Sometimes Lori tries to calm me down. I don’t have a problem with that, in theory. Sometimes I need to calm down and I appreciate her wanting to help. But I’ve noticed her attempts often have the opposite effect from what she wants. 

Have you ever had a man react to you being upset by saying something about you being an emotional female or accusing you of being hormonal? Did those things calm you down or get you even more upset?

When we’re upset we feel we have a justifiable reason to be upset, even if we don’t. If we were calm we might see there is no good reason to be upset, but because we’re upset we’re blind to that truth. When we are upset any attempt to calm us down is seen as accusing us of overreacting (which may be true) or not seeing the situation clearly (which could also be true). It’s adding insult to injury and that’s not a path to calm.

I find women often try to calm by distracting, by trying to move the upset person off of what has offended or upset them. I have no idea if this works with women, but with men, it’s a challenge; it’s saying his reality is wrong. Even if that is true (sidebar, how would you know?) it’s going to escalate the issue. And yes, men have the extra burden of testosterone on this. The reality is our being upset is often a matter of being hormonal or at least is aggravated by that.

A good way to defuse something like this is to first acknowledge what he is upset about. You can do that without agreeing with the details. He’s upset, so clearly it’s upsetting. You can agree with him on that without agreeing on the nuts and bolts of it. Agreeing that the situation is unfair, hurtful, or difficult puts you on his side. And then you have a chance to help him calm down.

~ Paul – I’m XY, and sometimes testosterone is annoying.

Image by Amit Sodha from Pixabay
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