Ken Solin

Sure, a man can bury his head in the sand and pretend his life is different than what it actually is. A man can live in fear his entire life. All he has to do is remain unconscious about the world around him. He can create a fantasy about the quality of his life that serves as a buffer from the truth. While he may not successfully fool anyone, he can fool himself into believing that he’s acting like a man by going it alone.

A man whose life is incomplete because of a lack of emotional connection with anyone misses out on the opportunity for love. Fear creates dysfunctional men, and fear is a major disability. A man who behaves out of fear has no authentic men friends, and never has successful relationships with women because he is terrified to open his heart.

Yeah, I know, there’s lots of talk these days about men and their hearts. Lots of jokes about men who don’t have a clue about their emotions, but there’s nothing funny about the pain men endure in their self-imposed emotional solitude. Where’s the love a man requires in order to act like a man? Where’s the emotional dialogue that is the basis for all interpersonal relationships?

Men who face their demon fear can kill it dead, and they can most easily accomplish this with the help of other, like-minded men. No man is obligated to live in fear just because circumstances put it there. Since men first learn trust from their fathers, a man whose father wasn’t trustworthy creates fear and sets a boy up for a life of being controlled by his demon. No man or woman can breach the wall a young boy creates in his heart once it has been trampled by someone close to him. Overcoming that fear and mistrust is hard slogging and need not be faced alone. It’s not a solo journey.

Men who talk with other men about their fear hear from other men how they experienced theirs. It is this experiential information men share with each other that is the basis for what I term, collective male wisdom. In nearly two decades of working with men what I know with absolute certainty is that it is rare that one man out of a group of eight has an emotional experience none of the others have ever faced. A group of men is an encyclopedia of emotional experience that any man can draw from when facing his own.

Once men move beyond the mistrust and the associated fear, they can begin living their emotional lives fully. They can experience love on a level they never imagined possible.

Few men have authentic friends and perhaps a definition of an authentic friend might help men understand what that means. The next time your life falls apart and you need solace and information, who are you going to call? Who would be at your door in minutes to aid you in your absolute time of need? If, like most men, the answer is no one, then consider your work to be creating authentic friendships. The men you could meet with on a regular basis are your friends because you share what’s in your heart with them. They know you intimately and respect your willingness to let them into your heart and your life.

Most women can’t imagine being in a relationship with men who are emotionally unavailable. The same emotional skills men learn from other men apply to relationships with women as well. It’s all about being willing to speak from your heart and not just your head.

Get together on a regular basis with other men in a small group and discover your heart-based voice. Leave your lonely planet behind as you blast off into the more complete world that encompasses relationships. Get your head out of the sand.

Act like a man!

The photo at the left was taken on the tiny South Pacific island of Vanuatu, where every year men who want to be recognized as the bravest jump from the equivalent of a seven story building, held only by a vine attached to their ankles. The idea is to leap from the top and land with your head just a scant few inches short of the ground.

While this is surely a death-defying act, so is making friends for many men. The notion of asking another man to be a friend is so frightening that even a man who is lonely for the company of other men will stop short of asking another man for his friendship.

The fear of being seen as less than manly is exacerbated by the fear of rejection. For decades I have asked men without friends why they are in that situation and the answer is nearly always the same. “I don’t know, but I really would like to have a friend or friends.” When I ask if they are willing to work at making friends, they frequently answer, “yes, how do I go about doing that? I really don’t know how.”

I think about male adolescence when nearly all boys have friends and few had to think about how they made that happen. As adults men do think about how to make friends, but after decades of being lone wolves, they simply have forgotten what’s in the friendship mix.

The seven story leap of faith for western man is based on his lack of trust and associated fear of other men. Guys frequently and erroneously feel that other men wouldn’t be interested in befriending them and their fear precludes them from trying. Fear ties in with trust and combined are powerful forces to be reckoned with. Few men feel confident enough to risk being rejected by other men. That would only confirm their worst fears about themselves.

Until I was in my forties, I had no close friends, no one with whom I could share my life and issues. But my loneliness became too much to bear and my desire for male friendship finally pushed me to extend myself to other men. I joined a bicycle club, I jogged with other men and engaged them in conversation, I started a men’s group, I worked on a political campaign with other like-minded men, and I stopped being afraid.

The worst that might happen is I would be rejected, but I wasn’t. I quickly realized that other men were no different than me in terms of their fears. I stopped avoiding eye contact with men and began looking men directly in their eyes. My facial expression said I wasn’t a threat and I wasn’t looking to score points. It said I was open to conversation and eventually friendship.

The next time the opportunity presents itself, take the leap. Be yourself and present yourself exactly as the man you are. You will be surprised how receptive other men will be to your being open.

Loneliness can be forever, and so can friendship. You choose.

Male anger ranks high on a woman’s short list of relationship issues. Irrational, uncontrolled male anger devastates a woman’s sense of safety and well-being. It is particularly frustrating because the reasons behind the anger and the potential for resolving it are mostly out of her control. Women are not responsible for male raging, no matter how much an angry man insists otherwise. What’s behind male anger? How can men learn to control it? What can women do to help?

What I have gleaned from decades of working with men is that male anger is nearly always linked to painful past events in a man’s life that he mistakenly believes he has resolved simply because he stuffed the pain deep into his psyche and never consciously thought about it again. There is no magic act for making past pain vanish, however; and stuffing it simply keeps it just beneath the surface, where it simmers and is easily triggered.

Failed Relationships

Peter was in our men’s group for several years before he finally told his story which explained everything about his relationship issues. His heart had been shattered by a woman decades before.  Instead of working through his pain when he first felt it, he convinced himself he could simply make it disappear by never thinking about it again. His unresolved heartbreak affected his relationships with every woman he met afterwords. Since his heartbreak was never resolved, his attitude towards women grew into mistrust and anger for all women, including his wife, who he had married on the rebound. He developed a chauvinistic sense of humor about women and disparaged them whenever the topic of women arose. After telling his story a few times he admitted that it no longer held as much charge and that his attitude about women had softened.

What Women Can Do to Help

Men can’t be pushed to do their emotional work—either in therapy or in a men’s group. A man has to want to end his angry cycle and has to realize that only comes with facing the damage his behavior is causing him and everyone around him. What women can do is to encourage their partners to unload the baggage that interferes with their lives together. Listening without judgment or opinion will facilitate this process and make a man feel more comfortable about sharing his feelings. This is the time for a woman to be her partner’s best friend. This is the time for unconditional love.