I'm a 28-year-old guy with an amazing girlfriend. She gets upset and sometimes cries, and I never know how to soothe her. I'm afraid to say the wrong thing, so I don't say anything at all. Of course, she then gets more upset, thinking I don't care. But I do care, and I want her to know.
--Tongue-Tied
When things get emotionally fraught in a relationship, it's tempting to wish for a simpler existence -- like being a dog so all that's expected of you is 1. Don't pee on the rug. 2. Sit still while the girlfriend dresses you up as a bee.
In fact, if you're like a lot of men, a female partner's tears are liquid kryptonite, causing you to pretty much lose consciousness while appearing to be totally awake and ambulatory. Women may not entirely get this -- or the extent of it -- because of some sex differences in emotion processing.
Generally speaking, putting it in collegiate terms, the female mind majors in psychology; the male mind majors in physics -- though individual male and female minds vary, of course. Research by psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen finds that women tend to be the "empathizers" of the species, driven (from childhood on) to identify others' "emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion." Men, on the other hand, tend to be "systematizers" -- driven to understand the inner workings of the blender.
The good news is, there's a secret -- even for the most emotionally inarticulate man -- for comforting an upset woman: You don't have to be Shakespeare; just don't go all shutupspeare. For example, last week, when I was bummed about something -- to the point of tears -- I was on the phone with my boyfriend, and he said the sweetest thing: "I'm bad at this" (meaning knowing what to say) "but I want to help you feel better."
This made me feel loved -- and better. Also, it was kind of sexy. (Showing vulnerability, contrary to what many believe, is a sign not of weakness but of strength -- suggesting you have enough social and emotional capital not to act all superhero all the time.)
As an emergency measure -- if even the words about not having the right words fail you -- you can communicate your desire to comfort her with a hug, hair stroking, and other loving gestures. Again, just be sure to make some kind of effort to soothe her (lest she add feeling emotionally abandoned by her boyfriend to her boohoo list). Ideally, when your girlfriend suddenly wants to try some new positions, they aren't things like standing on the base of the fireplace as she's screaming at you to say something already.
My husband's parents asked to be in the delivery room while I'm giving birth, and he said yes -- without asking me. Now he doesn't want to tell them otherwise, which is weird because he isn't usually lacking in assertiveness. I get along fine with my in-laws, but I don't want them in there with me.
--Horrified Mom-To-Be
There are those men who understand what it's like to give birth -- those who've passed a kidney stone the size of a decorative lawn boulder out a slim fleshy tube normally meant for urine.
You are not doing a one-woman show in the delivery room; you are the lead character in a medical procedure -- one that can involve pooping while pushing, horror movie-esque blood spatter, and impressive strings of screamed profanity (interspersed with tender maternal utterances like "GET THIS DEMONSPAWN OUT OF ME!").
Sociologist Erving Goffman pointed out that we all engage in constant "impression management," editing our behavior to control how others see us. (Choosing how much of our selves to make public is a big part of this.) Goffman explains that losing control -- not being able to present our desired image -- is deeply disturbing to us, leading to feelings of shame and compensatory strategies to clean up the damage. (Never looking your father-in-law in the eye again sound good to you?)
You say your husband generally isn't lacking in assertiveness. Chances are, in the wake of his saying yes instead of "Gotta check with my wife," he would feel bad about going back on it. (Maybe part of his impression management is coming off as a man of his word.) But back on his word he must go, because it's your choice whether you make your private parts public parts. Not surprisingly, you feel you put your best foot forward with your feet in shoes under the dinner table -- not in stirrups while the in-laws go sightseeing with the iPhone up the, um, Grand Canyon: "Look, Ralph...there's a little fist coming out! Quick! Get a shot for our Instagram!"
My husband and I started having problems when I found an email he sent to his ex-girlfriend saying, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever met. I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He's never complimented me during our five years together. He revealed that he and his ex used to have sex for hours, while the most we ever spent making love was 45 minutes -- only once, when we were first dating. I think I should leave, but we have a 1-year-old child. We are good together caring for the baby, but it's terrible to be with a man who lacks love, respect, and desire for you.
--Tormented
Parents today are in fierce competition for whose kid achieves things first: "Little Euripides graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard while still in the womb!" Best not to be the parents whose child has the dark side nailed, reflected in Instagram brag shots like "Baby's First Rehab!"
A good deal of research suggests that the healthiest home environment for a kid is an "intact family" -- as opposed to the "Uncle" Of The Month Club. Couples wanting what's best for their children are motivated to de-uglify their relationship and can often work out what I call "process-oriented" problems (counterproductive ways of interacting that lead to nasty fights or just seething resentment).
This is essential because even if nobody's screaming and hurling casserole dishes, the underlying tone of a relationship is reflected in interactions as mundane as "Can ya pass the salt?" (Ideally, your tone suggests some affection for your partner -- not that your reluctance to do time is all that's keeping you from smothering them with a pillow.)
You, however, are in a relationship with a man who is deeply passionate about another woman and appears to see sex with you as a household chore. Your resentment from feeling unwanted and equally toxic feelings from him are sure to seep into your daily life. So, staying together under these circumstances would most likely be damaging for your child -- but chances are, so would splitting up.
To understand why an intact family seems important for kids' well-being, it helps to understand a few things from an area of evolutionary research called "life history theory." It explores how the type of environment a person grows up in calibrates their psychology and behavior -- for example, how able they are to delay gratification.
This calibration is basically a form of human mental economics -- a subconscious calculation of how stable or risky a person's childhood environment is and whether they'd be better off allocating their energy and efforts toward the now or the future. A stable, predictable environment -- like growing up with middle-class parents who remain married, live in a peaceful neighborhood, and always provide enough food to eat -- tends to lead to a more future-oriented approach (like being able to save money). Conversely, growing up in a dangerous neighborhood, having divorced parents with unpredictable finances, and getting moved around a lot is likely to lead to a more now-oriented approach (spendorama!).
The good news is, you two may be able to break up without it breaking your kid. My friend Wendy Paris and her former husband did this -- splitting up as a couple while staying together as parents of their young son. Wendy writes in her book "Splitopia: Dispatches From Today's Good Divorce and How To Part Well" that they even relocated together from New York to Los Angeles, moving to separate places a few blocks apart. They hang out and do activities as a family. Her ex often comes over to make breakfast for her son and coffee for her. He even takes out the trash! Sure, he did that when they were married, but Wendy was too preoccupied with her issues with him as a husband to appreciate it like she can now.
It's difficult to set up an arrangement like Wendy's if you're, oh...say...preoccupied with wishing your husband's penis would wither and fall off like a skin tag under a dermatologist's liquid nitro. In a situation like yours, where resentment is high, a mediator could be helpful. (Look for a marital specialist at Mediate.com.)
A mediator is not a judge and won't tell you what to do. He or she is a neutral third party, de-escalating conflict -- creating a safe, productive psychological environment. This makes it possible for people with disputes to work out a mutually acceptable agreement for how they'll go forward. Now, mediation doesn't work for everyone. However, it's probably your best bet for "having it all" -- acting in your child's best interest and eventually having a man in your life who sees you as more than ballast to keep the mattress down in case there's a tornado.
A man asked me for my number at an event, saying he wanted to take me to dinner. I told him I'd just ended a relationship and wasn't ready to date. Of course, he then said it'd be a business dinner, and I consented and wrote my number down. I feel that I had bad boundaries and wish a) he hadn't been so forward and b) I hadn't given my number. How could I handle this better in the future? I'm a pretty assertive woman, so my collapsing under pressure was disturbing.
--Jell-O
This is like your telling somebody who wants you to dog-sit "Sorry, I'm allergic to dogs" and having them come back with "Actually, he identifies as a parrot."
To understand why you -- "a pretty assertive woman" -- basically defaulted to smileyface emoji mode when the poo emoji better fit the bill, it helps to know a few things about the psychology of personality. There are five major domains of personality that drive how a person acts -- and they tend to be fairly stable across time and situations. These include conscientiousness -- which reflects a person's level of self-control and sense of responsibility to others. Another is extroversion -- reflecting where a person falls on a spectrum from outgoingness to seeing social events as a form of torture that should have been banned by the Geneva Conventions.
Researchers find that women across cultures -- whether rating their own personality or being rated by others -- consistently come out higher than men in one of these personality domains: "agreeableness." This is a "nice girl/nice guy" personality trait that plays out in kindness, generosity, warmth and a strong motivation to have positive interactions with others.
It makes sense that women -- on average, smaller and weaker than men -- would be higher in agreeableness. Psychologist Joyce Benenson, who researches sex differences from infancy on, believes that women's tendency to default to polite acquiescence in the face of conflict is an evolved tactic to reduce their chances of being physically harmed.
As a woman, it's likely you're a high scorer in the agreeableness department. However, as anthropologist Jerome Barkow points out, "biology is destiny only if we ignore it." Recognizing your propensity to be "nice" allows you to preplan to act in your best interest -- have prepared answers for creative pursuers like this guy. For example: 1. You're not ready to date. 2. You're happy to take a phone call to see whether there might be a business opportunity. This should help you separate potentially lucrative business propositions from tarted-up versions of "There's a very important meeting you simply must attend...in my pants."
I lost a bunch of weight after a horrible breakup. I'm eating healthful food now -- yay. But I'm very aware that I'm one of those flabby skinny people. I used to go to the gym regularly, but I stopped, and now it's been two years. How can I motivate myself?
--Stick Figure
There is an unorthodox but excuse-proof way to get yourself back to the gym: Hire a psychopath to chase you there with an ax.
If, however, the psychopaths in your area are busy servicing their regular clients, you might try rethinking the power you give your feelings over your behavior. The fact that you have a feeling -- "Waah...I don't wanna go to the gym" -- is not reason to listen to it and obey it as if you were its feudal serf.
Consider that unless there's a national disaster or a wizard turns you into a decorative porch owl, you are physically capable of getting to the gym. Make a pledge to yourself that no matter how unmotivated you are to go there, you will just go. This "just do it" method, giving yourself no choice in the matter, is important, because according to studies by psychologist Phillippa Lally and others, repetition leads to habit acquisition. To unpack what this means, behaviors you repeat become automatic -- meaning you eventually just do them mindlessly; deciding whether to do them is no longer part of the process.
To kick off the campaign for the new gym-going you, do this robo-gymgoing thing every day for two weeks, and then you can pull back to whatever your normal gym schedule would be. Give yourself a sense of accomplishment by monitoring your behavior. Check off days you go work out on a goal attainment app, or just color them in on a calendar. Giving yourself visual evidence of your progress should help you stay motivated during that time period before the physical results start to show. Kind of a bummer when you tell people you've been going to the gym and their response is, "And doing 20 sets of I'm not getting out of this car?"
My friends tease me, saying that I'm such an obnoxious jerk, but amazingly, everybody seems to love me. Somebody said it's because I have charisma -- like a rock star/movie star quality. Honestly, I don't think that highly of myself. I'm interesting-looking, outgoing, funny, and relatively talented in what I do. What is charisma exactly, and can people create it?
--Weirdly Beloved Woman
There are certain people throughout history that you just know had charisma. Moses, for example: "Hey, fellow Jews, just follow right behind me as I take a jog into the sea."
Charisma is the Pied Piper of personality traits -- a mix of personal magnetism, likability, and powerful presence that leads people to flock to and follow a person who has it. This can have creepy and even deadly results when the charismatic person is a cult leader, but evolutionary researchers Allen Grabo and Mark van Vugt believe that charisma evolved to be a cooperation booster. Their research suggests it is a "credible signal of a person's ability" to inspire a group of people to unite behind him or her so they can collectively solve some problem that would stump them individually.
Looks are an element of charisma. Being tall, good-looking, and physically stronger than your peers, as well as appearing healthy, are correlated with charisma, note Grabo and van Vugt. That said, though it's helpful to be a ringer for Gisele Bundchen, you can more closely resemble a hamburger bun in a bikini and still be mad charismatic. Accordingly, the researchers observe that "anecdotal evidence" suggests that having "particularly unique" features -- "such as Abraham Lincoln's elongated face or Rasputin's piercing eyes" -- may amp up charisma "as a result of their attention-grabbing ability."
The good news -- for anyone who lacks height, hots, or eyes that burn a hole in people -- is that how a person acts appears to be the main driver of charisma. And though some people are naturally (that is, genetically) equipped to be more charismatic through their set of personality traits, there are charismatic behaviors that anybody can learn and practice (or, perhaps in your case, engage in more often).
The behaviors that drive charisma are those that reflect a combination of "high power and high warmth," explains business coach Olivia Fox Cabane in her research-based book "The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism."
Most people probably believe that charisma comes simply out of speaking powerfully -- Martin Luther King-ing it rather than mumbling their message. Actually, listening powerfully -- tapping into how somebody's feeling, engaging with it emotionally, and empathizing -- is essential to having charisma. Connecting in this way drives what people experience as warmth, which Cabane sums up as "goodwill" -- the sense that another person cares about them and their well-being.
And sorry, but you can't just fake the look of someone who's listening (nod, nod, nod, eye contact, eye contact) while you're all up in your to-do list or formulating the brilliant thing you're going to say next. You'll think you're hiding your inattentiveness, but little bits of your body language will always sell you out.
Charismatic body language comes out of the antithesis of nervousness -- being comfortable in your skin, having a sort of high-powered calm. That's reflected in slower speech (rather than squirrel-like chit-chattering), the confidence to take pauses while speaking, and breathing from your diaphragm instead of taking shallow gulps of air. (For the basics on speaking more powerfully, read speech therapist and pathologist Morton Cooper's "Change Your Voice, Change Your Life.")
Slower, expansive body movements are another mark of the charismatic, in contrast with the herky-jerkyness of the perpetually uneasy -- those who always seem on the verge of making a run for it. However, there's a caveat to all of this walking and talking advice: If you're insecure and self-loathing, you can't just plaster some alpha-girl body language on top of that. Not credibly, anyway. You've got to put in the work to fix your foundation. (See my "science-help" book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.")
Finally, consider that it takes a strong person to be open about their weaknesses and failures. Counterintuitive, I know. But people don't relate to greatness. They relate to other people who show how human and imperfect they are. Cabane explains that "drawing attention to your vulnerabilities" ultimately enhances your power. In other words, instead of always working hard to look good, you'll amp up your charisma by making intermittent efforts to look bad -- like by confessing, "I'm socially awkward. Always have been. I'm really bad at leaving conversations at parties -- to the point where I wish a meteorite would crash through the ceiling so I could make my escape."