men’s issues

Do Women Ever Admit That They’re Wrong?

Ron Johnson communication, Connection, Development, emotional maturity, family, Feelings, love, marital, men's issues, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness, social esteem

Do Women Ever Admit That They’re Wrong? What an outrageous question, it must seem. I would never have thought of asking such a question, which of course, is not a question, but rather a rhetorical question suggesting that women don’t ever admit that they’re wrong. This rhetorical question came to me from the even more outrageous statement underneath it when he frankly said, “I don’t think women ever admit that they’re wrong. It made me think, and the more I think, I have come to believe that there is some important truth in this statement, however outrageous it sounds. Let me discuss a number of things that might relate the thinking that many (certainly not all) women don’t seem to admit to ever being wrong. I want to start with a short essay on the whole concept of being “wrong.” I will discuss some cases that I have had over my years, some very recently, some many years ago where I encountered women who couldn’t seem to see, much less admit that they had done or said things wrong. Then I want to consider possible causes of this phenomenon, how men contribute or perhaps even cause this phenomenon, how women indeed know that they are wrong but fail to communicate that fact, and finally what men and women might be able to do in order to deal with this phenomenon.

What does “wrong” mean?

There are at several ways of understanding the simple word “wrong”:

  • Saying or doing something that you determine is wrong
  • Saying or doing something that someone else says is wrong
  • Doing the right thing despite there being a law against it (like Gandhi challenging British rule in India and MLJ challenging white rule in the South)
  • Doing something that is right one day and wrong the next or vice versa
  • Doing something that is wrong even though you didn’t know it was wrong
  • Doing something wrong because you don’t know how to do it right
  • And probably lots of other kinds of “wrong”

Examples

Most of my practice is devoted and dedicated to men, namely performing psychological evaluations with men, helping men understand and communicate themselves, and generally helping men be better men, fathers, husbands, workers, and friends. A modest amount of my work is with couples, some of whom I have seen off and on for years, some of whom I saw just once or twice, and some of whom I have more recently seen. Positions, ages, and other identifications of these people have been changed but I have endeavored to keep the essence true to the people as well as this outrageous consideration that women can’t admit that they’re wrong.

Jim is a pastor, which his wife, Patty, has been largely pastor’s wife with all the duties that that role requires, mother, housewife, and grandmother. These folks, both people of immaculate character, originally came to see me some 25 years ago, worked with Deb and me collectively and individually for a few years and then didn’t return until a couple of years ago. I won’t describe the marital challenges that were presented but theirs was not the terrible phenomenon of yelling and screaming that sadly so often typifies unhappy marriages. They had, however, not found a way to actually understand each other and deal with much that was truly in need of repair, both individually and then collectively. Importantly, Jim suffered a modest amount of sexual abuse as a child even though he came from a pretty good hard working farm family (the abuser was a coach and relative of the family). Patty came from a very repressive family where emotions were almost never spoken and her mother was probably schizophrenic as well as frequently threatening suicide. When Jim told Patty that he loved her during their later dating years, she said that she didn’t “understand why” he would say something, then saying that she had never heard such a statement from anyone. There has been much that we have discussed during our recent hours together but perhaps the most common talk has been that while this pastor has been in very significant pastoral and administrative positions, he has failed to keep Patty informed as to their consistently declining financial status to the point that they would file bankruptcy aside from his ethical/moral reaction against that action. He continued to feel terribly ashamed of what he has done over these years, much of which has been to afford Patty way too much liberty in spending, both on herself, traveling to be with her adult children, and giving to her children and grandchildren. So, as a result, much of our conversation has had to deal with Jim’s feeling bad about his lack of financial scrutiny and Patty’s disappointment in him. I once asked her if she felt any responsibility of the excessive expenditures, many of which came at her hands. Her response: “I left all the financial matters to Jim,” which meant that she took no responsibility for their financial dilemma. We might call this a bit of old school mother/housewife view of money, but it turned out to be more than that the more I questioned Patty. We might call this kind of “wrong” one where the person (Patty) didn’t actually know that it was irresponsible of her to spend money that they really didn’t have. Hearing Patty’s taking no responsibility knowing how much money they had in the bank, I asked her if she could tell me of any time where she had been wrong. To my immense surprise, she said that she couldn’t think of such a time. I heard, “Of course, I know that I am a sinner,” but this was soon qualified when I asked her if she could actually think of a “sin” that she had committed. She couldn’t think of one. This still amazes me, but I know that Patty worked diligently and successfully not only keeping all her feelings to herself but being carefully guarded on “not doing anything wrong” when she was growing up so as not to disturb her mother.

This might seem like an extreme case, but it is not. I have often found that women can admit to “not being imperfect and making mistakes” on the one hand but not being able to admit to anything specific that they said or do that was untoward.

Jan and Sam came to me recently, but more accurately, Jan came to me voluntarily and Sam came to me with the proverbial female hand in his back as he entered my office. Jan’s complaint was that Sam simply did a lot of things without her knowledge, much less approval. She noted that he made a “major change in profession” that affected the family finances (positively, have you) but he hadn’t informed her of the change. Sam, like many men is exceedingly independent having grown up in a family where he was ignored and rejected by his stepfather, so he learned to do things on his own, quite successfully for the most part. Jan grew up in a family where “everything was perfect and the family was always first.” These differences having been said, what ensued (and is yet ensuing) is Jan’s singular interest in Sam’s “problems” while admitting that she “is not a perfect person, I know.” When I do an intake assessment on a couple, I meet first with the couple, and then individually with each partner, the latter meetings devoted to their individual social histories. But in this case, Jan evidently informed my secretary that “one hour simply won’t be enough” even though I usually can accomplish what I need to learn about one’s social background in an hour. When I met with Sam, we hardly needed the whole hour but I learned of his history, not nearly so much, however, about any kind of problem in the family, but how he coped with it. When I met with Jan, I couldn’t keep her on the topic of her life because she spent the entire hour talking about what was wrong with Sam, and because I needed a second hour regarding her own history, I had a hard time getting anything substantial because of her desire to tell me more things that were wrong about Sam including her concerted belief that he suffered greatly as a child and had “issues” because of the suffering. When I met with the two of them together to give an interpretation of my findings and the psychological test results, it was functionally impossible for Jan to admit to any kind of error, even the tendency she has of seeing only what was wrong with Sam. Again, I was amazed that she, a very intelligent professional person, couldn’t see that she might be a bit “wrong” in being overly critical.

I see another professional couple, the woman a physician and the man a successful salesman. Simply stated, I have had to work diligently to get the woman to see that she has any significant part in the breakdown of the marriage. Granted, the man, like so many men, has a tendency to get angry at a drop of the hat, but much of his anger is his wife’s relentless telling him what to do, what is wrong with him, and otherwise criticizing him. When I was recently with them, I couldn’t get by her saying, “I am only telling the truth. Why can’t he hear it? Why is he so “defensive?” Why is he “defensive,” I thought? Because you are criticizing him all the time. Interestingly, the woman admits that she has “an anxiety disorder,” but is unwilling for me to tackle the origin of that anxiety even though the origin is her obviously seriously dysfunctional family. She comes from a family where, like Jan with whom I just spoke, where she couldn’t say anything of how she felt, whereas the man comes from an alcoholic, angry family where he learned to drink and be angry from his father.

Enough about what is “wrong” with women not admitting that they’re ever wrong. What about the men in their lives?

The men who contribute to women’s inability to admit that they’re wrong

Most of this has to do with the fact that we men have not been raised in a social environment where we talked about feelings, particularly feelings that were hurt, disappointment, discouragement, and sadness. These words, and the important concept underneath these words, were simply not part of the male environment in which we were raised. The typical male environment is one of some kind of competition, often academic or athletic and sometimes social. It is very hard to be raised as an introverted boy because boys are supposed to be extraverted. It is hard for a boy to be in school where the 3 R’s are all hard for him. It is hard for a boy to be raised where he’s got the 3 R’s but not the athletic interest, much less the ability to play sports. And importantly, it is very common for the emotions of joy and anger to dominate a boy’s emotional environment, thus abandoning the emotions of fear and sadness. Girls grow up with fear and sadness all the time especially in middle school (junior high) and are not good at being angry. This social environment leads to men being openly angry with everyone potentially and women taking a more circuitous route of channeling anger into criticism, not unlike the drama and gossip they learned about in middle school.

So we have a kind of unconscious conspiracy among men and women with the whole business of feelings and the subcategory of emotions: men get angry and feel joy; women get sad and feel fear. Granted, this is a blanket statement, but more true than false. And when men really find sadness, they become profoundly depressed leading to the fact that men are six times more likely to suicide than women despite the fact that women are 10 times more likely to threaten suicide. And when men find fear, they are quite overwhelmed with it. When women find anger, they turn it into vitriol neglecting their own part in whatever the discussion was.

My work with men, which as I said is my primary work, is almost always about helping them know the breath of their feelings, like hurt and disappointment, and then the underlying emotion that is always sadness. I have heard many men say, “I’ve never told anyone this before, but….” And if I am really helpful with men, I help them conquer anger…entirely helping them understand that anger is always secondary behind hurt, disappointment, and sadness. And all of these feelings are based on something that one loves…and has lost. So, the task in helping women get over their seeming inability to admit to being wrong lies primarily with men getting over being angry all the time and admitting that they have a “love problem,” as I say, namely having lost something that he has loved but also having skipped the sadness that should always result from any loss.

My singular suggestion to women about being wrong is this: You might be “right” with what you see but wrong in saying it, which can then tend you to see primarily what is wrong with him more than what might be wrong with you.

Why Did She Leave Me?

Ron Johnson Development, Discovery, emotional maturity, Feelings, marital, men's issues, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness

My wife left me…again. Yesterday. Bummer? Not exactly. She has a tendency to leave me every now and then. She loves to go to “her canyons” in UT and hike. Sometimes she has dragged me along or allowed me to travel and hike with her. Once she left me and went to Portugal to hike. She called me up and said, “I am so glad you’re not with me.” After a pause she then said, “I miss you terribly. I wish you were here.” I use this as an illustration of the centrality of paradox, and particularly of paradoxical feelings. See? She was certainly glad that I wasn’t with her, mostly so she could go at her own pace, do her own thing, and be alone. As an introvert she really enjoys her time alone. She particularly enjoys the two days of the week that she doesn’t see me except for early AM and late PM when I go to our Madison office. She is usually seeing clients on those days, but also enjoys puttering around in her garden or green house…again without my intrusion.

This time when she has left me, her destination is not so clear. When she left yesterday morning, she said that she “thought” that she would go to St. Croix, WI, about 4 hours away at the beginning of the Ice Age Trail that goes 1000 miles across Wisconsin. I doubt that she will walk/hike 1000 miles, because she would have to walk back another 1000 miles to get her car. I expect that she will walk or hike for a while and then God knows what she might do. Go north? Go west…maybe to the canyons? Decide to come home? I’m sure she’ll be OK with whatever she does because she is a person who trusts her feelings. Note that her “feelings” are not just an emotional experience but a deeper personal experience that we call “spiritual”. When I tell people about our tendency to “trust our feelings” and “just go west” or something, most people are envious, while others are appalled that we don’t have a plan. Planners are people we call “high boundary” people, who like boundaries, rules, and plans. Low boundary people like spontaneity and freedom. Both are good ways of life. The difficulty comes when a high boundary person is trying to plan what s/he might do with a low boundary person, who would really rather “just go.”

Enough about Deb and me. This blog is about several men I have known who have been “left” in one way or another. You might resonate with one or them.

The woman seeking a divorce after a long marriage

Jane left Jim after 34 years of marriage. She struggled with leaving him for at least two years that I know of (she saw Deb for s while she was trying to figure out what to do about being largely unhappy in her marriage. Jane did what many women do (and perhaps some men as well…but that’s another story): she stayed married far longer than she should have stayed married. In Jane’s case there were several factors, all of which amounted to what other people would think if she got a divorce from Jim. There was the “Christian” disapproval of divorce. (Actually, this was evangelical Christian disapproval. Many mainline Christian churches, as well as Christian denominations have a place for divorce, find it valuable and godly, but not so with many evangelicals despite the fact that there are nearly the same number of evangelicals who get divorced as there are non-evangelicals.) Many evangelicals seek to justify a divorce on so-called biblical grounds, namely a singular statement Jesus seemed to have made that divorce is justified in circumstances of adultery. I knew one woman who got a divorce justifying it on these “grounds” because her husband had been using pornography. She asked a “Baptist” (read, conservative, evangelical) pastor if pornography was, indeed “adultery” and was glad to see that she could divorce “justifiably.” In Jane’s case, she did not seek this artificial reason for divorcing Jim. She is quite introverted by nature and introverts have a distinct tendency to keep most or all of their feelings to themselves.

I think the more important thing about the situation with Jane is that she has never really been happy with her marriage to Jim. They shared a house, raised children, both worked professionally, and went to church faithfully. But from what I learned from Jane, albeit with intuition and conjecture, is that she should have married Jim. Or if she married him, she should have been honest with herself and with Jim that she had made a mistake marrying him. It is possible that 34 years ago the marriage could have ended quickly and found way to survive and thrive. But Jane stayed married, and I think she was never happy with him. Indeed, the two of them are quite different in personality but there seem to have been some deeper issues that Jane was not able to see. Sadly, now her perspective is that the marriage was wrong because Jim did this or that, didn’t do this or that. Indeed, Jim has made some significant mistakes in life as well as with Jane, but these divorce-related, attorney-aggravated attacks on Jim are a rouse. I think…and must say that I “think” Jane has never liked Jim and could never bright herself to admit to it. In a nutshell, Jane has not been honest with Jim about this, and probably has not been honest with herself. The theme of some women (and again, possibly many men, I suppose) not knowing how they feel (unhappy), or unable to express it, or unwilling to act on it.

The woman who “couldn’t do it anymore” and left

Mary and Matt were in a second marriage for both, each have suffered in previous marriages and each having children. They had been married for 15 years when Deb and I began to see them. From what I understand, Mary almost immediately talked about how Mike did this or that, or didn’t do this or that. But Deb is no therapist who allows any client to complain for long, so after the first sessions of complaints, she set the stage for Mary, namely to talk about herself, mature in her self-understanding and emotional awareness, and then to do something. Mike came to see me with the notorious “female hand in the back” syndrome, meaning, “You need to see the therapist.” Indeed, Mike was figuratively pushed into my office but we made a bit of progress, particularly on his tendency towards expressing anger easily, an almost universal phenomenon with the men that I see. I say that men have “A” problems, namely anger, avoidance, addiction, and accommodation. They usually don’t know how to express their deeper feelings, much hear feelings from anyone else. Mike cane for a while, and then Deb insisted that Mary and Mike come to see me together. I did my best, but I couldn’t get Mary beyond doing what so many people do, talk about the other person. I hear something like, “I’ll tell you how I feel. Mike….”
Wait a minute; I thought you were going to tell me how YOU felt, but all you did was talk about Mike and his alleged problems. I didn’t make much progress because it was quite obvious that Mary’s position was that Mike should somehow “change” in some unknown way. It seemed like she was saying, “I married you the way you are; now change.” After a particularly difficult session where Mary came after me with a vengeance because I was attempting to give Mike some hope in the marriage. I talked to Deb about the incident and said to Deb that I was either going to make a direct challenge to Mary or quit marital therapy altogether. Deb pleaded with me to do neither, and then she saw Mary the next day. Deb reminded Mary that therapy was not about the other person but about oneself, and furthermore Deb insisted that Mary “do something.” But Mary said that she didn’t know what to do. Neither did Deb.

That night Mary met Mike at the doorway and said, “I can’t do this anymore” and the proceeded to leave the house and go to their cabin for the night, perhaps permanently. Mary soon called Deb frantically two or three times, sobbing and overwhelmed that she had “fucked up” and didn’t know what to do .A few hours later Mary texted Mike without his response, and then again and again, and then called him. Mike apparently did not think he could talk to Mary expecting that it would be more of the same, namely he was “the problem.” But such was not the case. Somehow, in what we consider to be a “spiritual engagement,” she had found a way to see Mike for who he was, and then saw that she not only loved him, but also liked him. She came home after a sobbing-filled phone call, they talked for hours, and came to see me the next day.

I don’t really know what happened with Mary but her “doing something” turned out to be the right thing, namely doing something. Sometimes you have to move forward so that you can do a 180 and move backward or perhaps to the right or left.

The woman who left the perfect man

I’ve been seeing a 30-something man who has been very successful in business. He is honest, hard—working, expressive although introverted by nature, and generally kind to the people in his life. He has, unfortunately, not been very successful with women including the most recent female relationship, which lasted about nine months. Previously, he has had relationships that lasted a couple of years but never has been able to sustain anything with a woman long enough to establish a real bond and eventually a commitment to a life together. It appears that he has suffered from a phenomenon that I will next discuss, but more importantly, he is a good “catch” for any woman because of the ingredients just noted, like independent success in work, honesty, commitment, and genuine kindness. Guys like this often fail to sustain long-term relationships because they are so attractive to women, often women who are impressed with the guy’s physical appearance, vocational status, or general kindness. Who would leave such a man? This is the question Jack asked me when he came to see me because he was just at the end of this 9-month long relationship with Sidney that she ended, but for reasons that were not clear to him. She spoke of his being great in all areas but then said that “she was not ready to commit” and “needed to find herself.”

What happened to Jack has happened to many men who are good in many ways and “look good” to women. Women are initially attracted to the stability that such men offer, but eventually find the man “not good enough,” probably not exciting enough. Men like Jack are self-made, confident, and usually pretty successful in work but may not be all that some women want. They tend to attract women who they try to “fix”. This “fixing” comes after a few months in the relationship with the woman starts to be true to herself and displays the “deep hole” that I will describe next. I think that Jack couldn’t fix Sidney. More importantly, because of many women’s tendency to overly emotionalize, Jack was less emotional himself. More importantly, Jack is not emotionally mature himself, which means knowing what you feel, valuing what you feel, communicating what you feel, and governing what you feel. This, of course, leads to the man being able to hear and adjust to a woman’s feelings. Jack was good at listening but his tendency to fix Sidney didn’t work. It never does.

The women caused the man to leave

Many men become involved with women who have a “deep hole” in their soul. My previous blog was about deep hole people, whether male or female. Such people tend to be very attractive, often very sexually active, often outgoing, fun-loving, and very engaging. They are, in a nutshell, the bombshell woman that many men are attracted to…unfortunately. I don’t know how they develop this bombshell manner, but I suspect they have learned to “be attractive” to men, whether consciously or unconsciously. So they “get” men, but then they began to display the deep hole phenomenon that starts to deteriorate the relationship with the man. Like Jack, men usually try to “fix” these women, but there can be no successful fixing of the deep hole. It needs to be healed. Deep hole people, whether male or female, tend to be in relationships quickly but not successfully, sometimes going from person to person, often being promiscuous, and usually having some kind of addiction, whether behavioral or chemical. I’ve recently seen two such men and one gay man who was “left” by the deep hole man he was with for a few months.

In one case, the man was somewhat sophisticated in psychological matters and concluded that the proper diagnosis for his former partner was a “personality disorder.” That was probably right, but I don’t like the diagnosis as it speaks of what is wrong with someone rather than what is right, much what can be done about it. The other “left” man simply gave up on his deep hole woman after trying to fix her for years. Both of these men were exhausted, one still exhausted from the end of his relationship a year after it ended. What happened is that these men got so drained by the deep hole women in their lives, that they finally got a grip and ended the relationship. In both cases the woman protested loudly that she loved the guy in her life and promised to be “better,” but it was too late. They had drained the life out of the guy who was trying to fill the empty hole. The gay guy had a similarly deep hole person whom he left because he couldn’t tolerate his lover’s promiscuity anymore. He was driven to leave his lover just as the deep hole women had driven the guys to leave them.

The woman who left because the man couldn’t

Now I get personal. This is me. I am not alone in this category partly because many men really want to leave the women in their lives but can’t seem to do it. I was married for the wrong reason: I wanted to have sex, and at that stage of my life, I couldn’t have sex while unmarried. Perhaps, more importantly, I couldn’t deal with the sadness and hurt my wife displayed when I suggested that we break up…even “for a while.” I caved. My wife was a lovely woman, but I was the one who propped her up in many ways, encouraged her, and helped her make a life. Eventually, I got tired of all the work and began to drift away. I drifted into another woman’s arms, also a good woman, but perhaps also a woman with needs that I couldn’t manage. However wrong it was for me to have an affair, it was the only way I could see of getting out of a marriage to a “good woman,” but someone who was not good for me. You understand, hopefully, that I delete much of the rest of the story for reasons of propriety and privacy of all concerned. So my wife left me because I didn’t leave her. I most certainly shouldn’t have married her, and most certainly should have trusted my feelings in the very first year of our 14-year marriage when I suspected that I shouldn’t have married her. I didn’t trust those feelings and paid an enormous price, the price exacted by the scorned woman. I won’t give the details, but this is now 40 years in the past and no longer are important to me. There are many men who somehow get into a relationship or marriage on shaky grounds, stay in it too long, and end up being left by the women that they don’t really want to be with in the first place. You can’t blame the woman here.

 

My encouragement to men is always to trust their feelings, however murky these feelings are. This is the core of the work I do with men and it is the core of work Deb does with women. It is hard work, but it is valuable work. Many marriages wouldn’t happen, would end quickly, or would be healed with good therapy if the man could be honest with his feelings. We can’t blame the women for our lack of courage, wisdom, and emotional maturity. It’s not up to the woman to do something. And when it happens, it is up to the man to see what he has not seen, not been willing to see, or otherwise ignores. The men that I see in the “left man” syndrome need to look at themselves, not the woman. It’s not her fault.

The Last Half of Life

Ron Johnson appreciation, Development, Discovery, Feelings, grief, happiness, men's issues, mindfulness, Opportunity, Self-Awareness, social esteem, Spiritual

I’m in the last half of life. Perhaps, I should put quotes around that statement because I am not speaking concretely and practically but abstractly and metaphorically. I just flew by my 77th birthday a bit ago and now I’m well into my 78th year of life. Who knows how long I will live: a day, a year, 10 years, or 30 years? Yes, I suppose I could live to 107 but that seems quite likely. I am actually at the average age where Americans people die, and actually a couple years beyond the average lifespan of men, which is 75, so it behooves me to examine such things. Let me get to the point of this “last half of life” business.

The last half of life

I have come to use the phrase, the last half of life, metaphorically, not as a chronological measure. Half of the typical life of an American is about 38 years. But many people never see their 38th birthday and many see years well beyond 76. I am using the last half of life to mean the period in a person’s life that s/he might make a lasting contribution to life, perhaps something substantially different from the “first half of life,” whatever that period of time might be. I am presently seeing many men who are in “the last half” of their lives, but their ages range from 35 to 78. I will be gathering some of these men together for a day of reflection, encounter, and forward-looking even though the challenges and dilemmas of these men are substantially different. What remains the same for them is finding meaning in the rest of their lives. These men are quite seriously looking at what the past, the present, and the future in order to go forward with self-confidence:

  • They are looking at what they have done right, what they have done wrong, what they could have done, what they should have done, and what they shouldn’t have done. These men are looking at the past with what we might call “the wisdom of age” or “the 20-20 vision of hindsight.”
  • They are looking at the present with a certain perspective, namely what they are now doing including what they should be doing, what they shouldn’t be doing, and what they want to be doing.
  • They are looking at the future as to what they could do, what they should do, and even what they feel they have to

Who is looking at the last half of life?

Let me tell you about some of these men. (And permit me to use the masculine pronoun from here on because I am just talking about men. There may be some great similarities with women or perhaps some profound differences, but that is another piece of literature that I am not qualified to write.). Of course, all the names are fictional as are some of the professions and situations in life so as to protect the privacy of these men. Nevertheless, the thoughts, feelings, and actions of these men are wholly factual.

  • Jack is the 78-year old, and my only patient who is actually older than I am. He has been a very successful person in his trade, which has been social work. He has continued to work until just recently when outlived his usefulness at the agency he worked for. Previous to that work he has had some very responsible and successful people and is a person deeply committed to his work, and also to his faith. Unfortunately, over the years, including the 50-some year of marriage, he has not managed his money very well and is in an almost dire financial situation. He is looking to the “last half” of his life free of this financial burden but also have a life with genuine meaning.
  • Sam is a 35-year old very successful businessman who owns a trade-based company. He has been quite disturbed by the recent election and the many changes in the culture and politics and wants to “make a difference” in the world in some way. He has considered selling his business and moving on but has no idea where, when, and how he would “move on.”
  • Peter has been successful in human resources for many years. He has made a significant amount of money, but now has been “downsized” as many companies now do. But he has taken the huge step of working on a master’s degree in psychology and hopes to enter the field. By the way, he is in a very unsatisfying marriage, has three adolescent kids one of whom is going to college this fall. So not only is he changing professions, he is also changing his parental role and possibly his marriage situation.
  • Tom of 63 but you wouldn’t know it because he so spy and active. He has had a couple of professions over the years, including a good stint in ministry, but he has been quite successful in sales. He, too, like Peter (and another man as well) is looking into the field of psychology or counseling. By the way, his marriage is also on the rocks to his great dismay because his wife left him having discovered that 33 years ago she shouldn’t have married him.
  • A man who may soon be inheriting a very successful professional business from his father, a business for which he is trained but not interested. His interests seem to lie more in teaching and coaching.
  • There are several others in situations not unlike these, where men have been making tons of money but not happy, have been in difficult marriages, and other challenges.

Perhaps one of the reasons this “last half” of life has interested me is the fact that I have seen many deaths over the past year, including many deaths of young people, who might not have found a way to truly engage the “last half” of their lives. These people include the children of several friends, my own daughter, the children of several men that are current patients, three cousins, three in-laws, and one patient who wrote three blogs about his life with me as his amanuensis. This man, 75 when he died, often said to me, “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I grow up.” Now he doesn’t have to worry, but I think he really wanted to find some meaning to the “last half” of his life but never did. These many deaths have only been aggravated by the “war” that I spoke of in a previous blog (biological, political, and cultural war) in the world together with the 550,000 people who have died of Covid and the millions who have been damaged in some way by the war. All of this has given me the opportunity to look at the “last half” of the lives of these men as well as the last half of my own life.  Truly looking at this last half takes an honest look at what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen in life.

Honestly looking at the future

The theme with all these men is this: what can I do in the future that will be meaningful? Perhaps, what can I do that will be of lasting value? Perhaps also, what can I do that will be of value to the world? Unfortunately, but understandably, these men want to bring all the past into the future. They want to bring along all the good of the past, leave all the bad, and have more good in the future. You can’t have all three, and this fact is difficult for every one of these men. Simply put, you can’t bring all the past into the future.

Examples:

  • One man wants to stay married even though his wife says that she doesn’t like him, never has, and she is seemingly very happy without him
  • One man wants to continue to make $100,000 but in a new profession that will barely give him half of that amount
  • One man wants to find a way to continue to love his former wife in the same way he always has even though his current female relationship is far superior to his former marriage
  • One man wants to stay living with his wife primarily so he can have an “intact family” even though he doesn’t love her, and possibly never has
  • One man wants to have some kind of magic that will eliminate the debt that he has acquired over many years
  • One man wants to get back with the woman who just might have the most important woman in his life even though she says that is impossible
  • One man wants to continue to engage in ideational figuring out new ways of looking at life although he never seems to be able to put anything to real practice.
  • One man wants to be able to drink as much as he always had even though his drinking has certainly damaged his marriage and possibly his life
  • Another man wants to continue to smoke pot as a primary means of coping with life
  • Many men want the people in their lives to understand the psychological principles that they have learned without these people going through the rigors of years of therapy that they have gone through

Slowly and painfully, men often have to learn to let go of much of the past, many sad and challenging things like mistakes of relationships, school, and work. Just as often men have to let go of the good things that were a part of the “first half of their lives” because these good things are no longer available. The poem Desiderata said it this way: take kindly the counsel of years gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” But what do we need to surrender? And what can I expect positively out of a good perspective of the second half of life?

Surrendering and expecting

If I am to truly face the future and seek to find meaning and make meaning in life, I have to give up so much of what “the first half” of life has been. Then I need to focus on what I can do, how I do it, and why I do it.

Primarily, what has to be surrendered is fear, namely:

  • Fear of mistakes
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear of rejection
  • Fear of correction
  • Fear of being alone
  • Fear of being ill or dying
  • Any other fear

Secondly, you have to surrender some expectations:

  • Of visible success
  • Of appreciation
  • Of recognition
  • Of money

But you can expect

  • An increasing realization that you are doing something for you, for other people, and for the world all at the same time
  • Being more truthful, first to yourself, and then to others
  • Continuing to get better at thinking, feeling, and doing
  • Finding people who share your interest in doing something meaningful
  • The freedom that a fear-free life gives you
  • Success in doing something meaningful
  • A lasting purpose in the days, years, or decades you have to live
  • Recognition of your work by some people

There are many people, at least so it seems, that do not need to look at the “last half” of life.

A good life in the past leading to a good life in the future

I know of several men who are quite pleased to be retired. One of them spends a good deal of time golfing, another a good deal of time water-skiing, with both of these activities being spent with other people. I can only surmise that there are many people who are snow birds in order to live their remaining lives in parts south, at least one in Costa Rica and many in Florida. I see Facebook posts by some of these men who are very content to philosophize, share pictures, tell stories, tell jokes, remind me of things in the 50’s, enjoy the spring flowers, and spend time with their grandchildren. I am happy for these men. Most of them have lived honorable, productive, and honest lives and now are using the fruits of their labor. While I appreciate their pleasant retirement, such is not my lot in life, so it seems. I look favorably at the past but look even more favorably at the present and the future.

Personal

So, what, you may ask, is my second half of life? The answer, quite simply, is teaching, namely teaching people what I have learned over these 77 years of life, and more specifically what I have learned over the 55 years of my professional career. The forms that this “teaching” seem to be taking is in writing, conducting seminars, and doing meaningful therapy. I have finished with several elements of therapy that constituted as much as half of my working years, namely psychotherapy with children, seeing people who are chronically ill, whether with mental illness or physical illness, doing evaluations to determine if someone is “disabled,” and very possibly severely limiting evaluations in general. My focus now, aside from reading, writing, and teaching, is to work with people in therapy who are truly ready to enter the second half of their lives. There are many people who think about such things, feel about such things, and dream about such things, but I think I can be of more value to the world helping people who are willing to step out of the past, into the present, and towards the future. This is somewhat of a painful change that I have been making in my own “second half” of life, but it yet seems right to do.