Ken Solin

For a woman who has done even a minimal amount of emotional growth work, i.e. reading books, going to workshops, listening to talks, being in a relationship with a man who hasn’t, is exhausting and frustrating. I frequently hear from women around the country who are fed up with their men because of the lack of emotional dialogue in their relationships.

I suppose that the hundredth time a woman asks a man how he feels about her and has him tell her what he thinks about her, is about all any human being should ever have to endure. Women have been carrying the emotional dialogue football for so long that men have been relegated to tackling dummies. Have men fallen that far, or was their sense of importance simply inflated in the first place? I suggest both are correct.

I tell guys that the silent, tough guy thing isn’t working for them, and in truth, it never did. It’s past time for men to wake-up to their emotional shortcomings. There’s nothing macho or manly about a guy who’s behavior is that of an emotionally brain dead tackling dummy. Worse, men aren’t even getting their needs met because they’re too lazy to learn a minimal amount of emotional vocabulary. Saying I feel, is different from saying I think, and its inexplicable why men still don’t get that, because it’s an apples/oranges difference.

Statements beginning with I feel, aren’t debatable, which should be a welcome change for men weary from being second-guessed and criticized by women. If a man describes how he’s feeling to a woman, she can’t offer up any judgment, opinion, or advice about what he shares with her. It’s likely the only scenario in a man’s entire life with a woman that doesn’t allow for any snappy comebacks, criticism, or opinions.

If a man tells a woman what he thinks about her, that’s his opinion, and therefore debatable. Telling a woman what he thinks about her isn’t going to help their relationship grow, and like it or not, a relationship that’s stagnant eventually dies from a lack of oxygen, or in this case, dialogue,

“I don’t think we screw often enough,” isn’t likely to get most women into bed. “I miss the warm feeling I get when we make love”, is a more successful way for a man to ask for and get what he needs from a woman. The first statement says what he thinks. Maybe his partner disagrees. Maybe she thinks they make love often enough already, so there’s a difference of opinion that isn’t likely to get settled amicably. The second statement says how a man is feeling. There’s no argument associated with that statement. .

If a woman tells her husband, “I don’t think that you don’t spend enough time with the kids”, he would probably see that as an attack on his character as a father. If instead she said, “I love to watch you play with the kids and see how much they adore you,” he would be hard-pressed to find anything angry or judgmental in that.

Women are now a larger percentage than men in the graduate schools of business, medicine, dentistry, and law, which is ample proof that they have enormous abilities, are driven to succeed, and aren’t waiting around for men to save them. If men hope to ever exert any influence in relationships, they’re going to have to wake up to the fact that their dysfunctional behavior is making them expendable.

The pre-women’s movement attitudes about women are beginning to apply to men who are increasingly being seen as only valuable as sex objects. Women need men for sex, but they no longer need men to have children. Men don’t seem to be getting any of this, perhaps because they are choosing to ignore it. That’s a mistake, because the problem isn’t going away.

Women haven’t yet equaled men in terms of pay and advancement in the workplace, but they’re closing in. I’ve worked with women, and what I’ve noticed is that they’re less ego-driven and are more driven just to get the job done right. Men can learn how to behave in the workplace from women who seem to want to get the job done with a minimum amount of nonsense or bravado.

The age of the muscle aspect of work is over. With few exceptions, women are more than strong enough to compete with men in any arena. In terms of emotional awareness, they are giants compared with men. I have been working with men for two decades, just to get them to understand what it is they need to focus on, and why. For the most part, the men I’ve worked with, all got it. The problem isn’t whether or not men are capable of emotional growth. It’s whether or not they are willing to work to catch up to women who are emotionally superior and in desperate need of men willing to meet them on a level relationship playing field.

I’m hopeful and optimistic, but I also realize that men are going to have to leave the starting gate if they hope to compete in the race. Women have been carrying the heavy load in relationships for as long as I can remember. If men are in fact stronger, they can demonstrate their strength by showing up emotionally. It’s time.

Nothing I had ever experienced prepared me for what came after my divorce. The only thing about myself that was clear to me was that I was angry. Not just angry, but outraged. My ex-wife was an alcoholic who insisted at the end of our marriage that I was 100% responsible for the divorce. She insisted she had done nothing wrong.

I didn’t focus on the obvious, which was that it takes two to make a marriage work or end in divorce. I was focused on the notion that a woman had hurt me and done me wrong. My outrage was being left with children to raise and no acknowledgement that was going to prove difficult. I think I hated women with such passion and resolve that I dated for a long while as a way to get back at women. Sex became angry sex, and my out of control anger infested each relationship I became involved in until it spun out of orbit and crashed on the trash heap.

Sadly, what I’ve noticed over twenty years working with men is that few travel a different road than the one I chose. It’s easy to see how another man is ruining his life by allowing his divorce to influence every relationship after his divorce.

I remember vividly a time soon after my divorce when I met a woman and after a while asked her out. She said as kindly as possible, but firmly, “Call me in a year when you’re over your divorce.” That statement made me feel awful enough to consider its validity. Of course, she was right not to want to be with an angry man who was living in the past and couldn’t let go. But I also wondered where that left me in the dating world.

I brought my dilemma to my men’s group to discuss and found that every single man who had gotten divorced, behaved similarly. All of the men talked about angry sex and the desire to punish women for what they felt their ex-wives had done to them. But each man had figured out that his temporary blindness towards women was just that, temporary. A few of the wiser men decided to take a time out from dating until they’d struggled with their divorce demons and won.

I had always had a woman in my life since I was a teenager. I’d never taken a break from dating or being in a relationship. So I decided to follow what appeared to be wisdom, and stayed home until I no longer felt I was on a mission to take revenge on womanhood. It took several months to become self-aware regarding my “issue” with women, and a few months more to realize how wrong I’d been about any woman being responsible for my anger or grief.

I’ve written many blogs about angry men and men who seem oblivious to the emotional aspect of relationships. I’ve read many responses to my blogs from men who contend that women don’t deserve or need any emotional connection because all they want is sex too. They further contend that if and when a woman mentions the word emotional, that they want to run away as fast as they can. This type of disrespect for women is pervasive and troubling. That’s fact. What’s not written yet is whether or not enough men will take the bull that is their issue with women, by the horns, and wrestle with it sufficient to let go of their anger.

There’s another aspect of divorce that seems to throw a steady stream of gasoline onto an already raging blaze. It’s about children, child support, custody, and visitation rights. For many men, not paying child support is a method for getting back at an ex-wife. I understand that feeling of being seen as just a checkbook and not a man. But the child support a man pays to his ex-wife typically doesn’t begin to cover the true cost of raising children. I have rarely met a woman who was living high on the hog because she received child support.

Those children are the product of a man’s best intentions gone astray. A man who can let go of the notion that he can get back at his ex-wife by denying her child support is a man who will rapidly let go of his anger and move on. While I was mostly a single dad, there were times when my children lived with my ex-wife, and I recall how used and abused I felt writing her a check each month, and being asked to buy my boys new sneakers or clothing on top of what I sent.

These are your children, guys, and the more involved you remain, the better your relationship will be with them as they grow up. Write the check each month, mail it, and let your anger go at the mailbox. Don’t remain angry because it will preclude you from ever being in a good relationship again. Look at your anger and the causes for it, preferably with other men who’ve gone through your drama and come out the other side intact. A man doesn’t punish his children through his ex-wife. He recognizes his part of the fiasco and tries to do better the next time. An angry man who marries while still angry will only inflict pain on his new wife and himself.

The woman who declined dating me until I’d spent a year working through my divorce was right on the money. A woman who dates a man who recently divorced is only going to get his leftover anger and disappointment, not his heart.
Act like a man!

Dating is a contact sport, but the bruises are on the inside. That doesn’t mean they’re not painful. Sometimes taking a break from searching for Mr. or Mrs. Right helps to heal those bruises, but continuing down the same, failed road simply guaranties more failure and bruising.

Knowing the 5 most important questions to ask your next date is a viable way to avoid the pain that comes when relationships crater after six months, the typical length of most failed relationships. If you’re a woman who frequently asks her friends, “Where are all the good men”, pay attention because you have created some of your own frustration. If you’re a man who asks his men friends, “What do women want, anyway”, listen up because the reason you don’t know is you haven’t asked the right questions.

While I don’t guarantee that the correct answers means your date is “the one”, you have at a minimum, increased the odds in your favor considerably.

1. Do you have a job or some way of supporting yourself? Sure, lots of unemployed people are solid men and women, but beginning a relationship with someone who’s struggling just to pay the rent, puts too much stress on a brand new relationship. Another consideration is whether or not you plan to support this man or woman, unconditionally, for an indeterminate amount of time, and if so, what are you expecting in return? Can you explain to the person you’re contemplating supporting, what if any power they will have in your relationship?

2. Have you ever been in individual therapy, group therapy, a men’s or women’s group, attended a relationship workshop, or at least read a book about relationships? A man or woman who accepts failures in relationships as just part of the numbers game is delusional. The notion of having to kiss a lot of frogs to find “the one” is also delusional. A man or woman who doesn’t show any interest in personal growth is unlikely to be interested or skilled enough to work with you to resolve the inevitable problems that arise in all relationships.

3. Do you have any same sex friends? Men and women who don’t have any emotionally intimate friendships, likely have trust issues, and those issues may cross gender lines as well. Life is too hard to navigate without friends to help when your world collapses. Also, dating a loner means that you have just become that person’s entire social world, and no one should consider shouldering that heavy burden.

4. What did your date learn from his or her last failed relationship? The answer, nothing, is the signal to immediately get out of your chair and leave the coffee shop. Put down your coffee or tea, say “nice to meet you”, and run as fast as you can. Don’t look back and don’t second guess yourself. A handsome guy or a stunning woman means little if there’s no sense of personal responsibility. Also, if he or she accepts no blame for a failed relationship, they aren’t going to accept any blame in your relationship either.

5. Last, and important, is whether or not your date has a sense of humor that at least resembles yours. When you deliver your killer, funniest jokes or lines, does the other person just look at you with a blank stare? It might seem trivial but after the initial heat of the relationship ebbs, what’s left to carry the relationship are mutual interests, and comedy is one of those interests. In fairness, if you don’t have a sense of humor and your date doesn’t either, maybe that’s a good match. A man or woman with a sense of humor can laugh at their own mistakes, which reduces the stress and allows for healing.

If you’ve been dating unsuccessfully for a while and still think finding Mr. or Mrs. Right is just luck, think again. The answers to these questions are important, and I mean the answers to all these questions. This isn’t the best 3 out of 5, it’s all or nothing, and if you accept less than 5 right answers, you just limited your chances for the happiness you want and deserve. It’s critical to be your own best friend in the same manner you would warn a best friend to be wary of anyone who didn’t provide solid answers. How many more dates is it going to take for you to find the man or woman you want to spend your life with? That’s entirely up to you.