Or so many of today’s dating and relationship gurus claim.

Of course they don’t quite use the terminology I have here.

If you’ve got snake oil to sell, you have to be a bit more creative in your marketing.

What these “love gurus” say instead, is that you need to recognize and honor “masculine and feminine energy.”

The masculine is the “container.”

The feminine is the “fluid or flow.”

Your job as a guy is to bring constancy and dependability to the relationship. Your girl should just feel free to flow within the safety you provide.

All sounds touching doesn’t it?

Until you get down to the fine print.

One such guru is David Deida, whose foundational book on how all things relationship should work is called The Way Of The Superior Man.

As the title implies, the goal of this tome is to show you guys how to be a real man for your girl.

And what does that entail?

Essentially it means just “being there” for your girl no matter how “bat shit crazy” she becomes.

As Deida puts it:

“The next time you notice yourself trying to fix your woman so that she will no longer _________, (fill in the blank), relax and give her love by touching her and telling her that you love her when she is this way (whatever you filled in the blank). You can’t escape the tussle with the feminine.”

There you go.

She can be however she chooses to be. Your job is just to love her anyway.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating trying to control or change anybody. If you’re in any kind of relationship for any time at all, there are going to be things about your partner that rub you the wrong way.

What I’m taking exception to here is this idea that this is just the way girls are, because that is just what femininity is.

Giving a girl a blank cheque to be as crazy as she wants is a recipe for relationship disaster.

Maybe you think I’m exaggerating how far Deida is willing to take this thought.

Let’s see.

He says a girl often tests a guy to know he’s trustable, by “complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose.”

That’s right. Undermining him.

Even though she does this you should appreciate that she is doing it to feel your “strength, integrity, and openness.”

He even promises that as you grow, “so will her testing.”

Exciting thought, yes?

So Deida sees all this female craziness as “feminine energy,” which should be met with “masculine energy” that is unaffected by her tests and maintains integrity and unmovability in the face of it.

In other words you should be a stoic.

And he actually recommends you go out and find a girl like this, one who is your “complimentary opposite.”

He insists the more masculine you are, the more attracted you will be to a girl who is “wild, undisciplined, and ‘bonkers,’ chaotic, prone to changing her mind and ‘lying.'”

Lying? You heard him right!

He says this will be much more healing to you than someone “balanced or neutral, who is steady, reasonable, ‘trustworthy,’ and able to say what she means in a way he can understand.”

Wow! And they call this relationship advice!

Deida says there are people, both male and female, who fall on both sides of this spectrum of what he calls masculinity and femininity.

Some girls have more masculine energy and naturally attract guys with more feminine energy. And vice versa.

He admits there are some people too who are very evenly balanced between these two energy poles.

Deida says this last group represents about 10% of the population, with the other 90% consisting of these polar extremes.

Hmmm.

Reminds me of another statistic.

Remember when I pointed out that only 17-20% of all monogamous relationships work out? That the rest result in divorce or unhappy unions?

Maybe we’re seeing why, in the kind of advice relationship “experts” are touting these days.

Because when I see a girl exhibiting all the kinds of traits Deida is calling “feminine energy,” what I call it is love addiction.

An insecure anxious attachment style.

These traits are expressions of deep abandonment wounds where the girl wasn’t loved properly by her parents, and she is now seeking to heal that wound by desparately trying to find someone to finally love her.

If you match the description of what David Deida calls “feminine energy,” this isn’t something to glory in and codify into your relationship.

It’s something you need to seek help with.

I work with guys and girls who struggle with love addiction and can help you find healing too. Hit me up for a coffee or a Skype session and we’ll talk!

And that “mascline man” Deida is promoting?

He looks to me an awful lot like what I’ve come to know as a love avoidant.

I know this one really well because I was one. I had a real fear of intimacy and was unable to connect emotionally with my partner.

Yep. I was stoic.

And Deida is right.

When you’re a love avoidant, nothing draws you more like a moth to the flame, than the insecure emotional energies broadcast forth by a love addict.

That energy is still like crack to me. But I’ve come to understand it for what it is now.

These two types are naturally drawn to each other because their subconsciously felt emotional wounds see each other as the natural solution to one another’s problems.

But it is a lie.

There is no healing in this kind of union.

Seeking out your polar opposite is seeking to perpetuate your emotional wounding and guarantee you’ll never find relationship peace.

A love avoidant is no more capable of providing true intimacy, than is a love addict capable of receiving it.

If you match what David Deida is describing here as masculine or feminine energy, please seek help.

Either from me, or from someone else experienced in this area.

You can have a healthy relationship.

You can find your way to that 10% balance he talks about.

No a healthy, secure relationship is not as intense as what you’ve come to believe in as “true love.”

Instead a healthy relationship is what Deida called “balanced or neutral, steady, reasonable, ‘trustworthy”

If that sounds boring to you, your reaction is a symptom you’re struggling with insecure attachment too.

No your job as a guy is not to accommodate her insecurities.

Nor is it your job as a girl to live with a stoic, detached guy and simply accept that as normal.

What you both deserve is a love where you and your partner are securely attached, giving and receiving love and support and encouragement as you enjoy your romantic connection together.

What do you say? Is it time to start working on learning what real masculinity and femininity is?