Let’s face it. Most men don’t really like the idea of counselling. I should know, I am a couples, families, and individual counsellor. So I would like to address men specifically in this article.
Recently I was leading a couple’s workshop. In that workshop, there is a section where I split the men from the women in order to discuss the idea of “accepting influence from our spouses.” One fascinating concept that came up as the men were discussing this idea, was that often times, men don’t feel like they have a strong opinion about 70% of the things that go on in the home. Think back to your wedding…the male typically just wants to get married, that’s most of what he is thinking about. He typically is not as concerned with the style of invitations, types of flowers, or flavor of cake, etc.
One problem with this thinking is that when men do have an opinion on something that is in the 30%, we (here I include myself) tend to think that we deserve to get our way. After all, we rationalize that our spouse is getting her way 70% of the time!
However, there are two main fallacies in this type of thinking. The first is that our spouse is generally genuinely seeking our input on the 70% of things we deem as being unimportant. Thus we are not fully participating in the relationship if we do not engage her on these things. The second is that our spouses definitely have input about most of the things in the 30% that we deem important. Thus they want to be included in our decision making process. This comes down to mutual respect and good communication.
Mike Ayers, MDiv, MA MFT, RCC
Contract Counsellor, CCCA