Ken Solin

Men rarely show up, emotionally, relegating women to compete for the few who know that in the tech age emotionally savvy guys are the new musclemen. For the rest, relationships remain a flabby mismatch. Just as physical flab indicates physical laziness, emotional flab suggests emotional laziness. Men have no training in the emotional arena, which means that they are either going to face up to their shortcomings, or continue to lag behind women.

One-sided relationships, one in which only one partner is emotionally savvy, never move to a higher level of intimacy. Absent deepening intimacy, relationships stagnate, and like a stagnant pond, begin to smell of decay. Not a very pretty image, but an appropriate one.

The old masculinity died with the start of The Industrial Revolution, 150 years ago, creating a vacuum in which boys never become men, and men behave like boys. There’s no balance between macho and wimpy. Men who lean too heavily on their emotions become sobbing basket cases. They are no more desirable than men who are completely out of touch with their feelings. So where’s the balance?

Women no longer seem willing to ignore men’s dysfunctional behavior. While they are rapidly evolving in business, medicine, and government, men are devolving. Men are lost, and women are frustrated because, for lack of a better term, amateur men, are unable or unwilling to meet their relationship needs.

Men are going to have to ramp up their game, just to catch-up to women on an emotional level. In practical terms, that means men have to stop being afraid of their feelings and learn to understand and control them. An angry guy becomes tedious and exhausting, and strains a relationship to the breaking point quickly.  Unless, or until he can figure out why he’s angry, and begin to work through his issue, a woman shouldn’t feel responsible for moving on without him.

It might help if men could watch other men on television in particular, behaving appropriately. Sadly, the men on television are the opposite. They’re shown to be stupid, foolish, and incapable of acting like men who set the bar higher. I suppose some people find that guy funny. I don’t, and I doubt most women do either.

Alternatively, men in public life have set an even worse example. Every male politician who lies to the public becomes just another man who can’t be trusted. Every thieving businessman suggests that men are not trustworthy. Every male celebrity who ends up in rehab suggests men can’t even take care of themselves, let alone a woman in a relationship.

So where are the good guys? Where are the men who are making a difference because they’re making an effort to relate to women, emotionally? One place to find men on the right path is in small, confidential men’s groups. There aren’t a lot of these men, yet, but their numbers are growing. I’ve been working with men in small groups for over twenty years, and in that time, every single man who dug deep and faced his issues, was able to overcome them, in time.

Men carry a tremendous amount of fear around with them, and it acts like an anchor. It’s heavy and severely limits a man’s maneuverability. Fear of not making enough money, of looking less manly, of being betrayed, of failing in career, of being unemployed, and last, but not least, of other men, all contribute to a dysfunctional man whose behavior reflects fear more than anything else.

An evolving man is one who understands his emotional shortcomings and works to overcome them. He understands that absent getting on top of his emotions and taking control of them, he will remain a victim of his emotions. When a man challenges his emotional issues by talking about them with other men, he begins the process of leaving them behind, like any excess baggage. Once he lightens his emotional load, he’s better prepared to work with his partner to deepen the intimacy in their relationship.

Women are drawn to his authentic power, because he wields his newly developed emotional strength with dignity and fairness. Other men want to emulate him, because he represents the new male paradigm; confident, courageous, emotionally strong, and with a clear sense of cultural position.

Do men’s groups really make that much of a difference? More than I could ever explain. I was an angry guy who raged in every relationship I was ever in, until I began my men’s group two decades ago. I talked about my anger and received helpful feedback from other men who had overcome their anger. I haven’t raged for years, and when I got married four years ago, I was grateful for the help I got from other, like-minded men. I never could have married if I was still wielding my anger like a weapon.

Individual therapy is always an option, but a better one, for most issues men face, is working those issues out with the help from other men. Once a man faces his biggest fear, fear of other men, change begins. There is no judgment, advice, or opinions offered in men’s groups. Men share their experiences instead, what they did that worked, and what they did that didn’t work. A woman’s support can make the difference between whether or not a man chooses the right path.

The male specific issues the great majority of men struggle with are related to divorce, dating, relationships, marriage, unemployment, raising children, and their inability to access and communicate their feelings. Each of these issues can best be resolved in small, confidential groups with other men. It’s entirely unnecessary for men to get into individual therapy if they’re struggling with these issues. What I’ve learned over twenty years working with men is that under the right conditions, men are eminently capable of working together to resolve the issues mentioned. Therapists don’t play any role in this work.

Getting into therapy to resolve any of these issues is wrong on two fronts. First, therapy is expensive, but that would be okay if therapy were a reliable, successful solution for men’s issues. It isn’t by any stretch. Second, male therapists don’t know any more about manhood issues than laymen. Male therapists struggle with all the same issues other men struggle with because therapy has no relevance dealing with the issues mentioned. In fact, male therapists’ training in psychology is irrelevant. Men have to assume the responsibility for their own emotional well-being.

Every single man who dug deep and did the work in my men’s group changed his behavior by working through his issues with other men. That’s worth repeating. Every single man who did the work, succeeded. There are no therapists who have anywhere near that level of success dealing with men’s issues. And worse, when therapists lead men’s groups, they are no longer men’s groups, but group therapy instead. Therapists, who lead men’s group, rob the men in that group of the opportunity to resolve their issues together and learn about themselves in the process.

Men’s groups don’t require a leader of any kind, therapist or otherwise. There’s no necessity for leadership because men can succeed far better without one. Leading men’s groups is a business for therapists, and men’s groups should never be about business. A man in a therapist led group pays for each facilitated meeting he attends, and that’s simply wrong. When men share their real life experiences on an emotional level, the results are vastly superior to any psychological help. Men are flesh and blood, not statistics or case studies, and every man in a men’s group should be an equal. When a leader assumes a role of authority, the men in the group become his patients or clients, and considering that therapists don’t know any more about their manhood than any other men, that’s just wrong-headed.

The work men accomplish in small groups of eight is different from group therapy. All of the work is related to men teaching each other what appropriate male behavior means and how to become better men. They accomplish this through the emotional sharing of their experiences. A man going through a divorce doesn’t need a therapist to tell him he’s in pain or that he should focus on how he’s feeling. What that man can benefit most from is hearing from other men who have gone through divorce who can share, on an emotional basis, how they felt, what they did that worked, and what didn’t work. He can hear how other men in his situation handled the devastating fallout from divorce. That man’s pain, anger, child rearing fears, dating, and ex-wife problems, can be best addressed by men who suffered them, worked through them, and moved beyond them. That information is invaluable, and is as available as the next time the group meets. Men have been meeting together in small groups like mine for decades, albeit in small numbers.

Shared emotional experience isn’t the same as advice, because it’s entirely based on what a man feels, not what he thinks. Advice has nothing to do with feelings. Advice is an opinion, and typically begins with the words, “You should”. Advice is the lowest form of conversation because opinions are debatable. A man sharing how he feels is not offering his opinion. His feelings are his absolute truth. No one can argue about a man’s feelings because that information is authentic when it comes from his heart, not his head.

The difficulty is getting men to realize the enormous value of what they already know. Eight, forty-year old men sitting together can share over three hundred years of real life experience. That’s an encyclopedia of male behavior a group can tap. Nothing is as relevant and real as men sharing their stories on an emotional level.

What most men expect or think is true about men’s group is incorrect. Men avoid emotional intimacy with each other because they have grown weary from years of listening to men who typically offer them lots of advice, judgment, and criticism. Men don’t trust each other because of how they have been treated by other men. There’s no trust in shallow relationships. Men learn it’s best to keep their problems to themselves to avoid an onslaught of advice.

Advice has no place in a men’s group. Men join groups to hear other men speak from their hearts, not their heads. There’s too much noise in their lives already to waste time listening to more gratuitous advice. Men want and deserve better. When men belong to a small, confidential group with other men who care about them, they feel safe unloading the emotional burdens that fester in their souls. They learn to open their hearts and speak from a place most men can’t or won’t because they don’t know how and have never felt safe enough to try. They also make authentic friends, and for many men, this is a first.

No man in a men’s group has to face his painful life’s issues alone, ever again. The sense of comfort knowing that seven other men truly care what happens to him and who speak their truths from their hearts to him can’t be quantified. It’s that big. Trust is a huge part of being in a men’s group, and that trust is unbreakable and enduring. The wimpy men are those who ignore their issues and continue to inflict them on everyone around them. The heroes are the men who face their issues and resolve them. That takes courage.

If you’re a man who feels he might benefit from sharing your issues with other men, my website contains information regarding how to join or start a group. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Being a lone wolf is emotional suicide. There’s value beyond your imagination in joining the pack. Join or start a men’s group and become a better man.

A lot has changed regarding responsibility for raising sons. It’s important to know that men were primarily responsible for raising their sons prior to the 1850′s and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. That’s a fact that’s been mostly forgotten. As a culture we’ve paid a heavy price for diminished fatherhood. The role of fathers has become mostly that of financial support, and this is true of men who remain married as well as men who don’t. Men must make fatherhood a proud and meaningful role again.

Prior to factories and mass production, men took their sons with them each day into the fields. They taught them how to grow food, hunt, and how to behave like men. They taught their sons trust by being trustworthy. They provided role models for their sons to emulate and imitate. These lessons were the rights of passage from boyhood to manhood that fathers had passed down to sons for centuries, and they were lost in a flash.

When fathers left the fields to work in the factories, women assumed the role of raising sons. While their intentions were good, women can’t be expected to know how to teach boys to become men. Women have raised boys to become the men they imagined they should be. What has made this situation even worse is that few fathers today have those skills any more either. Fatherhood has become a murky proposition. Men are portrayed as idiots and fools, particularly on television. Real life and cartoon fathers are typically pathetic losers. Perhaps art is simply imitating life.

The first man a boy learns trust from is his father. A father who makes promises to his son and breaks them has taught his son that he can’t be counted on, he can’t be trusted to keep his word. A father who abuses his son, physically or emotionally teaches his son that men are angry, unpredictable, and absolutely not trustworthy. A father who chastises or berates his son when his son expresses his passions and desires has taught his son that he can’t be trusted to listen to him with an open mind and see who he really is. A divorced father who doesn’t assume at least half the responsibility for raising his son simply continues the disconnection between boyhood and manhood. He shouldn’t be surprised if his son becomes problematic.

There are social repercussions from boys not feeling they can trust men that follow into adult life. There are reasons why few men have close men friends. Fear and trust are the culprits. Fear of looking less successful than other men, less manly, and less intelligent, stem from the lack of trust between sons and their fathers. What man would trust other men to treat him more fairly than his father did? That’s a risk most men prefer to avoid, and the alternative to trusting other men, being a loner, while painful, is preferable to being betrayed like they were when they were boys.

I raised my son from the time he was a year old after my wife moved back to Europe. I was twenty-one, a boy with a boy in many ways, but I felt an overwhelming commitment to my son. I was determined to raise him in a manner I had been denied, and that meant building trust with him. I coached soccer and baseball and drove on school outings because he knew he could depend on me. I still remember the triple batch of chocolate chip cookies I baked for his school that our dog ate and almost died. My son never feared volunteering my services. I’m sure he knew that sometimes it was difficult for me, but that he trusted me enough to know I’d be there for him was reward enough.

When he talked about his musical preferences as a teen, I didn’t tell him I hated his music. I did, but I kept it to myself because I knew it was a part of his believing in himself, part of building his character. When he told me he didn’t want to go to college, but wanted to join the Marines instead, I didn’t tell him that he was foolish just because I’d avoided the draft during Vietnam. He had a passion about patriotism and doing his part for his country that I respected and admired. I feared for his well-being, but I didn’t show him fear. I showed him respect and admiration for doing what he truly believed in. I prayed each night he’d be spared going to war, but I kept that to myself too. He didn’t need to carry my burden.

When he mustered out of the Marines and asked me to pay for college, I told him I would because I wanted to show respect and support for his decision. When he graduated four years later and moved far away from me for his first job, I cried some, and told him how difficult his moving away was for me. He reminded me that this was his life, not mine. I respected his desire to make it on his own without his father looking over his shoulder.

My son is forty-four now, and the father of his seven-year old son. I often tell him that he’s the father I wished I’d had; he’s that good at it. What’s immediately noticeable is that my grandson trusts his father unconditionally, and that’s huge progress in my family. I broke the chain of mistrust with my father, and my son has built trust with his son because of the lesson I taught him by being a trustworthy father.

Some things have changed since my son became a man. I never offer an opinion regarding what he’s talked about unless he asks for one. The quickest way to lose trust with an adult son is to berate him for his life’s decisions, or worse, second guess him. That’s disrespectful and kills trust instantly. Whoever or whatever you are as a man has nothing to do with how your son necessarily conducts himself as a man. I hoped my son would be a better father than I was, and in many ways he is. He is a man who other men look up to and trust. He’s suffered betrayal by a few men, but he’s never betrayed another man.

My son has men friends who are important to him. They ride motorcycles together and treat each other like brothers. He has men in his life he trusts, and that’s big for any man. He has become the incredible man he is at least partially because I allowed for his personal growth path and didn’t interfere unless I felt he would be permanently damaged. I didn’t want or expect him to be like me, I wanted him to be who he wanted to be. We share many character traits, which make me feel good about both of us, but in many ways he’s his own man. I couldn’t be a prouder dad, and I couldn’t have been any more involved.

If you’re the father of a son, don’t walk away from the boy who can grow up and become your most trusted and loved friend. Give him more than you received from your father. Teach him trust by being trustworthy. Teach him respect by respecting him. Teach him love by loving him. Teach him fairness by treating him fairly. My solemn promise to you is that you will know what it feels like to behave like a man. Your son will be living proof you were a father in the oldest sense of the word.