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Something that is often on my mind: the struggle I notice in many men around engaging in authentic repair. Particularly with women, and/or anyone they perceive as a subordinate (their children, their students, their employees). It feels like many men in my life struggle with this and never learned to do it properly. It leads to a lot of rupture without adequate repair in intimate relationships, which I think then leads to the loneliness you so eloquently describe in another post.
If men are leaning primarily on a partner for support and also fraying that connection constantly through poor repair skills, they’re engaging in self-sabotage, but many seem to continue to see “losing face” by admitting to even minor wrongdoing as potentially worse than losing a marriage, or relationships with other important people in their lives. I wonder often: How can we begin to heal this widespread wound?
I. Love. This. Question. And I love how you call it a “wound.”
It really is a wound that needs healing. There’s a lot of recognition these days of how men have historically benefited in our society. There’s not as much understanding of how we’re also harmed by patriarchy and capitalism.
As boys, we’re scared into hiding our true feelings. We get messages from adults and other boys that we could be emotionally or even physically hurt if we show vulnerability.
This fear gets deep into our nervous system. We act “calm, cool, and collected.” We try to be the “nice guy.” We try to come off as strong and tough. We avoid “losing face.” We try to control and dominate. As you said, this leads to “self-sabotage.” We struggle to get really close with people—our partner, our friends, family—even if we really, really want to.
My experience as a therapist tells me these “traditional” masculine norms might seem like conscious choices men are making, but they’re actually our nervous system’s attempts to protect us from being wounded again. I also know that simply learning and thinking about them isn’t enough.
We need to practice. A lot. We need to allow our nervous system to open up to others and experience that relational conflict won’t kill us—over and over again. This will rewire our nervous system to see that vulnerability most often leads to more closeness and connection with others, not pain and disconnection.
I didn’t know what “repair” was until I joined a men’s therapy group. I hadn’t heard of it—and I don’t think I’d ever actually done it.
For those who don’t know what “repair” is, it’s the act of coming back together and finding connection and closeness again during or after a conflict. Legendary relationships researcher Dr. John Gottman says repair is “any statement or action that prevents negativity from escalating out of control.”
Sometimes it’s saying, “I’m not liking how this conversation is going, can we press pause?” Sometimes it’s apologizing. Sometimes it’s asking someone else to apologize. Sometimes it’s making a little silly joke to break the tension. Sometimes it’s checking in a week later to see how the other person feels about what happened.
I’m in another therapy group now, with both men and women. Every week we meet and talk about challenges in our lives. We try to support each other, but there’s often conflict. Someone doesn’t support someone else in the way they’re needing. What they say reminds that person of how their mom tries to make them feel better without actually truly hearing them.
We practice over and over again speaking as authentically and compassionately as we can. We clarify. We apologize. We joke. We repair. Sometimes it takes a few seconds. Other times, weeks.
The other day all this practice bore fruit in my life. My friend and I were arguing about fantasy football, whether it makes more sense to draft running backs or wide receivers in the early rounds. I felt my body tensing up. I felt my voice getting louder. I felt the urge to try to dominate and shut him down.
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