The Passive Man: Has No Initiative

My observation is that women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership.
James Dobson

Many men struggle with being passive.  There are all sorts of reasons for this, and I just want to highlight a few characteristics.  How am I familiar with passivity in men?  Because I was at one time quite paralyzed with being passive.  It is not always across the board, meaning that a guy could be quite courageous and initiative oriented in a job or hobby or sport but all that comes to a screeching halt when dealing with relationships with his parents, or his siblings, girlfriend or wife and even his kids.  I held a job that required leadership and initiative that I was pretty good at doing.  The problem was when I came home and had to figure out how to deal with a marital relationship I became quite passive.

I found it nearly impossible to act with initiative because I had no vision or plan or idea of what I wanted my marriage to look like other than it being fun, easy and comfortable.  But relationships are not always fun, easy or comfortable.  I also did not have a clear feeling or idea of what the future looked like.  None of us knows the future, but it is good to make plans anyway, but I had no plan.  So when my then wife started to talk about relational issues or future issues I was at a loss.  I didn't own a vision so hers would have to do.  The problem was it takes conviction to live out a vision.  Since I was not totally on board but borrowing her vision and didn't own it, I didn't act on it.  It wasn't that important to me in the sense of at all being mine which set me up to just react to what she thought. 


Conviction is the belief in what you are doing or want to do or want to accomplish.  There can be no real personal conviction without vision which makes it hard to do anything if you are really unsure as to where you are going.  Passivity comes to life when you just settle for the now.  Leading or participating actively in a relationship has to do with sharing whatever vision you have with your spouse.  Dating relationships that are getting serious have to do with sharing and finding a match or two in your conviction/vision for your life and how you see someone sharing in that.

First things first, you have to bring something to the table yourself.  It seems easier to allow your wife/girlfriend to set the vision because, very generally speaking, women seem to have a stronger, more detailed and thought out vision of what they want their marriage to look like.  They can articulate it better.  When this happens, the vision setting by the wife/girlfriend alone, you as the man have given up ownership of what is going on.  Now you either compliantly and silently go along with the "plan" thinking that you are showing love by making her happy by letting her have her way(a trap and a lie), or you are resentful and becoming embittered because this plan ain't yours and you point that out when you can.
    

The first step in moving out of passivity is to open up the discussion of the vision of your marriage relationship.  That means you need to share your thoughts about what you think is best even if that means she won't like it.  Because without a plan or vision, there can be nothing to own as your own, and if there is no ownership, there is no action.  Too often what happens within a relationship is passed on to the woman, that stuff has to be shared MUTUALLY.  Once you say "that is her thing, this is my thing" you have lost.

The idea of initiative, that being the first one to start something, is very incompatible with being passive.  Initiative takes vision, courage, passion, and confidence.  Being passive takes waiting, reacting and inaction and just plain hoping that it goes away on it's own.   We will explore more of this in later posts.  If you are realizing that you are a passive man, I can help you find your way out, talk to me shawn@coachingthrough.com

Shawn