How do you know if a man really loves and values you?

The reason I ask is that I have been with my fiance for 11 years now and we have one child together. I also have 2 children from my previous marriage who live with their father.

My fiance has never been very sopportive in an emotional sense and if I have tried to talk about things with him that have affected me he brushes it off and dosen't validate my feelings.

This could be to do with the differences between male and females.  Men like to find solutions to problems and dimiss problems that are not of value to them.  Men hate displaying emotions because they are taught from an early age that it makes them look weak, but they are also not taught how to deal with emotions.  So many men (not all), don't know how to display emotions and they certainly can't see things from a female point of view.  A lot of the time men can be very dismissive of female things, it's not because they don't care, it's just that they don't want their ladies being upset.  So they mistakenly think that by dismissing something in a male sort of way, that will resolve the ladies problem.  It's a matter of men not knowing that women don't deal with problems by thinking of solutions or dismissing something as not important.  Women want sympathy and for a man to listen, many men don't know how to listen and display sympathy.

What is important to a man is that he is healthy, his kids are healthy, his wife is healthy, all of them are enjoying their life, he has a good job and is secure.  Anything beyond that range of things, he sees as petty, minor things and dismisses them.  Because to him everybodies health and everybody being alive is the most important thing to him, not whether someone has had a bad day at work.  If they have had a bad day at work, his solution for that is that you will probably go into work tomorrow and have a brilliant day at work and that to a woman is an example of a man being dismissive.  That's his way of coping with a bad day at work, it only becomes bad if he regularly has bad days at work.

I have found this hard to deal with and felt resentful towards him. Sometimes I just want a bit of sympathy and I get cool logic and it appears like he's saying it's my fault and that I'm making too much of something or I should just ignore it.

These are all classic differences to the way that men deal with things and the way women deal with things.  I've never really thought of a solution to this problem and still can't think of one in this case.  Because as far as he sees it, he is dealing with your problems and doesn't understand why you keep going on about things that to him, are just minor (are they anything to do with your health, is it about someone that has died, if not it's minor, that is his way of dealing with those problems).  He's not seeing it as your fault, he's more just scratching his head and just thinking, what the hell is she going on about, she's got a problem, I'm coming up with a reasonable solution, is there any reason to talk about it. 

He dosen't know how to be sympathetic although I have told him on more than one occasion. He just dosen't seem to get it.

He won't, I only get it because I've read books about how women think and I know they want sympathy and listening rather than solutions or being told to forget about it because it's not significant.  The only real solutions I can think of is to get him to read a book about it (which he is unlikely to do, because he won't see it is a problem and if you tell him it's a problem he will more than likely get frustrated and angry).  Apart from that the only other solution is to discuss these problems with other women and realise he has his talents but displaying sympathy like a woman would is not one of his talents.

Despite the fact that I've read it in books, that women want sympathy, you will read through my articles and still find examples of me looking for a solution or dismissing things that a woman finds important but I find quite frankly petty.  I just can't help it, even though I know this bit of information, when I'm typing my responses it still doesn't dawn on me that I'm being dismissive or looking for solutions that maybe some of the ladies visiting my web site don't really want. 

Men go to the pub and say to their friends why do women constantly whinge about minor, petty things all day.  Women go shopping with their friends and say why are men so insensitive and why doesn't he care about me much.  The truth is it does worry him when you have these problems and he does care about you, but he sees things in a male way and thinks his male way of thinking is the solution to the problem and doesn't understand a woman's point of view. 

He is very good in other ways, affectionate, romantic and a stay at home type who always fetches my kids for me and gives them money on birthdays, xmas etc. He is great at practical things and never says no to running me about in the car. He is also great with our son and does far more than me, sometimes with housework as well. I work really hard at my job as does he.

That just says it all.  He's great in every way at things that he is good at, you are just expecting him, in that other one thing to think like a woman does.  I've managed to train myself slightly to provide sympathy for women and to listen, but it is very difficult  and it's on the basis of reading that book and understanding what it says.  I don't think many men would have the patience to read that book and will feel threatened by the fact they are expected to think like a woman.  So probably your best option is to discuss things with your female friends.  Or based on what I've said now, continue to talk to your husband about things and then have a giggle afterwards that he has just done the typical male thing and dismissed your problems because he thinks that's the solution. 

Am I making too much of the emotional support issue because to my friends he sounds like a dream! Their partners don't do housework or help with kids and they are out a lot doing their own thing. I think they must be mad!

I always think that women don't really understand just how good their man are until they speak to other women.  Whatever a man does a woman always wants more out of him.  She's always striving to make him even better than he is, even if he's close to perfect already.  I'm sorry I agree with your friends here, if you can get him to do all that, you really have got a good man.  Can I just say "you're whinging about something minor and I'm not going to give you any sympathy"?, lol.

No, really I can understand if women think like that and want sympathy from their man, it must be frustrating that they don't get it.  There are a lot of things that men find frustrating about women, but hey, we probably just end up dismissing it as a problem because well you know how we think now.

I have always lacked good emotional support and I was emotionally and physically abused by my father as a child and I witnessed it happening to my mother too. Could this be why I put so much value on this type of support?

No, definitely not.  From reading messages on this web site and reading books, I know a lot of women experience this problem of emotional support from their man.  It is a case of women think differently from men, neither can really understand each other, even people like me who read books about women, I know a lot about how a man thinks, which is why I have this web site, but even after reading books, I don't really understand how women think.  It maybe a case that you are in slightly more need than the average woman because of what you've experienced but I think many women will agree with me when I say this is an issue for most women?

I have had counselling in the past for this issue even though I wasn't too bad with it but I just want his support sometimes. I'm not a clingy, emotional type of woman but I need to talk things through sometimes! I do worry that if someone died or something he would be useless and I would really hate him.

Men see death as a serious thing, it will hurt him badly.  But again you may find he deals with it differently.  Quite often men think of death like this "the person whose died wouldn't want me to be miserable, they had a great life and I will always remember them".  Others will take it really badly and fall to pieces because death is most certainly not something minor to a bloke, it's why he sees everything else as minor or petty.

Do you think that some men are good but just lack the sensitivity chip?

Some men are more sensitive to women's feelings than others.  But I do believe men just don't think like women and they are never going to bring their heads around to think in the way that women do.  I would say, I'm one of the more sensitive men, but really I can't think like a woman and I still constantly offer solutions and am dismissive sometimes when women are talking, I just don't realise I'm doing it most of the time.  I'm just thinking like a man does.  

Can they still value you even without this?

From what you have said and the things he does for you, he definitely values you, believe me.  You don't go to all the trouble of doing the things he does for you, unless he values you.  You've just picked out one of the things he's less talented at and indeed most men are not particularly talented at and that's listening and then sympathising.

Want to get the opinion of other ladies who visit this web site?  Try my new forum .