JC

Listen, I think you have a biblical imperative to be hot for your husband, but sometimes you have just to ignore his opinions on what looks good and follow your own instincts. Beauty is your realm to master and control, and men are not always going to know how to achieve the final results that they appreciate. A man may tell you that getting your nails done is silly, but then later admire the way your red tips wrap gently around the stem of a martini glass. He may say he doesn't like heels and lingerie, but only because he's never had a woman who could wear them with earnestness, with a carefree ease that let him relax, and always felt pressured by the burden of unsaid expectations. He may say that it's ridiculous to buy expensive jewelry, but if he finally caves and gets you something nice, he'll notice every time you wear it—even something as simple as a delicate gold bracelet can draw his attention to the whole of the body of the woman he's chosen. He may say he doesn't like muscular women, but after 6 months of hitting glutes and back hard, he'll find that he can't stop touching the curvature of the new shape around your lower spine. He'll say, "You don't need to lose weight. You're beautiful," but then you'll lose ten pounds and he'll grip your waist a little tighter, let his eyes linger a little longer, and when you're out and other men take notice of you a little too long, he'll realize he possesses a woman that is worth being coveted, and like a revelation, sudden and all at once, the aperture of his understanding will open, encircling the space between the earth and the city and your hair whipping across your collarbones, and he'll once more feel with intensity the love that carried both of you this far.

This is like playing the dating game on the hardest mode possible

It’s true that many women say they want a man who’s “in touch with his emotions,” yet get the "ick" when he expresses them. This can be bewildering for men, but the issue lies in how emotion is expressed, not in the fact of feeling it. Yes, women tend value a man who has emotional fluency and depth, someone who can articulate his inner world and empathise with hers. But they recoil when a man loses his composure, collapses emotionally and turns to her for emotional containment. The moment she has to soothe or stabilise him, when she must step into the role of his therapist or mother, the polarity between them collapses. She no longer feels his strength; she feels his need. And that is where the "ick" arises from. So this is the key distinction: Emotional depth does not mean emotional dumping. A man can speak openly about his struggles while remaining self-possessed and anchored in his own centre. He might say, “I’ve had a rough week and I'm working through some frustration, but I'll be fine,” rather than dissolving into self-pity or seeking reassurance. He shares what’s real without burdening her with it. His emotions are contained by his own form. That’s what women respond to: emotional transparency grounded in composure. It signals a robust and stable inner centre. It shows he can hold complexity without being consumed by it. By contrast, many men, fearing that any show of feeling will make them appear weak, over-correct by suppressing or hiding their emotions entirely. They present a stoic façade that keeps her at arm’s length. While this may preserve his ego, it starves intimacy. She feels locked out of his interior world, perhaps admiring and respecting him, but ultimately feeling exiled from his soul. This lack of emotional connection is far more painful for the woman, who (unlike the man) is not a self-sustaining principle. As the embodiment of the lunar principle, she requires reflection to feel whole, to know herself through the mirror of his awareness. When that mirror is blank, she loses the sense of being felt, and something in her begins to close. Both collapse and repression arise from the same root: disconnection from the solar centre. In the first, emotion floods the structure; in the second, the structure dams the flow. The true alternative (and what women are innately seeking in man when they say they want him to be "in touch" with his emotions) is one in which those feelings are governed by conscious form. The man is able to remain inwardly still while emotion moves through him; he neither denies it nor is swept away by it. That stillness is what allows him to hold space for the woman’s depths without being drowned by them. This is neither stoicism nor vulnerability, but a secret third thing: an inner sovereignty where emotion has been mastered by spirit rather than suppressed by force of will.

Curious about what the solution is for these people who want to abolish birth control, but also don't think women should have kids at 30+, but also think wives need to always fuck their husbands