Ep. 52: A Conversation About Men & Emotional Intimacy with Melissa Fulgieri

Melissa Fulgieri is a social worker, entrepreneur, speaker, professor, and writer living and working in New York City. She has achieved success in various fields and is known for her work in emotional literacy and nuanced conversations. She is taking on one client and can be found on Instagram and her website, which is her first and last name dot com. She is also going to start writing a monthly column for Byline in June. Her ethos revolves around embracing emotions, leaning into conflict for connection, and acknowledging feelings of loneliness. In this episode Rachel talks with Melissa Fulgieri, a social worker, entrepreneur, speaker, professor, and writer, about emotional intimacy, specifically for those who were assigned male at birth and socialized as men in the world. Melissa explains her interest in the topic and the driving force behind wanting to do an episode on it. The conversation dives into societal norms and expectations around emotional vulnerability, the effects of toxic masculinity, and ways to promote emotional intimacy in relationships.   Timestamps:   [00:01:10] Emotional intimacy among men. [00:04:47] "Lovingly direct" therapy. [00:08:56] Men working on self-awareness. [00:13:35] Men's difficulty to ask for help. [00:19:38] Happy Wife, Happy Life. [00:22:48] Understanding male emotional shutdown. [00:27:15] The power of saying "I don't know". [00:33:17] Emotional intimacy for men. [00:36:22] Leave a rating and review.   Quotes:   00:00:32 - "It's time for your mind to scream less and for you to screw more." 00:04:41 - "where I realized that you've just lovingly told me to go fuck myself." 00:09:14 - "I want to work on my white male entitlement. I want to treat myself better because I realized that when I don't treat myself well, I treat the women in my life really poorly." 00:10:27 - "Melissa, this book needs to be written, but I have to tell you, men don't read self help books." 00:13:35 - "The theme that I see time and time again is this difficulty to ask for help." 00:19:38 - "And what ends up happening is they end up divorcing themselves from their actual internal experience, and therefore their actual needs. Because they think let me just conflict avoid, make my partner happy, and that will somehow result in happiness for me, and it's not working." 00:20:28 - "And so that's how I lean out, right? Whereas men, I think often lean out by being agreeable. And so what's happening is you're like, two people are leaning out and not even authentically connecting around what they actually want." 00:25:35 - "That is such a, oh, yes." 00:29:32 - "I'm so sorry, I don't know how to do that." 00:33:41 - "specifically around men and emotional intimacy is this seeing being vulnerable and seeing the inner world and being known is how we combat that." 00:35:06 - "We have to all be able to take that risk because that's where the greatest rewards are."   Connect with Melissa Fulgieri Website:            melissafulgieri.com Instagram:              @melissafulgierillc   Connect with Rachel Wright Website:            https://rachelwrightnyc.com Instagram:          @thewright_rachel Twitter:              @thewrightrachel   Resources Chosen Family Law Center. Diana’s TED Talk. The LGBTQ+ Bar. Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition.   Get 20% OFF Your First Order at The Honey Pot! Use Promo Code: Rachel20 WIN A FREE INTIMACY AFTER DARK DECK!  Get 30% OFF the NEW After Dark Deck! Use Promo Code: Rachel Get your Zumio Discount!   Call to Action Please, if you love this episode, share it with your friends and others. To help this podcast grow, please leave a review, and don’t forget to subscribe.