I’ve got to say that I was gladdened when I read in a USA Today article that reported on a University of Denver Marital and Family Study. IT basically concluded that we men aren’t as bad as my brain has been told for decades we are. As a communications psychologist, I have silently fumed and felt ticked off about all the bad-mouthing we men take but don’t give…for being such goof-off nincompoops, lazy relationship avoiders, and haters of women but not dogs, guys who won’t commit to anything except self-pleasure. Well, I do wish the pleasure part was true.
Like most men, I have turned the other cheek to these smacks at my self-esteem, often feeling that speaking up was pretty useless when the negative talk about “men” turns ruthless. Here are the mythical and dramatic themes I’ve read about “we men” over my 25 years of scouring and scanning self-help psychology ideas that “sell” about male psychology:
Men are afraid to commit
Men don’t know what they’re feeling
Men are bad communicators
Men are playboys who are driven by sexual appetite
Men can’t love
Men can’t help but have sexual affairs…any time a woman offers
Men are control freaks…seek to control women
Men are “disappearing dads” and “deadbeat dads” and “workaholic dads”
Men only want to be told what they want to hear
Men haven’t, and don’t want to, be “grown up”
Men are asses, idiots, stupid, egotistical, money just plain mad, mad, rage-filled, don’t care, won’t work on relationship skills
Emotionally literate men are secretly “gay”
Men love power and use people for personal gain
Men are Neanderthals who must retreat to their caves in the 2000’s
All I’ve got to say is “bull roar, bull crap, baloney!” Now I’m not denying that a little degree of these issues exist in the “everyman” of every man. BUT “a little degree” is the operative word here. Sure, I don’t always like the “sacrifice” that I have signed up for. And we men are too silent about those sacrifices, except for an occasional complaint when too much wine has been drunk or too many customers have taken advantage of us.
Neil Chethik, author of VoiceMale: What Husbands Really Think About Their Marriages, Their Wives, Sex, Housework, and Commitment, says “Everything I’ve seen that has started to look at men more carefully shows that men are committed or dedicated.” My experience as a professional man, husband, and father of three growing daughters agrees and demonstrates that I am totally committed…hook, line, sinker and snicker. I’m totally in-family and there’s no going back…and I like it that way. I’ve been the sole supporter of the O’Grady household for over 16 years and my work day isn’t short but long in a changing health-care market that has squeezed the “little doctor guy” in my region pretty thin.
I’m not belly-aching. That’s one thing us “tough guys” don’t do much of…so we suffer in loneliness…die early…staring at each other with vacant eyes knowingly across the tops of cubicles. And then we go off to work in a show of LOVE for our loved one’s, that we know deep in our hearts…really DO value our sacrifices and struggles.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady’s first book he wrote was called “Men’s Secret Lives.” He worked on this book late at night during his years as a forensic psychologist, making the work into a fair look into the inside of every man’s heartmind. Dennis never “sold” the book for fear that the market wasn’t ready for a positive look at what it feels like to walk in responsible men’s moccasins. Around that time, a book called “Men Who Hate Women And The Women Who Love Them” became a bestseller.