Every woman who has ever loved a man is familiar with The Cave. It is that place where all men go when they don’t know what to do with the women in their lives. This is where they can hide out with the remote in one hand and a beverage in the other (or some version of same). They know what to do with this! It’s familiar! And more than this, it’s comfortable. Having lived much of my life with five men (Hubby and four sons) I have had a steady diet of The Cave.
When it first showed up in my life, I was frantic to get them to come out. “What have I done?” and, “How can I help?” or, “Can we talk about it?” But The Cave is so comfortable. They just sit there and what? Eat! Watch Sports! Read! You are standing or sitting right there and it’s as if you aren’t even in the room. And when they leave, and don’t say goodbye, or won’t talk and communicate, well… that’s just flat out painful; and they don’t even know this because they’re in The Cave. You are for all intensive purposes being told that though you are breathing, you are dead.
When questions didn’t work, I use to try bringing more appetizing food than whatever was in front of them. At another point, I hid the remote. That definitely didn’t work because then all the other men would be upset because they couldn’t watch TV with it and then I had MORE men in their cave. (“RRRRrrrrr…”)
Ignore her. Punish her. Eliminate her. Make her suffer. Make her pay. I use to go through all of these thoughts and the emotions that go along with them. The sadness. The guilt. The tears. The ache in the gut so far down you couldn’t make it go away. (Sometimes I still go through this.) The agony when this went on for days for weeks at a time.
Then one day when this had gone on for more than I could stand, another woman older than me said that I needed to get some other activities besides straining over every little thing that happened to the men in my life. Mom said, “It’s a ‘man thing’ that has been going on long before the remote was ever invented. Your Grandpa Wright never had a TV when he was married. He had his workshop… and no one was allowed to go in there.” .. until a certain granddaughter won his heart and she got to go. I would sit on a stool while he made beautiful things out of wood. (I think it helped that I didn’t talk much!) I recall my father saying he was never allowed in there and why did I get to go! Then he disappeared into HIS cave and a woman wasn’t even involved… oh yes… there was… his little daughter!
So how come I was in my granddad’s wood shed-slash-cave and no one else got to go? I was not the same as “the woman in his life”… I was a little girl who had no idea how to upset him. I just loved the stuffings out of him. And this is what my mother figured out for me. She said, “If you don’t want those men of yours in The Cave forever, do what children do and simply love them the best you can… like you did your grandpa.”
One of the men I love is in his cave right now. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced this and it can be really cold outside of it. That said, I haven’t forgotten what my mother said. So I will be sitting outside the cave and loving this person the best I can. Yes, he’s a distance away. Yes, it’s going to take time for him to come out. But he’s hurting and upset and uncomfortable and probably both of us are misunderstanding each other and need to talk. We probably won’t be conversing today or tomorrow, because, MAN, these guys can stew when they have a mind to do it! Still… I have a while, so I’ll just be waiting. Doing the little things in life that make me who I am and what I am… and waiting. Sigh… Waiting and praying… It’s just got to be lonely in that dank dark place, even if it is comfortable. And we women have warm and loving arms with hearts that want to understand.
May everyone experience less “cave” and more love!
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple