I have been teaching men how to be mature men for many years. As you might know, Deb and I published Balls: Men Finding Courage with Words, Work, Wine, and Women earlier this year where we elaborate a bit on what it means to be a mature man.
Yesterday, I found myself saying to my patient, John, that he needed to do three things in order to be the man he needs to be in life. I presented these three things as words initialized by their first letter…you know like the infamous “F” word. My three words are the “B word”, the (other) “F word,” and the (other) “N word.” Let me tease you a bit, as I frequently tease my men by referencing certain words by their first letter. I do this because certain words for men indeed seem like curse words that they should never, or more accurately, don’t want to ever use. Consequently, certain words for men are “bad”, hence curse words. Such words, are hard for men to face and feel, both which are essential to finding freedom to be a mature man. Joking about them with initials seem to help men accept both the truth and the difficulty in these “curse words”.
Before I tell you what these three words actually are allow me to tell you a bit about my recent encounter with John who is painfully struggling in life. His story is not unlike many stories I hear from men that have led me to write Balls and to help men mature in life. John, like so many men that I see, is an exceptionally good man. John is responsible, hard-working, and hard-loving. In fact, these qualities in John and rather exceptional compared to many men. Even so, he struggles in a vary painfully complex relationship.
When I talked with John about the B-word, F-word, and N-word, they made sense to him and will prove helpful. They might be helpful to you if you’re a man. What are these three words, and what do they represent?
The B-word.
The B-word is burden, or perhaps better said, responsibilities. Foremost, John is burdened by a wife who is impaired with early onset Parkinson’s Disease. John and his wife are relatively young, so when this diagnosis was made it was exceptionally devastating. As you know, Parkinson’s Disease is a debilitating disorder that adversely affects a person’s station and gate and ultimately leads to cognitive disorders, that can actually be delusional. Secondly, John is burdened by a job and a profession where he is quite successful and well-liked, but it is a burden nevertheless because he works hard and is considering buying into the business to do even better financially. John is also burdened by a thee-year-old son, who, if you know three-year olds, is, in itself a challenge. Add to that the lessening capacity of his wife’s Parkinson’s Disease and you can begin to grasp the overwhelming burden John feels. He has an additional burden of some external matters, namely with his sister and his mother who are at odds about how they can relate and manage the family business. Finally, John is burdened by the recent discovery that his father-in-law has been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. All of these responsibilities burden John immensely, leading him to feel quite overwhelmed. So many blows, it seems, all at once for John.
The F-word
The F-word is feelings. The essence of feelings is not what you might think: it is not just emotions, like anger and such. When we use the word, feelings, we are speaking of that undefinable “something” that you “feel” inside of you that seems important but does not lend itself to words, much less any kind of meaningful action. Feelings erupt physically, then emotionally, then cognitively, and finally with words and/or action. You can read more about this concept of feelings in our, I Want to Tell You How I Feel, if you like. A central ingredient of mature manhood is to be able to recognize a feeling, perhaps represented by a physical sensation, accept this as feeling to become emotional, and then carefully think about this feeling, and maybe put it into words. You may or you may not actually express this feeling but if you do, you must realize that your verbal expression of this feeling will be an approximate representation of the feeling. John told me that he sometimes has a kind of ache in his stomach, and then a feeling of sadness as he looks at the responsibilities in his life that collectively feel like such a burden. He feels these things but can’t ever find the words that describe the burden he feels. He often does what most men do: tries to figure out what he should do to fix this feeling. When I saw John today, I did my best to help him realize that he had to feel this feeling of being overwhelmed first before he could think clearly in order to find what, if anything, he could do about all these things that were on his shoulders. For a “doer” like John this is a tough task because he wants to be at his best, which is doing, namely doing what he needs to do. I tried to help him understand that at this point he needed to feel, feel, and feel…until the feelings were finished and he had some clarity as to what to do. This led to the third word, the N-word.
The N-word
Again, not the curse word representing a cultural slur. The N-word is need. The N-word troubles all of us men, but it is especially hard for doers like John to accept because his independence has been the hallmark of his character and he has not depended, aka needed, anyone in his whole adult life. Just yesterday during out morning philosophical talk, Deb said that she needed to take more care of me. I admitted that I needed her to do that. But neither of us really knew what that actually meant, largely because we are, by nature, very independent people who have taken care of ourselves all our lives. But now, at 71 for her, and even more for me at 81, we see the need to be cared for. Not an easy task, and it was almost impossible for John to grasp the concept. I talked to him about mature manhood acknowledging that we need people in our lives, need them to love us, need them to listen to us, and maybe need them to help us with some project. Having said this, John told me about a couple of guys who had taken him out to lunch and they proceeded to say that they knew that his life was difficult and volunteered themselves to him in any way they might help with his life’s burdens. I sent John home with the assignment of talking to his wife about these three elements of life and the words that represent these elements. I even sent him a brief email suggesting how he might talk to his wife about his burden (B), feelings (F) and his need (N) for her. John, like so many good men I see, has never said anything like that in his entire life. He grew up with a good, hard-working father but not a father who talked to him about B and F, much ness N. John is not unique. My hope is that John can be a better husband and father by being better at accepting these three elements in life. My larger hope is that he can find approximate words that his wife will hear. If he has never spoken his deep feelings that are represented by the B, F, and N words to anyone, much less his wife, feeling and expressing these elements, might be a challenge. We didn’t have time to tackle the equally challenging problem of how John’s wife will hear these feeling-based words, much less understand them. She, of course, must have an equal number of challenging feelings that might ultimately be necessary for her to feel, express, and communicate if their marriage is to mature.
Sitting in my office, towards the end of our session, John commented that indeed these words were not words he was accustomed to using, or even considered using. He did comment that they “felt right”, meaning indeed he could sense that maturing included being more aware and honest with his burden, more aware of the depth of his feelings regarding these burdens, and that indeed he needed to speak to his wife with more truth and clarity.
John is not alone in struggling with the important elements represented by the letters B, F, and F. Every man I see in my office has struggled with one, some, or all of these elements in their lives. It is a blessing to me that I feel safe in Deb’s presence to feel such things and use such words. But understand, that our ability to talk in this way has come from a good deal of personal reflection, personal therapy, and interpersonal successes and failures. I hope you can find your way to find, feel, and express these unavoidable and essential elements of life.