O Magazine published an article in September about the difficulties women have with saying what they want.  It was a silly, fun article with references to words I don’t believe are really words (like “wanty”) but it hit home. 

We have all been bred to keep what we really want to ourselves.  It’s what I would call a “Victim” reaction to having desires because one sure way to never get what you want is to never let anyone know what it is you really do want.  But how many of us men or women, have spent most of our lives trying to guess what others want and how to avoid saying what we want?

Hiding starts early

Case in point my own desire, from an early age, to play the piano.  I guess I never came out and told anyone but I know that any time I got near I played on it.  If the other kids were playing outside, eating ice cream, or any other fun activity - if there was a piano around, I was playing it instead.  So I was amazed when my mother said she never knew I wanted to play. 

My own inability to say what I want has shaped my life in many ways. I am not sure how I learned the lesson, but I obviously did. 

Emotions make it harder

Now, don’t get me wrong its not that I can never say what I want, because that is not true. I have learned to ask for what I want from waiters, cashiers, and other service people. I can even ask my friends to do things with me. But, if it is something that has some kind of emotional weight, it has not always been easy. 

Women get the impression you are pushy if you make it clear what you want and don’t back down at the first sign of dissent.  We get labeled as “bitchy” if we insist on getting what we want.   Of course, men, in similar situations would be considered “strong”.  But I don’t think men are any better, over all than women at asking for what they really want. Emotional things, things that would seem to make them “weak” are strictly forbidden for men to ask.

Divorce and truth telling

It’s no wonder our divorce rate is so high.  Because if we remain in a place of being unable to communicate what we want and need from our partners we are stuck in the helpless, Victim, position with no hope of escape.  Unless of course our partner is astute enough to glean what it is we want from our manipulative behaviors. Of course, hiding our sexual reality has become such a commonplace thing that according to a Lavalife survey even 53% of men fake orgasms (82% of women do).

Rescuers often can figure out what their partners want, but we don’t always get it exactly right. Guess work is like that, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t.

Taking ownership of our wants and needs is the only hope we have of really getting what we want instead of some close approximation.  Our partner’s may be pretty good, but nobody can always guess right.

Do you know what you want?

Someone commented on the O Magazine article that she had not addressed the whole issue because she hadn’t addressed how you even KNOW what it is you want.  A lot of us are so out of touch with ourselves, our bodies and our emotions that we have no clue what we want.  That makes it even tougher to ask doesn’t it?

Learning to connect with our bodies and emotions is the first step in being able to identify what we want and need.  I love the series Mad Men on AMC.  It portrays the social environment that set us up to never say what we want or know what it is we need.  My favorite characters are the mysterious Dan Draper and his wife Betty.  Dan (not his real name but, that’s the identity he assumed) doesn’t have a clue what he feels and is constantly in search of something that will make him feel something.  Betty, his sweet, picturesque wife is equally clueless because she is not supposed to need or want anything other than the house and home that Dan provides her. Betty reminds me of my own mother during that period, dressing up to look the part, but always a bit out of place.

Isn’t that how we all feel when we deny ourselves awareness of what we want and need? Learning connect with our bodies and emotions and then being courageous enough to speak our truths changes everything.

What are you not saying?

Almost everyone hold things back from their partners.  Do you? What do you not like to say? Do you tell your friends what you do and don’t want? Your family? I’d love to hear. Comment below.