by Andy McEvoy
One of MenLiving’s invitations is “Live Curiously” and I’ve always thought of myself as a curious guy. It was my superpower. If I got curious about something, I’d go learn it. It drove my success at work, fueled my fascination with robotics, science, and puzzles. I read books like crazy on any topic that I thought would broaden my mind or perspective.
The hard truth I had to learn was that my curiosity was selfish.
While I was busy being curious about the world around me, I failed to get curious about what was happening inside me. I ignored my own feelings. I tuned out the awareness in my body that was trying to signal stress or frustration. That lack of internal curiosity kept me stuck in a deep, stagnant rut for a long time. I was mastering the external and ignoring the internal.
And this blind spot really hurt me. It bled into my 20 year marriage.
Whenever my wife would share an idea, a dream, a perspective she’d read, my default mode would kick in and I’d ask a bunch of questions so I could understand it better. I thought I was showing curiosity, but I was really only being selfish. I was curious about the things that stimulated ME intellectually. I never stopped to ask about why she thought it interesting, what excited her about the idea, what shaped her perspective.
My curiosity was a barrage of questions that felt like a cross-examination to her – relentlessly poking holes in her logic and dissecting her thoughts. She slowly stopped bringing her ideas, dreams, and perspectives to me. I don’t think it even really registered to me. Slowly and gradually a distance grew. I didn’t understand why she didn’t want to talk to me any more.
It took two years of counseling before she was finally able to put words to that distance. She felt unsafe around me. My “curiosity” felt like judgement. I made her feel like she needed to defend everything she brought to me. I had created an unsafe place for the woman I love most. Accepting that I was the architect of her anxiety was brutal, but it was also the catalyst for change.
Understanding that she felt unsafe was one of the last things I figured out. There were other issues that had built up over those twenty years and they took a lot of work on their own. But recognizing this specific dynamic, that I was unintentionally pushing her away, was a powerful turning point that really opened the door to repairing our marriage.
Once I understood this, I started to really reflect on my own thoughts and feelings. I began to pay attention to my body. My breath would hold, my jaw would clench, my chest would tighten. Noticing these physical sensations that came up was my cue that I wanted to dive in and ask questions and interject my own opinions. Learning those cues gave me the pause I needed. I was able to stop, reflect, and get genuinely curious about her. Why was she bringing this up to me? What was her intuition telling her? What were her underlying beliefs and motivations?
Expanding my curiosity from the intellectual to the emotional has been incredibly rewarding. It has changed not just the way I show up for my wife, but in almost every aspect of my life.
What about you? Do any of your “innocent questions” carry masked judgment? Are you asking questions for a selfish reason? How can you get more genuinely curious about the people in your life?
