Where Are the Real Men?

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I want to write about how there are no men.  (Well, there aren’t no men, there are just few men).  And a lot of women don’t even like real men; they like feminized men – - especially if they’re gay.  That’s even better.  And many women marry mama’s boys because they don’t want a real man.  Then they get shocked when his mother can push him around better than they can.  Well… his mother has had a lot more practice — his whole life. 

Betsy Hart, one of my favorite writers, recently wrote a great article about this topic.  She begins:

Whatever happened to men? That’s a common question today, being asked by social commentators, parents and single women everywhere. They are lamenting young men’s shrinking status in academia, the workplace and, maybe especially, marriage….

She goes on to say:

…it’s simply the case that too often today’s males are living up to the low expectations the culture has for them.

This is true particularly since feminism arose with the attitude of “we don’t need men.”  Gloria Steinem said: “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”.  That was feminism.  It rarely had anything to do with equal pay for equal jobs.  It had to do with hating being a wife… hating being a mother… and hating men.  That’s what feminism primarily has always been about.  Don’t kid yourself.

Betsy Hart goes on to quote from Bill Bennett’s new book: The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood.  In it, there’s an essay by:

David Gelernter, the renowned Yale computer-sciences professor who was injured in an attack by the Unabomber[. He] talks about how he is bringing up his own sons against the culture. He writes that ‘a man’s role in respect to women is to protect, to help, to support, to cherish as opposed to consume. We are a consumer society and the number one consumption is that of women.’

…Families need to teach young men what it means to be responsible, to work hard and to be prepared to someday get married and care for a wife and children….

I would argue that we also might teach our daughters to respect men. Real men, not the men concocted for treacly romantic comedies. And to respect themselves enough to wait for that man in every sense of that word.

Please take the time to read Betsy Hart’s entire article: Lamenting the Demise of Manliness in America 

And then my staff got me information on traits of real men and I want to share this article with you.  It’s from the blogger MochaDad:

Men were made to be bold, strong leaders.  However, our society has attempted to repress these traits.  (Sidebar: Look what happens in schools with little boys and girls.  Schools are organized for little girls who can sit quietly and sweetly with their hands folded at the desk.  Of course I was never one of those little girls, but generally speaking the schools were. And the little boys?  Well, we say they have ADD and we drug them so they’ll sit like little girls with their hands folded sweetly.) If you look at the way men (especially dads) are portrayed on TV, you’d think we were all a bunch of irresponsible, befuddled, nincompoops, who can only function with the help of a “smart” female partner, friend, or spouse.

He titles his blog: The 7 Traits of Real Men.  Women — I want you to read them because this is the guy you should look for.  Men — I want you to read them so you can stop being weenies and take back your masculinity, your parts, your giblets — if you get my drift.   I can’t believe how many women who have called my show over the years who I’ve told they should have married another woman because the traits they wanted in their husband are not masculine.

How To Tell If You’re A Terrible Spouse

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How can you not know when your spouse is not happy?  You can go into a room, not know anybody in there, just look around and you can tell who’s happy.  It’s not hard – look at the body language and facial expressions.  But when you are living with somebody, how do you know if they’re happy or not?  So many times you hear women say:  “I had no clue; he never said anything.” 

He had to say something for you to know? 

So, here are a few things to consider and see if any of these describe your life:

* Your life centers around your kids, your job, and/or your hobbies.  Maybe that’s making him unhappy. 

* You burn your candles at all these ends with everything but love.  So you’re totally exhausted and there is no time for each other. 

* Your home and your life seem to move from one small crisis to another and that’s about it.  You figure, “Okay, we’re going to interact, and we’re going to romance each other, but we’ll save it for the weekends.  Then the weekends come, and “Oh my gosh, there are so many chores to do!”

* You do this thing in your head:  it’s either the kids or the spouse.  Well, you don’t love them both the same way.  Those are different loves.  Living a balanced life doesn’t require you choosing between them at all. 

* Your lives are very fragmented.  You spend your time running hither or thither and doing this and that and loving each other is just not a priority.  Even when you are together, you are in your own little world.  You are both easily irritated by the other.  Your disagreements and misunderstandings become more frequent. 

* Several months pass before you realize you haven’t even sat down and talked to each other nicely.  You haven’t made love; you haven’t done a fun thing together.  Sit down and look at the time you spend on things.  “I have no time.”  Yes, you do.  There is stuff you could trim, but instead, you are trimming him.

This is why I talk so much about being your kid’s mom, being your husband’s girlfriend, being your wife’s boyfriend — these are very important.  You need to focus on being each other as girlfriend and boyfriend.  That has to be a major focus of each day.  Aside from which, the kids need to see that.  It makes them feel secure and it gives them hope for their future.  I mean, do you spend any time connecting each day?

I had a call one time where this woman found out that for nine years, her husband left the house in the morning and spent 15 minutes, five days a week, in the back of a van with the same woman.  For nine years, they would have sex every morning, every day; that’s how they would get their work day started.  I said, well if that had been happening in your home, it wouldn’t have happened in a car with another woman.

So, when is the last time you schmoozed and tickled and rolled around and snuggled and kissed and hugged and were playful, huh?  Do you take care of yourself — your hygiene, your presentation, your health — so you have something to give?  Or, is it all about, “I just don’t have anything to give?”  You have to learn to say no to errands and chores and social activities and overtime and volunteer work and meetings, if it is interfering with your love.

 Don’t read the full newspaper everyday, don’t read Twitter or your emails — don’t read all that stuff.  They steal time from where you could be being cute and adorable with your spouse.  Send emails to each other, leave love notes around the house. Make the most of every moment you have together.  Make it an issue and a priority so I don’t get a call from you on my program where you’re saying , “I have no idea whatsoever why my husband and the father of my kids just said ‘I am out of here.’”  What an insult that is! Men don’t fare as well as women after a divorce emotionally, physically, medically.  Women handle this stuff a lot better, believe it or not.  So, for a guy to face going through the court system which is going to give her everything, for him to make a move like that, he had to be really unhappy.  And if you are truly willing to stand by the statement “I have no idea why he would be unhappy,” then you’re a terrible wife.

Resentful of My Couch Potato Husband

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Resentment is difficult to get past, particularly if it’s because your husband hasn’t supported you in the raising of your children.  Is it better to have a couch potato husband than no husband at all?

Read the transcript

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura

The Importance of Generosity in a Marriage

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I’ve written many books having to do with relationships, but each focused on different aspects of relationships.  The most important ones, I think, were The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands and The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage because I pointed out the real element that makes a marriage work is when each person gets up in the morning and thinks about what they can do to make the other person happy and happy they’re married to you.  In fact, that was so important, I put it on the back cover.  No surprise to me to see this show up in other forms.

In December, in the New York Times, they talked about the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project.  It studied the role of generosity.  Not in the sense of being generous with money or a lot of gifts, but about that moment where you think, “What can I do to make them happy at this moment, much less if they’re married to me?”

So generosity is about going above and beyond the ordinary expectations with small, little things, small acts of service — making an extra effort, such as being affectionate, bringing somebody coffee in the morning, or rubbing their feet.

It turns out men and women with the highest scores on generosity as a scale were far more likely to report they were very happy in their marriages. 

Now, you’ve got a lot of things going on in your mind, heart, body and day so it’s not always easy to be generous to your spouse.  One particular researcher suggested successful couples say or do at least 5 positive things for every negative interaction with their partner, so they make it 5 to 1…5 to 1.  That’s really important.  It’s important with your kids too.  If you’re going to give them holy hell about things all the time, you really have to balance it with generosity.  Children who see parents who are more engaged in this generosity tend to be more generous too (no kidding), which bodes well for their future relationships and their relationship with their parents.  So, make small acts of service and an extra effort to be affectionate.

The top 3 predictors of a happy marriage among parents (because having kids is a big stress):

1. Sexual intimacy
2. Commitment
3. Generosity

And they put sex first because the portion of 18 to 46 year-olds with below-average sexual satisfaction who are “very happy” in their marriages is about 6.5%.

In one particular study, couples who reported a high amount of generosity in their relationships were 5 times more likely to say the marriage was “very happy”.  However, the generosity was not as important as sex.  In this study, married men and women who reported above-average sexual satisfaction in their relationship were 10 to 13 times more likely to describe their marriage as “very happy”.  My assumption though, is this goes in a bit of a circle – i.e., the people who are more generous with each other probably are more turned on to each other because they’re so generous with each other and it keeps going in a circle.

Something to consider: 5 to 1 – 5 positive things you say or do for each negative thing you say or do.  Try it — you might like it.  You wonder why your marriage is not happy?  The fix is actually simple.  It’s the motivation to do those 5 positive things that seems to be the biggest problem.

Sexual Fantasies

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Some people get very freaked out by sexual fantasies and worry that having fantasies makes them “bad.” 

When I was in private practice, I did a lot of sex counseling, and one thing I would ask a couple individually is “what are your sexual fantasies?”  Here’s the typical answers I would get:

1.  “Oh, I don’t have them.  That would be rude.”
2. “I can’t talk about them.  They’re really sick.”
3. “What difference does it make?  He or she would never do them.”

There’s a lot of angst surrounding sexual fantasies.  They’re basically erotic thoughts that make you feel sexier.  They’re arousing and add to the “moment.” Research shows most people wish to fantasize, but have sex in the context of the person they love and feel most comfortable with. – in other words, they use fantasy as an aphrodisiac.  The people who report the highest sexual satisfaction tend to be those who have fantasies, because they fuel arousal, particularly when things start to get a little “everydayish.” 

Things are very exciting when they’re new, and when they get to be functional, things lose their appeal.  That’s when people stop playing with each other, stop being each other’s girlfriend or boyfriend, and stop using sexual fantasy. 

If you’re a tennis player, all things you do before a game are like foreplay.  You imagine hitting the ball well today, and what you’re doing is fantasizing about how the game is going to be.  So fantasy provides a very important function. Fantasy takes your mind totally away from distractions and allows you to enjoy the “moment,” helping you to focus and maintain arousal.  When women say they have trouble with orgasms, the number one thing therapists try to get them to do is fantasize and masturbate.  It’s like jump-starting the whole mechanism.

In general, the most common fantasies for both men and women are those that relive an exciting sexual experience, or those that imagine sex with a current or different partner.  It doesn’t mean you don’t love your spouse, but it means sometimes you need a jumpstart to make yourself feel sexy and not make sex feel so mundane.

The next most common fantasies involve oral sex, sex in a romantic location, heightened sexual power or irresistibility, and (believe it or not), for most women, forced sex.  When women fantasize about forced sex, it’s not about being beaten, stabbed, or shot.  Instead, it’s about being swept off their feet, being held down and totally enjoying the abdication of responsibility for anything happening.  Male fantasies tend to focus more on visual imagery and explicit anatomic detail.  Women’s fantasies tend to be about emotion and affection.

And consider telling your partner your fantasy, but not if it’s that your neighbor’s body is so hot you can hardly hold your breath, or that you think of him or her while having sex with your spouse.  But if you have a fantasy about the two of you, and you know your spouse well enough to know this would not be crossing a line, then you can tell them.  Things that won’t hurt your spouse’s feelings can be shared.  Otherwise, keep your mouth shut, because there is nothing UNsexier than telling your spouse “I have to go to an entirely different place to do it with you, but I love you.”  THAT just doesn’t fly.

Why Men Are Failing

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Birth Control Affects Your Personal Chemistry

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Dating Again: Divorced vs. Widowed?

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If you’re back on the dating scene and you’re no longer a young adult, you may find that the available pool is filled with those who have been either divorced or widowed.  Is there a better chance at happiness with one group, or does it even matter?