He is charming, sensuous and handsome. He’s sweeps you off your feet and invites you into his life. He’s attentive, generous and sex is great. All seems ideal, until you come up against one of his habits, such as smoking.
Once he has decided to accept you into his life, he doesn’t want to let go of you, so he promises to quit. But as you will learn later, change does not come easily to a Taurean man (or woman) and it just never seems to happen.
Of course, as a non-Taurean, you don’t understand that for a person born under the sign of Taurus, change has to be on their terms and in their own time. They seem to operate by a different clock which is frustratingly slow. As a fiery non-earth person, it seems like he moves at a snail's pace compared to your natural hare’s speed, both physically and mentally.
After the honeymoon period has worn off and you see your handsome, stalwart man more clearly, you see that he is slowly and steadily changing in micro-increments. Slow and steady is his mantra. But that’s not good enough for you, who can change on a dime, when you want to.
So just how can you motivate a Taurean man to keep his promise to quit smoking, or anything else he says he will do, in what to you, seems a reasonable time?
The first tactic is trying to talk and persuade him with impeccable logic. He listens to the first sentence or two, then glazes over. Any more conversation falls on deaf ears and if one does not understand the signs and keeps talking, he will retaliate by telling everyone you are ‘ragging’ on him. He ignores you or changes the subject, turns on the TV or goes off and plays a game of solitaire. He smokes even more and blames you for it.
When polite conversation seems to have no effect, the next tactic is to threaten to leave. By this time, you know he wants to keep you in his life and you put your relationship and personal power on the chopping block in a bid to get him to take some new action. But he has an ace in the hole: patience. Incredible patience! And a keen sense of you. He can sniff out the truth from a mile away. He will never let on, though.
He calls your bluff and says go ahead and leave. He says if you are miserable, you shouldn’t be with him. He declares that he can not make you happy, so maybe you should go somewhere else, be with someone else who can do a better job.
Now you have to either storm off or back down and eat crow, admitting you want the relationship, just not the smoking. You have to make peace with yourself and him, and negotiate a compromise about the smoking. You realize that he may never change and maybe you would be happier if you redirected your attention to another part of your life. What you don’t realize is you have met your match, your Soul Mate, who is going to push you to go within to get what you want out of life.
Shaken up from the last pitch for change and the let down when he didn’t take the bait, you try another approach: mirroring his behavior. Not a smoker yourself, you try out a cigarette in front of him. It tastes horrible, you cough profusely and it makes your nose run, eyes water and throat sore. You get a headache. Secretly, you declare you will never do that again, but you put on a good show for your partner, saying if it’s good for him, it must be good for you, too. This gets a response. The normally peaceful Taurean grabs the cigarette out of your hand and puts it out, then jumps in his truck and drives off in a rush. When he returns, he is back to his usual placid nature and smells heavily of smoke.
You struck out. You retreat and review the situation. It seems that he is not going to honor his promise. You’ve tried to change him but it doesn't seem possible. You seriously weigh the pros and cons of the relationship. Even though you have thought of ending the relationship many times, there seems to be a karmic connection between the two of you, so even though you are very frustrated, you don’t leave. By this time a number of months have passed.
You negotiate with him: no smoking in the house. If he wants you in his life, he needs to respect you enough to keep his smelly addiction away from you. So he agrees.
But he is a Pleiadean Taurean, meaning that he likes to take shortcuts and details are something someone else should do. So he cheats and smokes in the house when you are not there, airs out the house just before you arrive for a visit, then continues his old ways after you depart. It’s not as bad as before, but the stale smoke smell is in the heat ducts, permeates clothes and the heater circulates irritants in the air. Your health suffers, you get cranky and decide to spend more time in your own, smoke free house.
You decide not to spend as much time with him at his house. You make it clear to him that as long as the house is smoky, it’s not comfortable for you to stay. Instead, you find new activities to do that keep you at your home. You take classes, start your own business and spend more time taking care of yourself. Mostly, you learn about what makes you tick and attempt to understand your Taurean man. The result is he spends more time at your house and smokes less. He tries to be more accommodating and sensitive to your needs and wishes.
As the years unfold, you accept that he won’t change. You have to admit that your dream Taurean man has flaws. This is yet another time to decide your future. If you are to build a future with this man, you have to change your vision of your relationship, get out of the clouds and make the most of what you already have. You think about what is really important in your life, and what your relationship offers you, and what you offer him.
You remind yourself that he has been incredibly patient with you and your emotional outbursts protesting any number of grievances in the relationship. By this time, you realize that his stubbornness and who he is, has actually caused you to grow and become a more understanding and tolerant person and also driven you to seek happiness and love from within. When you look back, you see how you have become more independent, value yourself more and have the courage to speak your truth in a more or less diplomatic way. You have trained him and he has trained you. The more you take away your expectations for what he is supposed to do or give you, the more open and generous he becomes and the easier the relationship flows.
You take your connection even deeper when, instead of telling him what you want him to do, you wait for an auspicious time when you can explain, from your heart, why you are asking him to make certain choices. He listens attentively when you speak passionately from your heart about how you feel about the current topic and how important he is to you. By now you have learned to share what you feel and make one request and then drop the topic. He is more responsive to this technique.
The truth is, even though he appears to ignore your pleas and inspiring words, or downright complaints, inside, the Taurean man is highly sensitive and your harsh words do hurt. He is very intelligent and needs to hear only a sentence or two about what you want. Then he needs time to process it in his annoyingly slow (based of the processing speed of a fire person) internal way. Don’t be mislead by his protests. This is a way to get you off the track so that he can process what you talked about, in peace.
One Taurean quirk you discover is how he will provoke trouble in the relationship. You don’t know if it’s intentional or unconscious, but either way, when things seem too calm and complacent in the relationship, he will do or say something that will upset you. It’s actually Spirit giving you a practice session, but when you are caught in the emotion of the situation, you don’t see that perspective. It’s almost like at some level, he needs someone to stir the pot and raise the energy level. Earth people have a different kind of vitality than fire people, who tend to move quickly, animatedly and heatedly. You might not think it is so, but he has you figured out even better than you know yourself and knows exactly what to do to stir up your fire, which in turn, brings life force to him. The truth is, he needs your dynamic, fiery energy for the life force it activates in him.
In the process, he can get scorched. He doesn’t like to feel the force of your passionate anger and resists it. This action usually adds more fuel to your conflagration. In order to restore harmony and balance, when he does something to provoke your emotions, calm yourself down first before you say your piece. Condense it into a sentence or two and then walk away.
It make take days or weeks before he brings up the topic. You may need to nudge him by asking him what he thinks. He won’t be rushed into a decision. If you push and prod too invasively, he digs in his heels and the whole matter is delayed or he does something impulsive, such as light up a cigarette. He weighs all the factors in an excruciatingly obscure way. You champ at the bit because you already know what to do, but you have to wait for him. He teaches you patience.
Crazy as it seems, these solar flares actually make your relationship stronger. In a strange, invisible dance that you can only see when you look back, each time you take a step in your personal growth and the more you stand up and value yourself in the relationship, the more he does things to show he values you.
You learn that a Taurean man likes a mate who is straight forward, honest, independent, strong-willed, sensitive and psychic. You have to prove to a Taurean man that you are what you say you are. It’s easy to win the heart of a Taurean man. They like beauty, kindness, generosity, comfort, great food and sex.
Your Taurean man has secrets. This is one of the things he uses to trigger you. He simply will not share what he is thinking or feeling. He has his private, secret life and activities. This puts the spotlight on trust and this is where a strong intuitive sense will help you. On the other hand, he doesn’t like you to have secrets from him. Once he feels safe with you, he will let you into his inner world, but you have to prove you are worthy and that take a very long time - years, in fact. The more you learn to control and mitigate your reactions and the more peaceful you are, the easier it is to communicate with him.
On the other hand, like a bull with his harem of cows, he doesn’t want to let you go and you can use this as very subtle leverage. Creating your own hobbies and circle of friends will put a subtle pressure on him to keep an eye on you and make more of an effort to engage. By the same token, breaking the trust will devastate him. It’s about finding the balance where you draw upon your own inner world to achieve happiness in life and also share that joy with him. In time he will express his respect and appreciation.
Since Taurean people are so closely aligned with the earth, they tend to have strong bodies. Some are healthy to the point of taking their bodies for granted. They abuse them for years, performing many hours of physical tasks day after day, smoking, drinking and generally not caring for themselves. For years they can get away with it, until at some point, the body, earth’s representative, protests and rebels by getting sick. For as sensitive and sensuous as a Taurean is, he can be very oblivious to his body’s messages.
A head on confrontation won’t work with a Taurean man about his health, or changing his health habits. Often, his response is saying that what he has done to care for himself has worked for years. And he is doing the best he can now and sees no reason to change.
Trying to motivate a Taurean man to change his health behaviors is like trying to move a mountain with a toothbrush. You have to outsmart him, play on his desire to please others. You are too familiar and he will push back, but strangers or other family members have more clout. Enlist their help. He will try to please them, since he wants to be recognized and appreciated. What the Taurean man won’t reveal is his fears about his future. He keeps it hidden by stubbornly resisting your help in providing him with healthy choices.
As you keep working on your own responses to life and your relationship triggers, you come to appreciate your Taurean man and are grateful for who he is. Truth be told, you don’t want him to change, because every time you come up against his slow moving, resistant response to life, instead of rushing off without thinking about the consequences, you stop and take a look at whether he has a point of view that benefits you. Beneath that stoic exterior resides a highly sensitive, intelligent and wise person, who needs to be acknowledged and appreciated for him to shine. He offers you stability, consistency and durability. It takes years for you to achieve this new, powerful perspective. He teaches a fiery person patience, right timing and to accept that another person may have a different path and point of view than you.
The Taurean shines in practical wisdom and groundedness. He is so firmly rooted in the Earth that it takes a monumental tempest to shake him. In the process, he gives roots to the fire person who tends to live in the clouds and often, off planet.
The Taurean is very connected to the physical/material realm. They understand the language of actions, gifts and doing things for them. When you communicate with them, use terminology that they can understand. It is especially effective to use examples from their work world, such as making analogies to caring for themselves like they take care of their work equipment or drawing comparisons, such as keeping their air cleaner (lungs) clean, like they do for their car. Sometimes concepts appear to fly right over their heads, especially those that come from the lofty philosophies that fiery people ponder. Keep it down to earth in everything.
When fate draws an emotional fire person to a grounded earth person, sparks can fly - mostly from the fiery person. The fire person can scorch earth and earth can put out the fire in a fiery person. When they figure out how to work together, fire warms earth just enough to make a comfortable hearth and earth supports growth and life.
He won’t admit it, but the longer you are together, the more you become a part of him and he a part of you. You balance each other perfectly, most of the time. The fire person needs someone to keep her feet on the ground and the earth-bound tame bull needs to be prodded, and who better to do that, than a fire person!
In summary, the best way I’ve found to motive a Taurean man is to have the courage to speak what is in my heart and explain why that is meaningful. It takes self control and a LOT of patience. See him as an equal and value and respect his perspective. Since they respond to all the senses, it helps to sit beside him, touching him. Here are some tips for better communication.
1. One concept at a time.
2. Short sentences speaking directly to the point. No rambling or beating around the bush.
3. Stop talking and walk away or sit quietly beside him.
4. Give him time to process the topic and revisit it with a simple question, such as, “What did you think about….?”
5. Be upfront with your agenda.
After all these years, I wouldn't trade my Taurean man for anyone. He has weathered many a storm with rock solid strength that I have used to propel myself into becoming more of who I am.
I'd love to hear about your experiences with your Taurean friend or partner.
Elaine