Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy
Medical researchers have demonstrated that repressed or controlled feelings actually cause physical changes in a person’s body, changes in the antibody system (which makes that person less able to resist infections), changes in stomach secretions (causing ulcers or chronic indigestion), and even changes in the blood vessels (causing heart disease).
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When the American Dream is taken to its outer limits, there is often a kind of existential breakdown among men who have followed the good-husband fantasy to the letter and have gotten to the top of
Daniel Beaver • Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy
Book rec. common story if male collapse after getting to top of ladder of American dream.
The good husband’s fantasy that he shouldn’t be dependent on others cannot help but lower his sense of self-esteem. The good husband will eventually find himself stuck in a double bind. He believes he must never be weak, and he sees any dependency as a weakness. At the same time, he feels tremendous stress at having always to be
Daniel Beaver • Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy
See the bind I’m in.
It’s like telling someone that he or she has the wrong color of eyes or shouldn’t be as tall or as short as they are.
Daniel Beaver • Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy
Her resentment quickly surfaces in the marriage since she wants to be treated as a capable adult by her husband. The man who doesn’t recognize this, and who persists in his good-husband, head-of-the-household role, is well on his way to the divorce court.
Daniel Beaver • Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy
Striving for material wealth is an important part of the good-husband fantasy. The man’s self-esteem—if he is being guided by the marriage fantasy—is built on his ability to earn a decent salary and “provide for his family.” There is nothing wrong with being a good provider, but when that priority is put above all others, problems definitely do ari
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Centrality of striving for financial wealth in good husband role.
Good husbands can find a variety of excuses for not talking to their wives about their jobs. I often hear husbands say they don’t want their wives to worry. On the surface, this seems like a thoughtful gesture, but when it is further explored, most couples discover that the good husband is really following that part of his marriage fantasy which te
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He feels a deep need for his wife, and yet, at the same time, he resents needing her so much.
Daniel Beaver • Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy
recognition, or an acknowledgment, of her feelings.