That's a great quote, Michael. Thank you for bringing it up.

I personally prefer to give men in these situations the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn't necessarily want to broad stroke that the reason they're doing these things is that they're 'too focused on themselves'.

In some cases, they never realized this is what is going on. After all, they were working hard to do all the things good men do, and just didn't have this more- nuanced understanding of what might help in their relationships. Now, when it's highlighted and brought to their consciousness, they may experience 'relief' at realizing this. Now that they realize it, we may see them take some corrective actions.

So they weren't necessarily failing to meet their partners' needs because of selfishness so much as...they just didn't know they weren't and didn't know how to.

I think...sometimes things seem so 'obvious' that if someone isn't doing the 'obvious' thing, we assume they're selfish. But...sometimes we just truly don't see the obvious. It helps as a community to share this info and experiences so we can reflect and realize, "Oh wait! This applies to me! I see now!"

Thank goodness for learning curves:)

--Lee