To give a bit of context, I married my wife (let’s call her Tammy) about a year ago.
Tammy has a cousin (let’s call him Jay) who lives out of state. Jay and Tammy used to be super close when they were kids and Jay thinks of her more like a sister than a cousin.
Tammy told me that Jay said he is super scared of meeting me and Tammy’s sister’s husband, she asked him why and he said he is just really uncomfortable around other men. Tammy said it started because Jay attended an all boy’s school as a kid and was bullied terribly, once even having to be hospitalized due to a beating… ever since then he hates men, especially guys around his age.
He only hangs around women. Literally all his friends are women and he is super comfortable around them and women seem to love him too.
I have an amazing group of guy friends who helped and supported me through a lot. We planned a guys trip and I invited Jay but he politely declined.
He is also the only guy in the family, the rest of my wife’s cousins are all women who are older than him.
I would like to help him get over his phobia of men and stop being scared. I really want to help this guy because I love my wife and my wife really loves him and she worries about him.
I’m not sure how to go about doing this though. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA.
TL;DR My wife’s cousin is scared of men and I want o help him get over his fear. But I am not sure how.
3 comments
If it’s anyone’s place to do anything about this, it’s your wife’s, seeing as how she actually knows this person as well as being related to him, and could broach the subject. Could well be that he’s not interested in getting over anything… In which case she’s not going to get anywhere.
I’m going with my rational reasoning based on my life experience and that is that there might actually be some inappropriate relationship going on with your wife and her cousin.
I say this because it doesn’t seem feasible why he wouldn’t even want to meet you, because he has to go out into society and interact with other men. Are you entirely sure that he doesn’t have other male friends or is your only information what is being fed to you through tie wife?
It’s not your job to be his white night or savior honestly. If he doesn’t want to be around you then no means no.
It’s up to Jay if he wants to do anything about his phobia. It’s not your choice. If he’s happy, he’s happy and that’s what matters. IF he is interested, dumping him into a trip of a lot of men he doesn’t know for a long amount of time is a terrible place to start. Short one on one meetings on neutral ground where he is able to leave immediately is the place to start– *if he wants to*.