaming the other person. The catch? This isn’t natural male language. If a guy talked like that in the playground at school… well, it wouldn’t go down well. And, as I wrote in Why some men are so lost, if it doesn’t work in the playground and that behaviour isn’t modeled by a male in the home, chances are that it simply won’t be ‘normal behaviour’.

So, you – as the inquisitor – may actually need to redefine your own thoughts about what ‘open’ means in order to get what you want (which may not be what he wants). Word.

Men solve stuff

OK. Cliche – and you’ve heard it before. The catch? It’s true. Guys don’t share a lot of stuff because they’re thinking about how to solve the situation. That’s how they spend their emotional energy when they’re not ‘getting it out of the system’ on a punching bag. Is it right? No. But it’s currently how it is.

Is your role really to mend him?

Another cliche – women naturally nurture and some women who are attracted to broken men see meaningful purpose in ‘mending’ them (ie making the man more like them). I mention this only to challenge any lady trying to help her man to think deeply about whether he actually needs her help or whether she’s being driven by her own self-satisfying instincts.

Maybe you’re not the right audience

Another thing to think about is whether he has to open up to you? If you truly believe he just needs to talk about his situation, find someone you think he’d talk to about it. Maybe you’re not that person. And, if you’re not, in a lot of instances it’s not personal, so don’t make it personal.

How do you know he hasn’t already?

A week before last Xmas, I was eating with my wife in a city foodcourt. The couple next to us had split up earlier in the day to get some shopping done. Their child quietly ate beside them. Then, it started…

She said: “What’s in the bag?”

Him (starting to mentally cower): “That CD I told you I wanted.”

Her: “The one I said I was going to buy you for Xmas?”

Him (dissolving into himself): “You never said that.”

Her (upping the ante): “But I hinted it.”

Him (reaching): “Yeah, but I’m not a mind-reader.”

The ‘mind-reader’ call is classic. Big fan of it. However, that conversation, for me, defines the gap between how men and women think, behave and communicate. The man wanted a simple thing for himself. His wife sort of told him she would buy it for him. He – on impulse (Man Impulse) – buys it in a music store he probably entered telling himself he’d look for a present for someone else but was sub-consciously there only to buy his little thing for himself. And buy it he did. Deep down he knew he was in trouble with his wife the moment he picked up the CD – he probably tucked the bag under the foodcourt chair, hoping she wouldn’t see it. The rest is an act – for both of them. She knew he’d buy it. He knew he’d buy it. She was going to find something to have a go at him on the day out anyway. He obliged. But, the man always has the backup retaliation of ‘I’m not a mind-reader’. His wife is angry because she thinks he simply didn’t listen – or pick up on however it was that she tried to hint.

OK. Long story. And I’m feeling sexist for how I read into it (sexist both ways, that is). But it’s typical of how men and women interact. One of the partners probably thinks they’ve already told the other what’s irking them. So when you’re trying to get him to ‘open up’ – maybe he already has and you didn’t notice.

You can’t nag it out of him

I’m not saying women nag. I am saying that men think they nag. And, if something’s on a guy’s mind, you cannot repeat yourself over and over again and think he will break. He’ll defy you. He may be thinking you sound like his mum right now – and he may not want that in the person he may open up to. All I’m saying is: be aware of when to prod and when to just let him be.

Men often don’t face each other in a D&M

Back in the day when we wore swords, word on the medieval streets was that if two men stood closely face-to-face and then got into an argument they couldn’t draw swords to cut each other to pieces. I read that somewhere but like many of my pillaged stories, I can’t remember where I got it from and then wonder if I simply made it up. Regardless, this sort of ‘closeness dynamic’ – not to mention what happens when you add in the ‘what are you looking at?’ teenage eye-contact fighting-words piece – has cultivated this weird male thing I’ve seen countless times. When guys talk about personal stuff, they often don’t look each other in the eyes nor do they even face each other. They’re in the front seats of cars, driving. They’re in a pub watching sport. They’re playing Xbox. They’re fishing. They’re doing something they can disappear back into quickly if their man-time gets awkward. And their conversation is minimalist – word by word, they test each other to see if now is an OK time to talk about something deep. A quick bit of referee abuse for the men at the pub watching the footy tells the guy who wants to talk that now is not the time.

Host your own inter-man-vention: I had an idea

Like all of the guys you know, I’ve been through some stuff and I’m wondering how someone could have got me to talk to them. I know that if someone cut me off quickly with their own answers or betrayed my confidence by telling other people about stuff then that was that: no more talking.

Then, I thought… well, if the dynamics are (for some) similar to what I outlined above… what if you as the inter-man-ventionist, played to the dynamics rather than fought them?

Introducing the woman-made inter-man-vention

Imagine this: man comes home. Partner has some sport on the television and a beer poured. She gives him a loving kiss then sits down. He changes clothes in the bedroom. No words said. He comes back to the living room. His partner is watching the sport. His favourite food is on the table. He can eat it with his hands and no serviette. He sits down on the couch – food in hand. Partner passes him a beer. No words said. She puts an arm around him – and watches his favourite sport with him. There’s a little note on the beer coaster saying that she’d like to talk when he’s ready but that it doesn’t have to be right now. No words said.

I’m sure, to many of you, I’m sounding like a chauvinist right now. I’m not trying to be. I’m trying to describe a situation in which one partner has tried to understand the natural rhythm of the other – in order to play to it to get him to talk. But, in understanding that dynamic, the probing partner knows that tonight may not be the night and is OK with that. There’s no judgement, no shaming, no nagging.

The point: if you want to host an inter-man-vention, why not set it up on your partner’s terms – not yours? They could be into bonzai and Dungeons & Dragons – not sport and beer – for all it matters. Just do it differently.

Tell me your story

I’ve been pretty apologetic through this post about the generalisations. A lot of men are going through some really serious stuff. They deserve more than generalisations. Hopefully, you can add some specific thoughts and tactics in the comments below. By the way, we made a book last year called The Perfect Gift for a Man. You can download it free. It may give you some more insight into how men are and how to get a man to open up.

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