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June
It’s Time to Become “Relationship
Warriors”
We’ve all heard it: men are clueless when it
comes to relationships. Relationships are
women’s territory, not men’s. It does
seem true that testosterone and thousands of years
of evolution give men the ability and inclination
to be warriors, to go out, hunt and kill our prey,
and to keep our tribe safe and equipped with food
and shelter. In other words, we are equipped to
respond to external stimulation with aggression and
ambition. We often apply these skills today to our
careers, and they are abundantly useful in
athletics. But, compared to women, most men are
much less comfortable and adept at looking inward,
whether delving into the complexity of intimate
relationships or exploring their own feelings.
I often think that we men treat relationships
and marriage like buying a refrigerator: we go out
and buy one, set it up, plug it in, and then expect
it to run for a long, long time without any
maintenance or cleaning. Recently, a man told me,
“My marriage must be going OK, because if it
isn’t, my wife would’ve yelled at me
about it!” Most men don’t want to think
too much about their marriages. They especially
don’t want to talk about them. If you want to
see a man squirm, watch him when his wife says,
“Let’s talk about the relationship”.
The worst part of those conversations comes when a
woman says, “So, how do you think our
relationship is going?” (The man knows
there’s a right answer—he just isn’t
sure what it is!)
So many men are confused about what’s
required in the area of marriage. We men do want to
make our relationships work; who wants a lousy
marriage? But, it feels like women and therapists
have all the answers. It’s like they speak a
unique “relationship language”, while we
can’t even find the dictionary!
Many men expect and hope that their marriages
will run well while they go out to conquer the
world. They are often surprised when their
relationships get into trouble while they are
looking the other way. Times have changed, and a
lot of men haven’t noticed.
In the 21st Century, women have much more
economic and social power and the stigma of divorce
has lessened. As a consequence, women expect more
from their husbands today and feel much freer to
leave their marriages if they aren’t
satisfied. So, for many men, the heat’s on:
change or you lose your woman. But there’s
more at stake here. Our committed relationships
have great, unexplored potential for us, for
it’s in a committed relationship that we learn
to grow stronger and more loving, and have the
opportunity to illuminate and whittle down the
blunt edges of our egos. After all, who knows us as
well as our women? We know we need and want great
relationships with women, but we are learning that
what worked in the past is sinking fast in the
rough waters of relationships.
I believe that we need to change our whole view
of relationships and marriage. The good news is
that we men already have what it takes to make
relationships and marriages work—and we
don’t need to become more like women. In fact,
the opportunity is to become more like men,
powerful, aware and fully masculine. How? The
answer is to utilize our birthright: our warrior
spirits, to become “relationship
warriors”, as well as warriors in the world of
work.
We already bring much to relationships,
qualities that are too often overlooked or
under-utilized. Men are naturally inclined to act,
to build and to solve problems. We have the power
to dream and put our dreams into concrete action,
and to make powerful commitments and stick to them.
We are usually able to keep our distance from the
daily swirl of feelings, because our biology allows
us to focus intensely outward. Men have the power
to stand for something great and to fight for it
with resolve.
Now it’s time to stand up for something
important: the power of our relationships and
marriages as vehicles for love, growth and true
fulfillment. We men can stand firm in our marriage
commitments. We can learn to take full
responsibility for the relationship’s success,
to pull our own weight, not expecting our wives to
do all the heavy relationship lifting or “take
care” of us. We also can learn to tune-in to
our spouses and appreciate and listen to them
better. A man who can listen with empathy and
caring becomes a greater man.
It’s time to put our energy and attention
into getting what we truly care about. It’s
time to be relationship warriors and to commit
ourselves 100% to creating alive, powerful unions
with the women we love.
©2008, Marty
Friedman
* * *
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is
threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people
together through the years. - Simone Signoret
Martin
G. Friedman is the author of “Straight
Talk for Men About Marriage—What Men Need to
Know About Marriage (And What Women Need to Know
About Men)”. For
many years, Marty Friedman taught corporate
managers how to create good relationships at work
before tackling male/female relationship
issues--and applying what he learned to his own
marriage. The founder of Men in Marriage, Marty is
regularly interviewed on radio and television, and
talks to organizations and individuals from a
unique, inspirational and humorous perspective.
Find out more at www.meninmarriage.com
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