I offer two options for help: (1) Personal counseling with me and (2) My new internet-based program.
If you think you may need counseling help, feel free to contact me at Jed@MenAlive.com. (If you're new, be sure and respond to my spamarrest notice so I receive your e-mail.) I offer immediate help in my office or by phone.
Are you a man who is overstressed, frustrated, and angry? Are you a woman who walks on egg shells afraid you will set him off? Is your relationship suffering? This program is for you. To get help CLICK HERE.
In his book, Misogyny: The Male Malady, anthropology professor David D. Gilmore, says, "That men love and hate women simultaneously and in equal measure, that most men need women desperately, and that most men reject this driving need as both unworthy and dangerous."
Gilmore explores cultures from Western Europe to the Middle East, from the jungles of South America to the remote uplands of New Guinea, from preliterate tribal peoples to modern Americans. He looks at ancient and modern cultures and all those in between. He finds that in all places and in all times, there has been a tendency for men to fear and hate women.
Obviously this isn't the case of all men. Though this ambivalence is played out in all societies, individual men differ in the degree to which it affects them. For some of us the fear and rage are extreme. For others, we control it well and it seeps out only at times of change and stress. The fear and hatred can be expressed in thoughts and actions as well as through art, writing, poetry, and fantasy. We can see it in the works of many famous writers including Swift, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Strindberg, Tolstoy, Pound, D.H. Lawrence, and Norman Mailer.
After offering hundreds of pages of quite interesting and compelling evidence to lend credence to his thesis Gilmore concludes that this "love/hate" dynamic is rooted in men's unique dependency on women. He points out that in most cultures men depend upon their mothers and later their wives for food preparation, domestic care, emotional support and nurturing.
He also reminds us that in all cultures and in all times, men are dependent on women to mate with them, carry a child within her body, give birth to the baby, and feed and care for him until he is able to live on his own. Men depend on their wives, he tells us for procreation and continuity. "To bear the sons who will assure them a measure of immortality, protect them in war, care for them in their dotage, validate their masculinity, and assist them in their god-given task of continuing their line."
We love them for what they can give us, but are also frightened at the degree of our dependency. "So man must cling helplessly to woman as a shipwrecked sailor to a lifeboat in choppy seas," says Gilmore. "He desperately needs her as his salvation from all want and from oblivion; his dependency is total and desperate. But, and here's the rub, man must also separate from woman to achieve anything at all. He must overcome his desire to regress to infantile symbiosis with her if he is to be accountable as a man."
I've found this dynamic has played out in most of my intimate relationships. Understanding it has helped me be less demanding on my mate and less hard on myself. What's your experience been like? Drop me a note and let me know. I'd like to hear your thoughts and reactions.
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I offer two options for help: (1) Personal counseling with me and (2) My new internet-based program.
If you think you may need counseling help, feel free to contact me at Jed@MenAlive.com. (If you're new, be sure and respond to my spamarrest notice so I receive your e-mail.) I offer immediate help in my office or by phone.
Are you a man who is overstressed, frustrated, and angry? Are you a woman who walks on egg shells afraid you will set him off? Is your relationship suffering? This program is for you. To get help CLICK HERE.
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