“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” ~ Anais Nin

I’ve been blessed with a man who embraces both his masculine and feminine side. He’s sensitive, evolved and sexy.

I’m asked now and again what it’s like to live with such a force of nature. I’m very aware of the gift that he is to my life.

He’s the manifestation of all his years of reading, meditating and discussing everything that touches his soul.

I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t attracted initially to his athletic body and sexy grin.

His magnetic charm was altogether too much for me. His masculinity drew me in with the force of a tsunami. But it was his ability to tap into the feminine that made me stay.

I’m vain. There, I’ve said it. It feeds my ego that he attracts women like bees to a succulent flower. I truly do enjoy the stares in his direction, always have. He can’t help it anyway, it’s just the way it is.

We went away together once. This doesn’t happen too often, I prefer to travel separately. We went to the Findhorn Community in Scotland for a spiritual workshop. It was a long trip, and during it I realized that my sensitive man was more interested in striking up conversations with perfect strangers (part of his natural curiosity) than making sure we were on time for the train.

He experienced the journey with childlike joy while I fretted and bitched about schedules and tried to count on two hands how many women turned to look at him. My man just smiled and shrugged his shoulders, and completely threw me off my game just like he did all the others.

Once at the seminar, he held private discussions with the other women in our group, listening intently to their life stories, and offering sage advice such as they’ve never heard from a man who they insisted should be conceited and shallow due to his looks.

I’ve never understood this reasoning that one had to be vapid if blessed with a pleasing countenance.

I know that initially, like me, they were drawn to his appearance, but it was his openness, his vulnerability, his willingness to be raw that made all the difference for them.

I was told that he heals women just by being. He need not say anything. His energy is entirely encompassing of whatever ails the human condition. I love this about him and have embraced the fact that he is available emotionally for more than just this woman.

On the flip side, I can’t offer him the opportunity for such intense discussion all the time, as I love silence. And I see him when he’s given it all and there is nothing left even for himself.

A sensitive, evolved man often doesn’t observe balance while he pursues his passion for helping others. He’s still learning just like the rest of us.

He’s a fighter. Not physically, although he did that on the ice playing hockey and has the scars on his face to prove it. What I mean is, he fights for me in innumerable ways.

He fights for my right to live a fulfilled life. He fights for my dreams. He fights for my attention…books and writing have the most of me. He makes sure that if anyone takes me for granted or hurts me they will only do it once. Often I don’t tell him if someone has left me in tears. There is just no making him back down when he wants to fight for my honor or happiness.

It sounds romantic, and it is. Terribly so. But also, I have to remind him that when I hurt, I grow, and that my battles should remain my own. Fortunately, he judges me wise and in his evolved way, gets off his horse and tucks his sword away.

I lose him in book stores. I find him surrounded by a pile of books and sometimes, a woman attendant who is engaged in some story he is telling. I can only love him more when he looks up and dazzles me with that grin of his, and introduces me as his Sweet Thing.

We share a knowing look and internal laughter because I am never who other women expect him to be with. But he tells me when we’re alone, what it is that makes him stay. I never doubt his love.

He talks about me. A lot. I’m always surprised by how much he loves who I am. He’s taught me to appreciate myself more.

I lose him to new philosophies, to mountain and ocean views, to puppies and babies, and all the things that stir him. We fostered infants for a while and his devotion to their needs just blew me away.

I had to ask him what it was that drew him so completely to these tiny creatures. He said that they were so new from the Other Side that he could feel the Divine in them. But more than that, their vulnerability broke him open.

I’m his companion and he adores me to distraction but I will never be enough. He needs the whole world to be his inspiration and isn’t that the way it should be?

I shouldn’t be his everything. And I can’t be. A sensitive, evolved man finds fulfillment outside of his relationships as much as from within.

When you live with a sensitive, evolved man you get used to the fact that when your girlfriends come over he will serve the tea so you can kick back. He’ll tell jokes, and create a kerfuffle, and in the end, sit down to join you.

My sensitive, evolved man is continually on a search for a friendship with another man who will delve beyond the superficial. But this is difficult to find and more often than not, he will prefer to have fewer men friends to engaging with ones who keep their emotions tucked in.

He’s a bit of a lone wolf. But he will not compromise. He needs genuine connections. Women, in his estimation are simply more in touch with their authenticity. When he does find a man who lives from the heart, he is grateful for the gift of their friendship.

He is often misunderstood for his passionate stand on world issues, his appreciation for the underdog, his tears at movies, his often unflinching honesty, his desire to make choices that make the world a better place…at all costs.

He’s taught me to face my truth more often. It’s maddening.

My sensitive man hates war and guns and violence makes him want to go back to his planet. (Oh, aliens are definitely a topic of discussion at the dinner table!)

But sometimes we’re at war, because he never backs down from the good and I want to, if it suits me. My Scorpio nature is often self-focused and my Leo will call me on my sh*t.

He is in many ways king in our house. Yes, I’m a control freak, and truly do get my way most of the time. But because he leaves me to live the life I need to live and revels in my successes, I am tempted to drop at his feet and worship the spectacular man that he is.

And then he enjoys the games I suggest. As sensitive, as evolved, as gentlemanly as he can be, if I seek dominance, he will provide it.

Sex with an evolved man is a hauntingly spiritual experience. No matter what I need from him, he gives more. He understands the nuances of sex play that leave me open spiritually.

But if he sounds perfect, he is not. He is simply the best he can be in this moment; he is still evolving.

And the best part of all this, is that any man can grow into that sensitive, evolved sexiness.

Every man has it within his core. It may take time, a copacetic partner, a lover who is skilled at teaching, the right book, opportune growth situations…internal growth is available to all.

This man that I am blessed to live with was not who he is today at 29. He has taken his own journey seriously and chiseled his raw gifts into the fine creature that I love today.

At times I wish for someone less enlightened, someone who will let me get away with feeling sorry for myself, who will tell me that my dreams are impossible so that I can let myself off the hook from trying so hard to live them.

I wish he was less in touch with his emotions and we could just pretend that we did not know better…when I’m tired and crabby.

He makes my life a continual march to our betterment and I want to rebel. But he loves my rebellious side as well. It amuses him somehow. He’s taught me to laugh at myself.

Life with such a man is life with one’s best friend. He has my back no matter what. On my saddest days he has the perfect words, the best cuddles, the many cups of tea, the kisses and talk of why he thinks I’m all that. He is the ultimate ego boost.

Also, I take out the garbage every week because he cannot remember what happens on Wednesdays for the life of him. Besides, he will be meditating or rescuing a cricket from the house and talking to it as he releases it back to the garden.

I realized the other day that part of my partner’s great evolution into who he is now was my own evolution into who I am as well. We grew together, not congruently, but with an intention to live to our best potential.

During the years when he made me crazy and I wanted to run, he always showed me that personal growth was on his agenda. I saw him actively trying. And I showed my appreciation. We were in it together, and I know that we were each essential to the others growth.

Sometimes we forget that we act as mirrors to our partners. Anger, frustration, displeasure, lack of intimacy, grudge holding and the like create a barrier that shuts us down to each other and makes it impossible to encourage personal growth.

In the end, I have learned that to live with and love a man who excels at being his most sensitive, evolved, sexy self, I must also strive for those qualities if that is what I find desirable. I’ll see it better in him if I can find it within myself.

It’s not all a bed of roses with my handsome warrior. It’s hardly a tip toe through the tulips with me.

Evolved men can be as difficult to love as a new self-help book that does nothing but piss you off.

But when I’m real with myself, he is the perfect partner for my wild woman nature.

Living with him a sensitive, evolved, sexy man is a journey into myself. He is one of my best teachers. The best teachers are encouragers.

I hope you can see what’s so amazing in the man who loves you. I bet he’s pretty awesome…just like you.

~

Relephant:

What It Means to Be an Evolved Man.

~

Author: Monika Carless

Editor: Travis May

Main Image: Author’s Own, Featured Image: Flickr/Red Romero Ramos