How to Share Your Big Feelings With Him

A challenge that comes up for my clients after they are exclusive is sharing big feelings for the first time.

It can be about challenges in life, stress at work, fears, issues with friends, or other things that you weren’t talking about during those first few dates.

Eventually, we have built up a relationship that’s close enough that it’s difficult to hide when these things come up. They can tell if our tone in messages is different or our mood seems off on a date.

We are stuck between wanting to be seen and vulnerable but also afraid of scaring them off. We don’t want to lose what we just built with this person by sharing these other parts of ourselves.

It’s normal to not yet feel comfortable enough to share all of yourself with someone in those early stages.

But trust only grows over time if you take steps to allow yourself to be seen by this person.

The first step is to create context. That means this isn’t the only thing they’ve ever seen about you.

There is a purpose to not sharing these things super early on or not sharing them all at once.

By the time you’re exclusive, you have already been vulnerable by creating that connection. You are ready to share more of yourself and your big feelings when they come up naturally.

The next thing is look at your own thoughts about what you’re experiencing.

Some thoughts that might come up might include “I’m a mess,” “I’m being so dramatic,” or “this is so embarrassing.”

Crying, feeling emotions, and facing challenges don’t equate to being a mess.

We want to acknowledge the benefit to the other person of being able to receive this.

When we are in any relationship and share how we are feeling, we are creating connection. If there is a big part of yourself that you’re holding back or hiding, that’s a part of you they aren’t able to connect with.

When you’re ready to share, test the waters a little. Share a little bit, see how they react, and then share more.

You want to make sure they’re in the right mindset to hear and see you.

What that might sound like is you come home and ask, “Can we talk? I had a really hard day.”

Do they turn toward you?

See how they respond and then when you feel like they’re giving you a positive response, share what’s going on.                   

When you are sharing, make sure what you’re not doing is apologizing saying things like, “this is so embarrassing,” “I'm so sorry that I'm sharing this with you,” or “I know this is such a burden for you.”

Just share your feelings. Share about the actual thing that is happening.

It’s a paradox because when you start apologizing and saying “I'm being such a burden,” you start being a burden because you gave them the job to give you extreme reassurance.

Let’s say you do these steps and have a wonderful experience opening up to them. Once you go through it, let yourself spend time with them where you’re not ruminating or talking about it the entire time even if you still feel negative about it.

Lastly, remember letting yourself be seen can be uncomfortable.

You want to be able to sit in that discomfort because if you want an unfiltered connection where you know each other on a deep level, eventually you do have to be honest with each other.

Make a conscious decision to be a little bit uncomfortable as you share more of yourself and therefore as you enhance your connection.

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This content was originally published on the Women's Dating and Confidence Podcast. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.