When I got into spirituality and started meeting men that were spiritual as well, I thought: “That must mean we will automatically have a great relationship with open communication and deep connection, right?” Wrong.
Dating spiritual men can be complicated.
Don’t get me wrong, spirituality is great, and many spiritual men make good partners, but a lot of them can be really good at using their spirituality to bypass their emotions or things happening in their life.
This is when things tend to get really confusing and complicated for anyone involved.
Here are 12 reasons why it can be so complicated to be with a spiritual man:
1) They dismiss your emotions
Maybe you had a really hard day at work. You want to vent to your partner about it. Instead of being supportive, a spiritual man might ask you why you are being so overly negative all the time.
This kind of gaslighting will make you feel like you are the one doing something false here, like feeling any negative emotion at all is wrong, when in fact, that is not the case at all.
Another example of this might be when you open up to your partner about a traumatic experience you’ve had in the past, and he tells you about what a great learning experience this is, instead of validating the traumatic nature of the event and how hard that must have been for you.
When a person who suffered a trauma hears this, they might start blaming themselves for “making such a big deal out of it” or “not being grateful for the learning experience”.
This can be very hard, especially in relationships, as you will be left feeling unseen and not listened to, or worst case, even wrong for feeling a certain way, when traumatic experiences are actually more than valid.
2) They repress feelings of anger
Of course, we have heard many stories of men with anger issues, so meeting a spiritual man who keeps his anger in check should be a good thing, right?
Unfortunately, that is only partly the case. It is without a doubt important to learn how to control feelings of anger and express them in a healthy way. But believe it or not, repressing it entirely does the exact opposite!
Men who are under the impression that anger is a destructive emotion, and that in order to be spiritual, loving, and kind, it is not an acceptable feeling to have, tend to run into some serious issues.
The thing is, anger is a completely normal human emotion, that can even be beneficial at times. It can put light on injustice and help an individual to become motivated to take action against that injustice.
Now, if a man constantly represses his anger with the idea, that it will make him a “bad person”, those feelings of being treated unjustly don’t just disappear.
Without healthy expression the anger will show up in other ways, like feelings of sadness or depression, anxiety, feeling bitter or resentful towards others, or it will accumulate and eventually burst out in an explosive, uncontrolled way.
There are many healthy coping mechanisms to give anger a productive outlet in order to avoid this.
3) They justify suffering
Sometimes, men will use spirituality to justify not taking action in their own life. For example, they might say things like “it was meant to be” or “it is happening for a reason”.
Now, don’t get me wrong, these ideas can be very useful in coping with certain difficult situations in life. Some things truly can’t be changed, and it is tremendously helpful to be able to believe in a greater good in these situations.
The only problem that arises, is when men use them constantly as an excuse not to change unfavorable situations in their own life that they could totally change if they wanted to.
4) They avoid taking responsibility
When a man holds a certain belief about himself, he may not be comfortable with taking responsibility for things that conflict with this belief.
For example, a spiritual man believes he is kind and respectful towards women. However, in the past, he has done some things that disrespected or hurt women.
Instead of owning up to where he might have gone wrong, and learning from the experience, he might completely avoid taking responsibility and in turn place all the blame on the other person.
This does not have to be exclusive to past events. Nobody, not even the most spiritual person on this planet is perfect. If one can’t own up to their mistakes, however, because they can’t bear to not see themselves in a positive light, this can lead to big problems in relationships with other people.
5) They are spiritual narcissists
Some men get into spirituality, thinking they are evolving and growing as people. As controversial as it might sound (as spirituality is aimed to do the exact opposite), sometimes, in reality, all they are doing is growing their ego.
In short, spiritual practices are used by them to increase their self-importance.
Some signs of spiritual narcissists are when they constantly talk about their own achievements. Of course, it’s okay to toot your own horn every once in a while or be excited when making a spiritual breakthrough.
This only becomes a problem when every conversation turns into an opportunity to let other people know how amazing, spiritual, or successful they are on their journey.
Another red flag is when a man twists spiritual concepts to his own gain, exploiting others in the process. This can sometimes be seen with women being used for sexual connection under the premise of concepts such as soul mates or twin flames.
A pretty easy way to distinguish spiritual men from spiritual narcissists is by watching, whether their actions match their words. When someone keeps talking about beautiful philosophies and theories, but their daily actions reflect the complete opposite, it is quite clear that they use spirituality for appearance rather than as a way of life.
6) They deny and repress feelings, and practice non-attachment to unhealthy levels
Instead of accepting their feelings and letting themselves feel them, spiritual men sometimes push down any unwanted emotions and attachments in an attempt to resemble what they believe is the image of a “spiritual person”.
One of these things, in particular, can be the idea of non-attachment. Many spiritual ideologies preach non-attachment. However, in a lot of cases, this can be severely misinterpreted.
When men have the idea that they have to abstain from any type of attachment, be it materialistic or in terms of relationships, it can get very confusing for the people in their lives.
Not only is it unhealthy to be completely unattached from everything (it can actually be a way to avoid pain and difficult emotions), sometimes these mindsets also lead to shaming the people in their lives with suggestions like “you are too attached”.
Especially in close relationships, this can be confusing and painful to hear.
7) They don’t live in the present moment
As absurd as it may sound, as being in the here and now is the center of a lot of spiritual practices, some men actually use spirituality to escape the present.
They do so by spending a lot of time in spiritual realms. Of course, it can be a great thing to discover different realms, and it is one of the reasons why spirituality can be so enthralling.
When men forget about their existence and identity in the process, however, this can have negative effects on their lives.
When somebody is constantly in a different reality, they aren’t emotionally available to the people around them. It is important to note that yes, you are an infinite being with the entire universe inside of you, but you are also you, with all the human responsibilities that come with that.
Finding a balance between the two is key to a healthy life, and if a man has not found that balance, it can get very confusing for the people around him.
8) They think they are spiritually superior to mask their insecurities
Sometimes, men use spirituality to make themselves feel superior to other people. When that is the case, it more often than not stems from deep insecurity around not being good enough.
This often shows up in the way of a man talking down or belittling your spiritual journey because his experiences were “superior” in one way or another.
When this happens, there is a very good chance that he is actually feeling very insecure and trying to mask that by boasting about how his achievement was better than yours.
This can be confusing, as they might seem very confident in the moment, but believe me, a man who is truly confident knows that he doesn’t need to belittle your success to validate his own.
9) They judge others
Many spiritual concepts revolve around accepting and loving other people. And still, many men end up judging others even more when they are on their spiritual journey.
This can often be noticed when a man judges someone for expressing healthy and justifiable emotions. Let’s say someone is very angry because they were treated unfairly. Anger is not a “bad” emotion. Just because it isn’t the “Zen” state many strive for, doesn’t make it any less natural, healthy, or okay.
If someone is authentically spiritual, they will not suppress emotions or judge others for expressing them, just because they might be uncomfortable. Judging others for their emotions or expression thereof is often a sign of not having accepted that very emotion within yourself.
Men who overly judge others probably have a lot of work to do still with integrating their own emotions.
10) They are overly positive
Generally, positivity is a good thing. It is great if a spiritual man has the ability to look for the bright side in situations.
However, there is such a thing as toxic positivity. This usually shows up as them using positivity in order to escape life’s real pain and difficulties.
Emotions that are viewed as “bad”, such as grief, worry, pain, and fear, are completely normal, and if a man starts to mask them all with a facade of positivity, he has no ability to express and work through these difficult emotions, which will build up over time in one way or another.
So, such men have clearly picked up a toxic habit. What about you?
When it comes to your personal spiritual journey, which toxic habits have you unknowingly picked up?
Is it the need to be positive all the time? Is it a sense of superiority over those who lack spiritual awareness?
Even well-meaning gurus and experts can get it wrong.
The result?
You end up achieving the opposite of what you’re searching for. You do more to harm yourself than to heal.
You may even hurt those around you.
In this eye-opening video, the shaman Rudá Iandé explains how so many of us fall into the toxic spirituality trap. He himself went through a similar experience at the start of his journey.
But with over 30 years of experience in the spiritual field, Rudá now confronts and tackles popular toxic traits and habits.
As he mentions in the video, spirituality should be about empowering yourself. Not suppressing emotions, not judging others, but forming a pure connection with who you are at your core.
If this is what you’d like to achieve, click here to watch the free video.
Even if you’re well into your spiritual journey, it’s never too late to unlearn the myths you’ve bought for truth!
11) It’s never fun and games with them
Life is not always just fun and games, and turning a blind eye to that fact will not make the feelings go away.
Often, this behavior can also lead to a man acting like things are fine, when they clearly aren’t.
This can lead to problems in a relationship, as he will not talk about things that are clearly issues, in an attempt to simply mask them. You can’t really solve a problem if you don’t acknowledge it, can you?
Not all spiritual men are complicated
Although the reasons above make good points about spiritual men, they don’t apply to all men.
Who knows, maybe the spiritual man you’re thinking of appears complicated to you because you don’t know him very well.
So, you could give yourself some time to understand this guy and his spiritual views.
