Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Dear Aunty Pam,

 

I am a middle-aged, divorced woman who has met a lovely man, aged 60. We have a lot in common: our faith, politics, and even hobbies.

 

There’s just one problem with Frank, he cries at the drop of a feather. I could tell he was sensitive when we first met because he was so free in sharing his feelings and his past history (bad marriage, abusive, alcoholic father), but I wasn’t prepared for him crying the way he does. He cries when we watch a sad movie, he sometimes cries in church if the sermon or choir moves him. He even choked up when we took a drive through the Blue Ridge mountains to look at the fall colors.

 

He’s very kind and considerate to me, as sweet as he can be, I’m just not used to being with a man who is this sensitive and part of me wonders if he needs therapy or something. I guess I have to admit that I wish he was a little more masculine.

 

Or is it just me?

DB

 

Dear DB,

 

Yep, it’s pretty much you.

 

I’m curious to know what you consider to be ‘a little more masculine?’ A man who stifles his feelings, holding everything in as he puffs his chest out? There are plenty of those, and many are in ICU as we speak, recovering from cardiac arrest.

 

From everything you write, Frank sounds like a hell of a catch. To find anyone who “is very kind, and considerate and sweet as he can be” is not easy. In fact, there are countless women out there that would give anything for that sort of relationship. And I’m sure you know that as well.

 

So how about we rename what you consider to be Frank’s ‘problem.’ How about thinking of Frank not as a ’sensitive’ man, but as a ‘passionate’ man? Because, truly, Aunty Pam feels this is what he appears to be. He is reacting, from what you’ve described, to things that are beautiful, true and moving. People like that aren’t wearing their hearts on their sleeve, they’re living with their hearts, firmly in their chest, but wide open and as big as all outdoors.

 

Here’s hoping you can embrace Frank, fully, as he has seemed to embrace you.

 

Cheers, dear!

 

Aunty Pam