Prince

I don't think emotions in general are unwelcome exactly. I was referring to 'negative' feelings that might not be appreciated by the person they were directed to.
Actually, experiences with women did. Positive feelings were welcomed, negative feelings often not.
See, if only they did not need to be. But when someone does something to upset you, and you tell them they hurt you, they would probably want to know why. And with some women, even if you don't blame them for whatever has hurt you, if you don't go into the root of the issue, they assume it is about them.

Well that isn't really something that can be discussed without opening up a whole different subject matter, and I don't want to hijack Moskie's thread here. Suffice to say, I do believe that the way men and women of our species deal with emotions [and think, in general] differs greatly from one sex to the other. And the differences, interesting as they are in their own right, are potential minefields, when you consider two people trying to communicate emotions that are processed and expressed in potentially very different ways.

I will give you two examples, very real, from my own life, if you'll bear with me. (Again Moskie, I'm not trying to jack your thread man!)

Years back, when I met my wife, she was living in the States and I lived back in Europe. We would see each other about twice a year, and would correspond via email and snail mail. We were getting to know each other still, she was in college and I was off-and-on employed. I remember becoming very upset at her for the fact that she had been provided a lot of nice things in her life by her very well off parents...especially her nice car. Meanwhile, I had built my cars from totalled wrecks with the help of my uncle, and I had owned only cars that were pieces of shit...Fiat 127, Opel Kadett, etc. My cars were usually about 20 years old by the time I started driving them. This was when we were already engaged, just living in different countries. I became very hostile and bitchy about the whole business with her nice car, making a snide comment here and another one there. It pissed her off, naturally, and she would ask me why I was making those comments...but I didn't know. And I said as much. Eventually after much time by myself working through it all I realized it had nothing to do with envy, or with her having things easier (because in the ways that count, she hadn't), but with my own insecurities; not having a job, and soon having a wife to provide for, I felt threatened by the thought of not being able to afford all the things I thought she had grown accustomed to.

Second example: sometimes, after we were married, I would do things like spontaneously vacuum the house, or do laundry or the dishes. And she would be like, that's nice, provided she would notice. It hurt my feelings, and she could tell, but at first I wasn't really sure why. I wasn't expecting her to jump up and down with joy, but I was hoping for something. I couldn't explain to her why I felt suddenly so slammed down. Eventually, after some time taken to think about it, I realized that I'm not the guy who buys roses and chocolate...but I do things like that, stuff that she usually prefers to do herself (I never fold something right or w/e), as a sign of how I feel about her. By criticizing or ignoring the effort, which she probably just saw as me doing my part of the chores of the house, she was in a way belittling my way of telling her how I felt about her.

It is things like that, that are not always easy to explain.

Moskie, I can relate to some of the things you wrote about. I don't think it's a global feminine feature though. I really believe it's just who she is, and perhaps she didn't grow up around guys who were honest about their feelings. She may not know how to deal with it.

Would it help any to show her this thread, do you think?

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