Written by James Miklos, MCC, R.P.

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who has specialized education and training in the field of psychiatry which approaches mental health from primarily a biological and neurological approach to treatment.  After their completion of their education and treatment as an M.D. they then have 3 additional years of residency in the field of mental health where they will learn and perform assessments and treatments based on the medical model of mental health disorders. Though psychiatrists can offer counselling and psychotherapy but in Ontario more often than not their approach is very specific to the physiological.

Psychologist

Psychotherapist

Counsellor

Social Worker

Conclusion

Unless you had a pre-arranged marriage you married for “love”.  Let’s be more precise, you married because your emotional needs were being met by the one you had been dating and engaged to.  Here is where the problem comes into play.

Our Unconscious Minds

Your unconscious mind is that part of you that is much like the hard drive on your computer.  The unconscious mind is the collection of all of your life’s experiences and lessons that has an emotional charge to them.  The unconscious mind is not in a coma but rather your conscious mind is mostly unaware of its operation and can often frustrate you.  For example, have you ever said something you regretted and wondered where that came from?  Or ever said to yourself:  Why did I eat this?  Why did I buy this?  What about, Why did I marry him or her?  This is the unconscious mind that responds much more swiftly than our logical conscious selves.  I have heard it said that 95% of all our behaviour and choices are the result of the unconscious mind.  Our emotions are part of this unconscious mind and when we “fall in love” and get married this choice is the result of our emotional intelligence.  Can you improve your emotional intelligence and thereby shift your unconscious mind’s choices? Yes, but it takes diligent work on a daily basis as well as having a therapist or life coach who can guide and aid you in your change.

Emotional connection

You married who you married because of the emotional connection you had with them.  The emotional connection with your partner is that somehow they were familiar to you, which I will discuss further on. The person we married at some point met most or all of our  emotional needs, they turned us on!  I explain this in my article, Happy Wife, Happy Life: Keys to a Successful Marriage.

We also probably married a person who’s emotional style is probably opposite from ours.  You’ve heard, “opposites attract”, well they do!  For example one might need to have some “cave time” after or during a conflict while others need to talk things out they are the “problem solver”.  In this way we can learn to be supportive to each other by being thoughtful of each other’s needs and feelings.  This can turn out to be a great lesson for our own emotional balance.  Though, all too often couples who come into my office don’t know how to utilize their unique style and be a support to each other.  Being considerate and thoughtful of your partner’s needs are necessary for a successful marriage.

Familiarity

We marry a person who is familiar to us. How? you may ask.  Back to the unconscious mind, we want to bond to someone who is familiar to us in some way of our family of origin.  You’ve probably heard the saying, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know”.  This is true in marriage.  We are comfortable with the way our partner is, we are also upset with the way our partner is because the unconscious mind is trying to resolve our unmet emotional needs we had in childhood.  If you are trying to fix those unmet needs in childhood through your spouse you will be in for long drawn out pain of disappointment.  Yes, we are to meet each others’ emotional needs and be a support to one another but there are things that your partner cannot do for you and that is what needs to be fixed in therapy.  That is why I offer a two-tier approach to marriage and couples’ counselling (for more info click here).

Emotional Safety

We also entered into our marriage because we experienced emotional safety on some level.  Emotional safety helps us to not only connect but to feel safe enough to open up and become vulnerable.  The safer you feel the more you are willing to let down your guard and expose yourself to the one you love.  For some this is more difficult than others and frequently this is the reason for conflict because it is both aggressive and passive.  Love grows cold because there isn’t enough emotional safety or emotional vulnerability and openness.  This often exists because there are family of origin issues alongside traumatic events that have walled you off and incapacitated you.  Having your wall of emotional defence up will end up causing you more pain not less pain as most people would think.  Think about it this way, a wall is meant to keep unwanted people and things out.  A wall is not meant to be in a marriage, it will only destroy it in time.  This issue needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, matters of this nature require seeing a quality therapist to help you to heal and to allow your spouse in your heart so that you can have a happy and healthy marriage.

Women need to feel from their husband a gentle feeling of fondness; affection if you will.  They crave gentleness, tenderness, warmth, devotion, endearment, where they feel cared for.

Affection can be expressed in numerous ways.  Some of these ways can include: physical, non-sexual affection like hugs, kisses, holding of the hands, a gentle touch as you are near her.  Other ways can include a gentle tone of voice, words that create in her a sense of endearment.  Gifts given and helping out can express this as well but in a more limited sense when it comes to affection.  Affection needs to be intimate and emotionally connecting, meaning, it needs to be from sincerity of the heart.  (Find out more how you can have the marriage you dreamed of).

I have found that women generally desire and appreciate affection in one of three ways:

1. Physical non-sexual touch
2. Verbal words of love and affirmation
3. Both of the above

Physical Touch

Few key points will help you to understand what your partner needs and how to meet it.  Some men have reported to me that their wife doesn’t respond well to non-sexual touch, there are numerous reasons for this.  A few of these reasons can be that your timing is off, for example she is in the kitchen getting supper ready and you approach her from behind and want to express affection to her but she rejects you or ignores you, your timing needs to improve as well as your communication.  Remember just because you want it doesn’t mean that your partner does at that moment.  Communication such as asking her before you touch, waiting for the right moment when she’s done her task then approach her.  Remember women do not like it when men just want sex or are emotionally needy and that’s why they are touching them.

Intimate touch can also include things like direct eye contact with a look of love.  A loving gaze into each others eyes is important, even a loving playful wink, or blowing of a kiss.

physical affection can also include:

• kissing
• nibbling on your partner’s ear
• playing footsies
• briefly rubbing your partner’s back
• holding hands
• sitting close to each other where you are making physical contact with each other
• cuddling
• hugging
• ticking your spouse’s arm
• walking with each other’s arms around each other’s waist

Physical closeness and healthy touches of endearment are crucial to igniting love in your marriage and definitely in your wife.

Words of Affection

Words of affection involve predominantly two areas of expression.

1.   Praise – Words of praise involve the expression of gratitude and affection concerning things that she does.  Things like, “You are an amazing cook!”  “You always dress nice.”  “You are always so good at organizing.”  “You are a good mother to my children.”  The list goes on and on, but the key point here is that these words of expression are directed towards telling her all the amazing things she does.

2.   Adoration – Words of adoration involve expressions of love for who she is rather than what she has done.  Such words can be, “I love your blue eyes.”  “You are so beautiful.”  “I love your cute smile.”  “The way you walk is so elegant.”  “You are brilliant.”  There are numerous choices of such expressions you can say to her.  Words of adoration are important because each woman wants to feel that she is the centre of your universe.

Conclusion

Just like sexual intimacy is a man’s number one need so is affection for women.  Without affection a woman will not respond well and her number one need won’t be met.  Yes, there are other key factors to meeting your wife’s needs but his one is number one.  Often men need to be coached along these lines which then helps them to succeed and end up with a marriage that is filled with passionate love.

For more on Marriage Counselling click here

Written by: James A. Miklos, M.C.C., R.P. -   James has been counselling,  and providing psychotherapy for over 30 years, is a public speaker and writer.

© 2025 James A. Miklos. All rights reserved.  To copy or quote any of this material this entire citation and credit must be posted.

When it comes to men’s’ health issues, both men and women are equally apathetic.  A radical feminist joke goes like this, “Why do men die earlier than women?  Because they deserve it!”  Some of you reading this might be quietly say, “Yah, I agree!”  As odd as it may seem I too have had antagonism towards other males.  In my case I was neglected and verbally abused as a child.  My father also as a child he was neglected and physically abused.  In many similar cases the legacy of abuse continues.  The cycle just keeps going on and on.

A friend of mine who is a once told me that when you think of all the abuse, pain, tyranny, and violence in the world it is all because of men and their testosterone.  He said this, of course, out of his own pain which related to the abuse his father bestowed on him as a child.

Before I go any further it’s important for me to say that men aren’t any more evil than women or for that matter any more holy than women.  I believe that abuse is the culprit.  It skews our perception of people, things, and even our very own existence!

There are a great number of very good men.  In my life I have had, at times, surrogate fathers and mentors.  I’ve had some very loyal and good male friends throughout my life.  Often times I will ask clients why they chose to come and see me rather than a female counsellor or therapist.  On some occasions I have been told, “It’s because I wanted to know that there are good godly men out there, so that I can heal and be able to believe that not all men are abusive.”

Men suffer more and die earlier than women!  An ignorant or bitter person might say, “They caused it anyway and don’t deserve any compassion!”  This is tragic.  Men die about 7 years earlier than women on average.[1] The suicide rate for men is 4 times higher than in women.[2] A man is pressured to be a superman by society, themselves, responsibility, the need for recognition, other men, women, and other factors.  Men, in general, tend to be winning competitors as Steve Wells so eloquently puts it, “…they come out ahead in a huge number of areas (they love winning competitions!), such as cancer, heart disease, respiratory diseases, accidents generally, and motor vehicle accidents specifically, diabetes, and the list goes on.”[3]

Men don’t even seem to care about themselves.  Some of my friends who pastor churches have told me through the years that 70% of all the volunteers, givers and purchasers of spiritual help materials in churches are women and only about 30% of those are men.

All too often we men don’t take care of ourselves and sometimes even of others.  Why?  I believe that one major factor is that no one properly ever cared for us!  We as men need to be proactive in taking responsibility for the care of ourselves and that doesn’t mean going to a bar for a beer!

Generally speaking women will go for psychotherapy, naturopathy, exercise, yoga, church, massages, manicures and pedicures and probably a whole lot more!  What will guys do?  Not much…because much of what I just mentioned is perceived as feminine [especially the pedicure part (LOL)]!  When I ask men in my office about when they last went to the doctor for a physical check up, often they don’t remember or never have gone.

In the book Vital Touch, Heller says that infant boys get less physical touch than girls.[4] Infant boys in some ways need as much or more touch from parents as an infant than girls for one major reason and that is that boys already are born with a greater physical inability to be sensitive to physical touch.  Physical touch in infancy and childhood promote the following: healthy attachment, better communication, health, physical and mental growth, assures smooth physiological functions in breathing, heart rate and digestion, supports a healthy self-concept, body awareness and sexual identity, as well as enhances their immune system, and externally it even enhances their ability to be graceful and stable in their movements.  Healthy physical touch determines the outcome of the child and how they will function throughout their lifetime.

Boys are at a disadvantage in our culture, before they are even nurtured and developed they are expected to be the provider, the protector, the nurturer and by the way don’t forget about superman.  We should stop and think or should I say rethink what society says we ought to be.  I have often had couples come in for marriage counselling and the woman has complained about how their husband is so insensitive.  I usually make a comment somewhere in there that we men were taught to be like John Wayne or the Marlboro man – why?  Because, these are images of strength images of courage!  But what about the images of the nurturing father, the shepherd of the sheep, the mentor?

But before that can happen we men need to rethink who we are or should I say, should be.

All too often men don’t do anything about taking care of their health until it’s almost or is too late…after their entrails are dragging on the ground they may go to their physician and ask if they have a problem.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Mortality Atlas Australia (December 2002) shows that the death rate from the main causes of death is generally higher for men than women. The average death rate per 100,000 persons (1997-2000) includes:

Malignant (cancerous) tumours – 237.8 males compared to 146.7 females

Ischaemic heart disease – 190 males compared to 119.9 females

Cerebrovascular diseases (strokes etc) – 65.9 males compared to 65.8 females

Chronic lower respiratory diseases (lung problems)- 46.6 males compared to 23.2 females

Accidents – 35.6 males compared to 17.7 females

Suicide – 21.9 males compared to 5.5 females

Diabetes mellitus – 18.8 males compared to 13.6 females

Influenza and pneumonia – 13.6 males compared to 11.4 females

Motor vehicle traffic accidents – 13.1 males compared to 5.5 females.[5]

This problem is not an Australian one it is a worldwide problem.  The International Society of Men’s Health (ISMH) is one of the very few organizations that are attempting to address this issue.  The theme of the Men’s Health World Congress in 2009 was, Men suffer more and die sooner. In the following words of their March 2010 journal they point out this pervasive problem particularly in the western world:

The course of many physiological and diseases is more severe in the male gender. The gender differential is unfavorable to men in their experience of stress, as it is more likely to manifest in men as debilitating physical, mental, and behavioral conditions than in women. Furthermore, relatively greater exposure to violence and injury and elevated behavioral risk increase the frequency of debilitation and premature death among men.[6]

Many generations ago it used to be that men would live longer than women now we know it’s the other way around.  Why?  I have already addressed some of this but here are some thoughts attempting to answer this question:  The lack of healthy physical touch for boys in infancy, the neglect and abuse as a child prior to the age of 12, the modeling and teaching in our homes, schools, and of our society that men are supposed to be indestructible and able to solve all problems on their own, and how about,  ‘boys and men are not supposed to cry, need help, or show any weakness!’  I’ve even heard women tell their husbands that when a man cries it disgusts them.  Men are already wired for less emotional sensitivity but society promotes that even further and shames men who may show emotional sensitivity.

For the most part I believe the biggest problem is that men in our society are taught as infants to be emotionally calloused and detached.  The more emotions that are repressed the higher probability of the onset of serious illness resulting in early death.  The only emotion that appears to be socially acceptable in men is anger, this is often the only emotion men are aware of within themselves and guilt often the least.  The deception of anger is that it appears to be a primary emotion, but really anger is a result of the hidden primary emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, and sadness (resulting from hurt).  To properly heal from our deep inner pain we first need to connect ourselves to our right brain – our emotional self.  Spiritual, emotional and physical violation (sin) causes pain; this involves neglect, ignorance, and abuse.  Without self-awareness of our primary emotions we cannot begin to heal.  When enlightenment and understanding come, then pain may follow, the pain of our own condition, but this is can be a good thing.  When we take responsibility, which gives us the ability to respond, we then have hope.  With qualified help we can move towards our healing towards our own salvation.

As I have helped men get in touch with their own inner condition and helped them in their journey towards wholeness I begin to hear and see their remorse, their transformation, and then compassion surfaces.  Stephen R. Covey says, “People are very tender, very sensitive inside. I don’t believe age or experience makes much difference. Inside, even within the most toughened and calloused exteriors, are the tender feelings and emotions of the heart.”

We men don’t have to fit the mold that was past down to us, we don’t have to known as calloused and uncaring; we don’t even have to die earlier or suffer more.  Since going for help myself I have come to the revelation that I am not meant to solve all my problems or support myself alone, I am supposed to seek out qualified help; for my spirit I have a pastor, for my mind/emotions I have a therapist, for my physical wellbeing I have a physician, and a naturopathic practitioner.

There is hope for us!  All it takes is courage and willingness to ask for assistance from a qualified person.  Invest in yourself today, you are worth it!

[1] Source: Why Men Die Early Than Women, http://www.thehealthnews.org/news/08/06/15/men.early.die.html, THE HEALTH NEWS, 2008.

[2] Source: Why Men Die Earlier And Suffer More, http://www.eftdownunder.com/blog/?p=19, Energy Provocateur, 2009.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Source: Heller, Sharon, Ph.D., The Vital Touch, (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1997).

[5] Men’s Health, http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Men’s_health, State of Victoria, 2008.

[6] Meryn, Siegfried, M.D., Young, April M.W., Ph.D. “Making the global case for Men’s Health”.  http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/1875-6867/PIIS1875686710000035.pdf, (Journal of Men’s Health, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 2–4, March 2010).

Written by: James A. Miklos, M.C.C., R.P. -   James has been counselling,  and providing psychotherapy for over 30 years, is a public speaker and writer.

© 2025 James A. Miklos. All rights reserved.  To copy or quote any of this material this entire citation and credit must be posted.