Man Talk

Is it even possible for a marriage and family therapist to tackle a subject like communication in a succinct bloglike fashion??? By the way, I think it's only fair to say that I'm writing this while under the influence of The Verve, Filter, and Collective Soul... Bittersweet Symphony playing currently.

Let me give u a little rundown of how my job works. I currently have about 26 clients.... about 15 that are active. The age of my clients ranges from age 2 to 21 (well, my 21 year old is a young mother who brings in her husband from time to time... he's 23). For the last 6 years I've worked primarily w/children and their families w/the occasional couple. The most common question I get from others not familiar w/the work is, "How do you do that?" or "How do you maintain your own sanity?" or "How do you not take those problems home w/you?" I guess the best answer to that is "shrug". It has always been pretty easy for me to compartmentalize my work. I excel in the one on one's, but the paperwork is a challenge. I recognize that most therapists burn out quickly. Frankly, I love it. If you'll forgive me one moment of indulgence I'd go so far as to say my Heavenly Father prepared me for this very profession. I love it. I've worked w/some super sweet folks over the years, some not so, and a lot in between. I've seen the most amazing... and obscure of nuclear families whose makeup defies logic. I've seen tragedy on the grandest of scales (a family witnessing their dear mother being hit by a freight train while on a bike ride) and some of the most wonderful successes (a super intelligent/sweet boy taken from his drug addicted father (who never did get clean), rejected by his grandparents, claimed by his aunt who summarily rejected him 9 months in the foster system... to be claimed off waivers by a generous Latino family.... and seeing this child thrive after all that). It's a roller coaster!

Through all these experiences there are definite themes to all the problems from all these families. For example, I would say that 95% of all problematic child behavior can be corrected w/good, consistent, adaptible but firm parenting. I also think that if folks understood genetics and dispositions better they would be less prone to pill popping and more willing to try alternative strategies tailor fit to their child. I also think that communication is a doozy of a problem in all relationships. For the sake of brevity (haha!) I'll just tackle men and communication tonight.

When I was a kid my parents took me to see Star Wars when I was 5 years old in Century City to this new cineplex that had just been constructed. All I remember ab9ut my trip there was that it was unfamiliar and... spectacular. The newness of the buildings was just the beginning. The movie I saw that day shaped much of my childhood. For the next 7 years or so I collected Star Wars paraphernalia and watched and re-watched those movies over and over (too bad the new ones suck so bad - don't get me started). So, here's this little kid w/an overactive imagination and my parents keep me primed w/a steady supply of action figures, vehicles, playsets, and even sheets/blankets. In addtion to these toys I also collected Legos, army men, dinosaurs, baseball cards. I filled many a shoebox w/my toys and I guarded them religiously. I rarely lost parts or pieces. I tell you this because boys commonly play w/some sort of mix of toys similar to those I played with. Today I would include video games and Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars to this list. My mother tells me that I never needed a babysitter because I could occupy myself fine enough for hours at a time. I remember one summer day I had constructed a huge fort out of rocks, broken cinder blocks, and discarded plywood for a war between my army men and star wars figures. I played outside under the sun by myself for nearly 5 or 6 hours. I came inside for some littleman sustenance later and my mother nearly jumped. Apparently she had been busy about the house cleaning and who knows what, and in her "busy"ness she had forgotten that I had been outside all that time. She told me that she often heard me carrying on conversations between my toys and making sound effects/sound tracks for my mayhem. So, what did these conversations consist of? If memory serves me right they were usually of little boy fantasies about espionage, warfare, and something I like to call "man drama". I'm sure phrases like, "You're gonna pay for that!" and "No! You killed Storm Shadow, you're gonna pay!" and "Hop on the speeder bike, we've only got 10 seconds till she blows!" were common in my boy talk. Before you start hopping on that "Oh, how dreadful! How violent!" bandwagon I'm gonna tell you that you need to zip your lid for a second. Most boys have an inner voice that coincides w/their imagination and it's not about relationships. It's about being a hero, being a winner, saving the day, beating the bad guy, winning a race/championship, and bonding w/the boys. It translates into the action thrillers we love. You might have great disdain for the violence, but that's not what we're gleaning from these movies (unless say you were to go see Saw or Texan Chainsaw massacre which in my opinion ARE exactly what u say they are, pornographic violence). War flicks, westerns, action thrillers usually have that familiar thread of heroes, beating the bad guy, winning the day, overcoming incredible odds, saving the babe, and male bonding... yep, I said it, male bonding. Band of Brothers anyone? Saving Private Ryan? Young Guns? Star Wars? And for the stalwart solo hero who overcomes incredible odds: Stallone/Swarzeneggar?/Bruce Willis/Mel Gibson?

That's why as a therapist whenever I have kids w/ADHD (most ADHD diagnosed children are male - most females diagnosed w/ADHD are misdiagnosed and might better be served w/a diagnosis of PTSD, Bi-polar, or some sort of anxiety) I always prescribe athletic activity for the child. When they're young sports like surfing, skating, karate are good at helping these children w/self-discipline, but I also heavily endorse team sports. Team sports teach children among other things: team work, the importance of leadership, the language of male bonding, fine motor skills, patience w/oneself and others, and good sportsmanship. As an adult who has played w/other adults in leagues it's amazing to discover who poor sports are: the whiners, the overly competitive... it's the men who were deprived of sport as children but got into sport later in life.

Back to this language of male bonding. Boys inherently do not take notice of the small details of their comrades. They just don't have the time to. And, if they were to notice that a friend got a new pair of sneakers he might say something like, "Do those make you run faster?" or "Can you jump over my bike in those?" It's not about the appearance but the performance. Will the shoe assist the kid to be that hero? save the day? win the big race/championship? Another common occurrence among boys is the negative banter. Boys tease and they tease incessantly. They tease each other about the dumbest of possible things. "You blink your eyes faster than me. You're a weirdo. Weirdo. Weirdo!" This "talk" is part of our alpha male jockeying and this "talk" separates the boys into different groups: the bullies, the confident, the sensitive, the silent, and the despised. Of these I would only advocate that women ever have relationships w/the confident and possibly the silent. The others are a nightmare in relationships. It's interesting because of these 3 unsucessful male subtypes, only the sensitive come in for therapy. You will never see bullies and the despised in therapy. They don't come because therapy scares the hell outta them. An enclosed room w/just one other adult, sitting patiently, exchanging ideas, exploring thoughts/feelings, relationships? Holy hell no! Because the bullies usually can intermingle among the confident they are often sought after in relationships (camoflaged as it were among the healthy). They're the "bad boys" some ladies seem to fall for, although over the past 40 years the sensitive type have creaped into this forum as well - ala James Dean and today's emo. I won't speak more about these subtypes of men right now. There is much there to be explored but I'll get back to communication.

This "man talk" continues w/us into high school, the team sports we played or experienced, and the ridiculous showing off that ensued day to day in the cafeteria, in the halls, in the gym, and on the bus. I remember guys would start fights just to get noticed. Boys would tear off banners just to feel tough. The high fiving and complex hand shakes were a boys way of showing his acceptance of another's Tom Foolery. We didn't express how we liked his new pair of jeans but we hooted and slapped him five after he nailed the skinny kid w/a spitwad. Later came college. At this time I began my studies in human development and psychology and I became a more skilled people watcher. I noticed that everyday I came home to my 3 other roomies that each of us would enter the apartment loudly, shout out some sort of insult toward the nearest "buddy", laugh it off, and get something to eat. I've been called every name in the book in my lifetime and of all the cusswords, derogatory genital nicknames, flatulence laden verbage I would hazard to say that at least 80% of it was in jest and... dare I say... friendship. Yes, men call each other some horrible things but our ability to laugh it off and whip it back determined our acceptance in the group and we began to learn that those that called us these names were not our enemies but our brothers.

I remember as a kid my dad and my uncle swearing in Spanish calling each other names and laughing their heads off. I do the same all the time w/my best friend. In fact, men who I am unsure of... where I do not know where I stand... these are they who I speak to w/the most respect... and they w/whom I am least genuine. Why? Cuz we (all guys) have experienced the response from the "sensitive" or the "bully" and these exist in adulthood too, although man bullies are easy to spot... sometimes. The "sensitive" is harder for us to spot and we often make the mistake of thinking they can take our jibes and rip us back thus cementing the male bond in friendship. However, sensitives often respond w/drama... and NOTHING is worse than getting drama from a dude. NOTHING. I'll take drama from my mom, my wife, my daughters... I can live w/this... but another dude? Hell no. "Sensitives" usually either congregate w/other sensitives, become silents, or become the lapdogs of bullies. The ones that sensitives usually do not get along w/are the confident. They are yin and yang, black and white, polar opposites. The confident can tolerate the sensitive in his group but the sensitive is always known for who they are in these circles, and they're never truly an integral part of these circles (interestingly it's necessary that they try if they wish to ever leave the role of sensitive and become a confident).

So how does this translate in marital and dating relationships w/the opposite sex? Well, you may guess now (from what we've been talking about) why men often resort to teasing women when flirting. A woman who recognizes the tease as a sign of interest is much more likely to have healthy relationships... and if she becomes savvy enough to learn to tease back... and is smart about it, humorous even... she's way ahead of the curve. When men usually say, "She really has a great personality," we're usually commenting on this one little area of communication. This kind of woman "gets" us and has learned to talk our talk. This isn't to say that men should not learn the more delicate art of communication, or to excuse them from such. More, it's just insight into how they operate.

So why do men have such difficulty talking about their feelings, about traumatizing events, or even about extremely joyous occasions/relationships/events? Succinctly said, we're not experienced. We don't have the practice. We never played house. We never played dress up. We didn't play w/dolls and care for them. We didn't change diapers on our Lil Miss Weewee. We didn't have tea parties or picnics w/dolls and stuffed animals. After skinning a knee we were told to "suck it up" or "Big boys don't cry". Emotion was discouraged. We are behind in the practice of expression. And well, you ladies tend to be experts and that can be intimidating. Women usually win relational arguments. Women usually communicate from an emotion-based frontier while men tend more toward logic-based communication. We look at things mathematically, deconstruct them, reconstruct them. Such and such plus such and such equals this and that. It's not that the men were stupid or don't have good points in these arguments. In fact, they usually have very strong feelings and very valid points in arguments, but they're just unable to express it. In therapy many women are astounded when another man (me, the therapist) is able to verbalize what their husband might be feeling, thereby substantiating his pain, his point of view, or perhaps his feelings. Some women cannot handle this shift after having dominated their husband in arguments at home for so many years and will pull the plug on therapy before their husbands open their eyes.

So why do I bring all this up? Mostly, I'm hoping that wives, mothers, sisters, daughters might be just a little more patient and understanding w/their husbands, fathers, brothers. Men are capable of meaningful communication but it takes time... sometimes a lot of time. But, w/love, patience, understanding and a willingness to accept that he might have a point under all that huffing, walking away, grunting, inaudible nonsense. Men aren't stupid, they just can't always say what they want to. They'd much rather just tease you, laugh it away, high five, and go about their way... After all, for the first 20-25 years of our lives (or longer) we are more used to relationships w/other guys... and I'll tell you this,. even as a therapist and having possibly honed a larger vocabulary and insight into relationships in my profession than most men, I am still much more confident navigating my way among 6-10 buddies than I am w/my wife and one of her friends...

...but marriage was never supposed to be easy and man was never meant to be stuck in his comfort zones. Marriage assists men in honing those skills that up until this time were foreign to us. Why do men have such a hard time committing? I am certain that the communication rift is a huge factor. Even at 37 I still love high fiving my boys, balling after a nice maneuver while wakeboarding/snowboarding, and talking it up over a couple burgers, but I would never sacrifice the fulfillment that comes from an intimate night w/my wife.

I was going to get into those rolls that boys attempt to play (hero, champion, rescuer, etc) and how they affect our future relationships but I'm tired. I'll have to get back to those male subtypes as well... perhaps in a future dating blog (a blog for advice for daters). Anyway, hit me up w/some comments and I'll do my best to respond.

G'night fellas...