At the risk of offending my reading audience the title of this article drips with sarcasm to drive home a point. It’s probably no surprise to any of you men that as a group we have been reluctantly dragged by the tide of reformist movements that have revamped gender roles. Notwithstanding our denials we have shed traditional socialization patterns as easily as one sheds a piece of gum on the soles of one’s shoes without using our hands.

This means that “The king of the castle mentality” still lives especially among generations sandwiching The Baby Boomers. If the shoe fits then like myself you can picture in your mind’s eyes Ward Cleaver lounging at home in his cardigan sweater while June Cleaver does all the housework. I don’t think there has ever been much debate over men’s inflated sense of entitlement being linked to their status as breadwinners of their families. Men continue to derive self-worth from “doing for” as opposed to “being with” others. We may find this to be the case even in households where we find the men caring for their children while their wives ply their trades in corporate America.

Maybe it’s hard for some of us men to accept that we can be stuck in emotional time warps especially if we cringe at the thought that we are repeating behaviors in our partnerships we swore we would not repeat after giving our parents failing grades in the course: Marital & Parental Relations 101. Still, even as we men acknowledge that gender roles have become fluid, reversible and interchangeable especially, when kids are factored into the equation, I still hear women clients complain that they wish their husbands didn’t sit with them and feel compelled to fix their problems as if they were automobiles with faulty carburetors. These gender role challenges are not the exclusive province of heterosexual relationships either and apply as well in gay and lesbian relationships. Sex may be less significant than which parent are you most comfortable identifying with.

Given this emotional backdrop, men may hear something very different when they listen to their partners. Expressions like: “Honey you’re never around” or “I need you to divorce your tailgating buddies and remember who you married,” are usually ill conceived communications to their partners designed to convey that these women want to spend more time with their guys, need to feel more connected and more important to them. Unfortunately, when you couple the male ego’s insecurities with performance standards that eye Donald Trump as the standard bearer of success, such remarks do not go over very well. They are often heard as: “Buddy, you’re not doing enough and therefore, you are not only to blame for any unhappiness I feel but, more over you are an incompetent partner because you are an inadequate person.”

It’s not hard to guess that most men at this point would not turn to their partners and endearingly reply: “Honey, I heard you just say that I am a loser. Will you please clarify your last remarks for me?” Criticisms, justified or not, may cause emotional abrasions that don’t hurt that much and don’t bleed for long but, negative judgments can feel like stab wounds in the chest. This is much more the case if we guys at the receiving end feel clueless as to what it is that will make our partners happy. This is especially so when what we experience to be attacks on our worth as partners are confirmations of our own worst fears.

My experience counseling couples is that women who perceive their men are attacking them where they are most likely to see stars are often retaliating for what they experience as being attacks on their adequacy as nurturers and attractiveness as women. In truth, guys if the loves of your lives are indeed railing at you it may be their way of saying: “I love you and need your loving support, why are you rejecting me by taking me for granted or ignoring me.” At this point couples can achieve an impasse where two wrongs make a right and the circular battles that ensue make it easy for each partner to say: “You started!” They remain with their horns locked because they feel stuck in such flawed polarized thinking as: “One of us is crazy and it’s not me,” and “You’re the one that needs to change because you’re the one that needs fixing. I’m fine just the way I am.” Also, it’s simply safer to find justifications to lock horns at a distance than risk being gored. If we fear for our emotional lives then, it stands to reason that we will avoid being in the same room unless, we are distracted by television, kids and other folks or engrossing tasks. If you find yourself or your partner cleaning out the garage at 11PM on a Saturday night it is a telltale sign that at least one partner feels as safe in the bedroom as driving a car on black ice. Guys are particularly susceptible to running away from potential conflicts as they tend to equate emotional vulnerability with weakness and having emotional needs as signs of childish and shameful dependency.

The beginning of a new lease on a couple’s life may start with the individual realization that one’s emotions are one’s emotions and that losing control of them so that they become weapons leaves that partner feeling bad about himself no matter how much immediate satisfaction is derived from exacting revenge. In the self-esteem game, a game of skill that is built on learning how to regulate our own self esteem, two wrongs never make a right. Therefore, if you violate the values upon which you esteem yourselves then, you pay dearly. Adults don’t feel good about themselves when they behave like children. It’s a fact of life. Affirming our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness regardless of our limitations and deficiencies gives us a most crucial one degree of separation and protection from what is thrown at us from our wounded partners. Keep in mind, if we weren’t so important to our partners he or she wouldn’t be screaming about what they want that they’re not getting from us.

Guys will take off their emotional football gear if they have a better handle on warding off dreaded responses to “what they did or said that was wrong?” Someone must be willing to take the lead in changing destructive patterns of relating and the partner better equipped to do so will often volunteer if life at home is to improve. “Who started it all” can’t be all that important if your top priority is to have a mutually satisfying relationship.

If you’re taking the lead here are a few tips to increase the safety and security of the climate in the room so that a constructive dialogue for working out differences may ensue:

1) Success is founded on paving roads that are clearly marked and paved so as to be negotiable. Ask your partner for what you want. Complaints are just thinly veiled wishes and seldom received in a spirit of cooperation,

2) Make sure that your facial expressions, body language and tone of voice are congruent with your message. Often, a hostile or impatient tone of voice or angry facial expression will drown out a respectful request and, leave the recipient both confused, annoyed and distrustful so as to promote efforts to “figure you out” instead of relating to you and asking questions about what is confusing them,

3) You may be communicating respectfully and considerately and still be misinterpreted. Find out what was heard and straighten out any mistaken interpretations before they take on lives of their own.

4) Give feedback that establishes how you are hearing and reacting to your partner’s remarks so that if your partners leave a little bit to be desired in the empathy department you can teach them about the cause-effect relationships that influence your regard for them. For example, “Honey, when you pick up the newspaper as I tell you about the horrible day I had I take it that you don’t care about me outside of what you want from me. I feel rejected by you. I feel hurt, angry and rage full and feel like treating you like you treat me; like you don’t exist.”

5) Model respectful and considerate communications. Avoid anything that might be construed as an effort to use guilt and shame as tools of manipulation and control. No one wants to be anyone else’s pawn. Finally,

6) Scrupulously avoid self-righteousness; anything that might be interpreted as an ivory tower sermon. Leave the trained observations to folks like myself. We get paid to deliver sugar coated pills. Happy relating! Stress Management: Is Necessity The Mother of Good Inventions, Bad Inventions Or Whatever Gets You Through The Night “Stress” and “stress management” are terms that roll off our tongues as if understanding them is second nature to us all. To make sure we are all on the same page let’s start with a working definition of stress courtesy of Dictionary.com.

1)An applied force or system of forces that tend to strain or deform the body, 2) The resisting force set up in a body as a result of an extremely applied force and 3) A physical or psychological stimulus that can produce mental tension or physiological reactions that may lead to illness.

If you can’t relate to the language used in these definitions just pay attention to the fact that all three definitions speak define stress in negative terms. This is as far from the truth as me telling you that coins have one side to them. Stress exists along a continuum. There is for each individual and each activity an optimum level of stress that enhances performance and stimulates growth producing adaptations. One person pushed to perform in school may respond with excellent test scores. Another may either become anxious and have difficulties concentrating, go blank, or, even worse, get so anxious as to not to show up for the test. Due to the interplay of genetics, learning, and accidents of fate different people may respond very differently to levels of stress applied in different situations.

For instance, Tiger Woods is more likely than most professional golfers to perform at his best when internal and expectations rise during the major golf championships. He is now playing for his ranking in golf’s pantheon of immortals. Many of his peers will be his equal for 1, 2, or maybe 3 rounds only to lose their cool on Sundays during the final rounds of major tournaments with victory on the line. If they are playing in The Hartford Open instead of The Masters many will manage the stress of the moment very differently. Others depending on their longevity on The PGA Tour might have identical degrees of difficulty no matter what the prestige level of the tournament. How Tiger Woods was trained by his father to compete under pressure has been widely publicized. Was he blessed with extraordinary athletic gifts? This is probably a safe bet. Clearly, his competitive fires burn at just the right temperature. If Tiger and his peers get themselves worked up into a frenzy like football players getting ready to wage their proverbial Sunday wars, their fine motor skills that translate muscle memory to well executed shots might very well abandon them. They would not have the violent outlets to modulate and control their states of heightened readiness. Football players and golfers have different levels of optimum stress to ready themselves to perform at their bests.

Optimum levels of stress promote optimum performance. To illustrate this accepted notion let’s take for example, aerobic exercise. This stressor to our systems is known to be a mood elevator, and an anxiety reducing activity. Whether your activity of choice is swimming, cycling running, dance or time on the step master in the gym, there are countless health benefits of a sensible exercise regimen. Your heart and lungs, bones and muscles will grow stronger if the stress to your body is such that during intervals of rest and repair, the organ systems responsible for physical performance grow stronger. This will translate to being able to perform more work at lower levels of exertion. Other benefits include being more resistant to muscular skeletal injuries. Studies have indicated that people who exercise regularly have healthier immune systems that are more resistant to illness, and a healthier cholesterol profile that points to a lesser likelihood of a premature build up of plaque in their arteries. Exercisers tend to lose excess weight as exercise burns calories during exercise and at a higher than normal rate for hours after the exercise has stopped. The rise in the blood sugar is also an appetite depressant. I’m not just air brushing the warts on this profile of stress, I am emphasizing that optimum levels of stress are catalysts for growth and development. The complete absence of stress would severely curtail our abilities to succeed. We would not evolve and actualize our potential as people as quickly as we do if we would do so at all. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Too little stress on our bodies during exercise will not stimulate growth in our capacities to perform work. Too much stress may produce a host of negative consequences to our health and well being that are every bit as worrisome as the aforementioned benefits were wondrously encouraging. Too much exercise combined with and/or too little rest may strain our bodies and or minds setting off a cascading deterioration of mind/body level of functioning. I have been around enough runners in my time to have learned first hand that this activity not unlike a pack of cigarettes should come with the warning: “Running may be hazardous to your health.” If we are tired or sick and have become too dependent on the release of endorphins from the pleasure center of your brains to feel good, you may continue this activity long beyond the point of diminishing returns and become deaf to your bodies screaming to you that you need to rest.

Over used syndromes can lead to a host of muscular skeletal injuries, and fatigue syndromes that leave people feeling like they have the flu. An immune system compromised by physical exhaustion may lead to symptoms of depression which may in turn further compromise the immune system and leave the door open to a host of physical maladies. To feel compelled to exercise to discharge stress from our bodies and experience “the runners high” may leave runners anxious and over time depressed. When we feel out of control of ourselves the potential to lose our cool and engage in mindless and impulsive actions is a strong human tendency. Furthermore, in addition to the potentially shame producing, self esteem eroding reactions to losing control of ourselves, we may begin over time to feel hopeless and helpless to steer ourselves as we see fit unless, we can consciously connect with and exercise authority over these impulses, feelings and beliefs. Teaching people how to regain control of themselves is what psychotherapists like myself do.

Negative stress is compounded by an over reliance or unhealthy dependence on unhealthy stress management strategies; activities that may cause us to ignore our needs to address stressful problems in our lives. We call such unhealthy dependencies addictive relationships. If a loved one is pressuring us with expectations that feel overwhelming or are simply expectations we do not wish to meet we may choose to address the matter directly or we may seek to escape our dilemma and go for a long run or bike ride hoping to feel significantly different about the problem. We may “feel better” temporarily discharging tension in our bodies however, we will not have moved any closer toward the resolution of our problem. In fact, the more we run away from any problems the bigger the albatrosses they become around our necks. Look what happens to those of us who do everything they can to rationalize staying away from the dentist’s office. That intermittent tooth pain we wish to minimize may actually disappear for awhile and at some point resurface only to express itself one morning as a raging infection that blows one side of our face up to the size of a grapefruit. The more we minimize and deny the existence of the necessity to cope with rather than to pursue temporary band aids on problems, the less capable we feel to cope with the problem and the more stressful the problem becomes. This is both due to allowing a small problem to become a larger problem due to neglect, and also because like muscles that go unused and are permitted to atrophy; stress management strategies that we don’t use we lose.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It simply changes form. This concept of energy conservation elegantly explains why energies trapped in our bodies lead to illness. If we are able to think about emotional energies that may get trapped in our systems and make us sick then, we can channel these energies creatively and/or harmlessly discharge them like environmentally friendly steam by talking them out. “Go ahead and let some steam off responsibly” is far more desirable than holding it in so that you get a back ache or a stomach ache. The logic that explains why some people’s vulnerabilities to stress leave them anxious, depressed, substance dependent or headache sufferers is a complex and sometimes impossible mystery to unravel. We have learned nonetheless, that if the stress is discharged in constructive ways the symptoms will lessen if not disappear.

We know that energy dynamics is the physical principle that governs these processes. Whether or not an environmental pollutant stresses a body to the point that the inhabitant develops a form of cancer is determined by many factors some of which have to do with their willingness and ability to manage the impact of such a stress on their systems. If such a person is overweight, depressed, and sedentary he may be more vulnerable to an environmental toxin however, we don’t know for sure why he will or will not develop a life threatening disease. We do know however, that how he manages or defends against the environmental toxin and other environmental stresses will have an impact on the body’s vulnerabilities to disease producing processes.

If you take yourself seriously then, you will take stress in your life very seriously as the levels of stress in your life and how you manage them will go a long way to determine your health and welfare. Stress management strategies complement each other. After reading this article you may consider managing stress on your own and/or in combination with professionals like myself to modulate your levels of stress and learn to discharge stress in healthy ways so to keep your mind and body in balance and to have the energy available to achieve meaningful results in your lives.


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