To start this two part series about connection, I’m going to share a story which is actually a composite version of many stories I have heard as a therapist. The themes of desiring connection and at the same time shying away from connecting are things I hear from a variety of men, no matter what their age or sexual orientation. See if it sounds familiar to you.
A client, let’s call him Bob, talked to me about his first serious girlfriend. Bob said, “She was a great friend, we had great sex, and we always had fun together. After a few months she became more attached to me and started talking about how special I was and how lucky she felt to be with me. She said that she could even imagine us having children together and how cute the babies would look. I didn’t realize how much this scared me at the time, but I started to feel more distant from her. I didn’t feel like I could talk to her about it. I didn’t want to lose her, but I was afraid of getting stuck. . .of growing old and being saddled with a wife and family. Surprisingly, my girlfriend started to look older to me than before and I also began to notice more of her faults. About the same time, other women seemed to look more attractive. In short, I felt claustrophobic and ended the relationship.”
Simply put, Bob, for various reasons, was not comfortable with feeling vulnerable. When those feelings began to surface in his relationship, he began to shut down and pull away. He was afraid and panicked about being confined. At the same time, his longing for connection did not go away. This terrible bind is all too common for men.
So what can we learn from Bob’s story? Why do so many men have this type of experience? What determined Bob’s behavior? Was it from his own family of origin? Was does it say about our culture in general that this is such a common story?
Cultural Influences
In the U.S., the ‘ideal man‘ is seen as strong and protective. He is a good provider, emotionally contained, focused and disciplined, and doesn’t get swept away by the more feminine experiences of tenderness and emotionalism. The unspoken rule is that it is okay for men to show anger, but not vulnerability. By the same token, women are given cultural permission to show their feelings and even to cry. These dehumanizing roles limit full expression and true power for all of us. Ironically, those most often critical a of man’s display of vulnerability are other men.
Think of the male role models we have — the men we admire. Consider, for example, the professional athlete, especially football players. These men are idolized for their brawn and athletic prowess. Their intellectual and artistic capacities are undervalued. They are given huge fortunes for salaries and often have the most beautiful of women on their arms. Young boys are taught to look up to these role models with awe and respect.
However, the reality is far different than this idealized scenario. Lately in the news we have heard stories about football players who are domestic abusers. In one notable example from the 1990s, one such man may have literally gotten away with murder.
Why does this happen? Culturally, vulnerability is tantamount to weakness. So this begs the question: What is real power?
At the same time, things are changing. Many of us are looking more deeply into these issues and refusing to be limited by cultural stereotypes. Men who abuse their power are being held accountable. In sports, they are being banished from their profession. Last year the first openly gay college football player eligible to be drafted into the NFL, Michael Sam, kissed his boyfriend on camera.
Family Dynamics
Remember our client Bob? Not only was Bob born into a culture that limited his full expression as a human being, but his family of origin trained him to avoid vulnerability as well. His father had a limited emotional range. So, his most important role model was unconsciously oppressed by the same culture. As Bob was growing up, he also heard things like, “Big boys don’t cry.” He learned from his family and from his peers that there was something wrong, even shameful, about his feelings of sadness and tenderness. If he had feelings of closeness for another boy, it was suspect. No matter if his sexual identity was straight, such warm feelings for another boy might be considered “gay,” which might be considered bad, or possibly immoral. Over time, Bob learned to camouflage his true feelings.
Eventually, the tension between an idealized, culturally founded, image of himself as a man conflicted with the truer nature of his human experience and led Bob into therapy. By getting conscious, he found a way out of the terrible bind dictated by culture and family.
While this may sound obvious or simplistic, there are actually very complex patterns at work. In my next article, I begin to unpack some of these.
For now, I’ll close with a quote from Gandhi.
If you change how you think, then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.
