Domestic Violence Includes Verbal Abuse and Raging

There’s a lot of talk right now about domestic violence because a celebrity guy has beaten up his celebrity girlfriend. Sadly, these stories only seem to get ink when they involve famous people. In my recently published book, The Key to the Men’s Room: What Men Talk About When Women Aren’t Around, I give the reader a front row seat at men’s group meetings where men speak in their own voices about their issues. What women will discover is that men really do want to get it right in relationships with women, but that for the most part, they simply don’t know how.

But there is a larger issue here than battered women. Certainly battered women deserve all of our compassion and concern. No woman ever, ever deserves to be physically abused. There are no excuses for this type of dysfunctional male behavior. But there are reasons for it that need to be examined closely and discussed publicly. Since nearly everyone agrees that women don’t bring violence on themselves but are unwilling, unwitting victims, it is men and their dysfunctional behavior we should be talking about in terms of stemming the violence.

I watched several television programs after the Chris Brown/Rihanna tragedy and the most I ever heard anyone say about men is that batterers need to get help. That’s not very useful advice since it carries no meaningful message. Of course men who batter women need help, but what kind of help and where can they get help is of tantamount importance. There is a price tag for this kind of help that many men aren’t able to afford in tough economic times. That leaves many men out in the cold in terms of being able to work through their issues.

While my personal experience and expertise are more related to verbal abuse and raging, the causes of physical violence are similar. What I know about male anger and men abusing women is that what makes men act out in sordid ways is the unresolved pain they carry with them that lives in their psyches, their souls.

A man who rages at his girlfriend, wife, and/or his children does so because he carries inside of himself unresolved pain that frequently finds its way up from his troubled and damaged soul and inflicts pain on women who are completely in the dark regarding why they are being verbally thumped. I know about this first-hand because I was an out of control, angry man who raged at women in most of my previous relationships. Men who rage get out of control because when their unresolved pain rises up and lashes out at its victims, they are powerless to stop it or circumvent it. Since men likely don’t know what sets them off it is impossible for them to stop it from occurring. The rage runs its course and leaves devastation and a wounded woman in its wake. In tough economic times men will rage even more as they struggle with their issues and feel less manly in terms of putting food on the table.

It wasn’t until I started a men’s group 16 years ago that I was able to confront my anger in a meaningful manner. It was in my men’s group that I discovered why I was angry in the first place. I had been beaten and verbally abused by my father for most of my childhood. I never really knew why he raged at me both physically and verbally; I just knew that it hurt physically, but it wasn’t until I was in my 40’s that I understood how it had affected me emotionally. I was a time bomb waiting to go off and all it took was an innocent remark from a woman to set the bomb off.

What I also learned in doing the work in my men’s group was that the more I talked about the abuse I suffered from my father, the better I felt about myself and the less I raged. The value of identifying the cause and talking through my anger with other men was immeasurable. I doubt I would have my anger under control today unless I had done this men’s group work. After several years of talking about being abused and thinking about what had happened to me as a boy I even managed to forgive my father which helped in my efforts to finally end my pain.

Very few men know about the opportunity that exists for men to reach out to other men for help and support. Very few men have intimate male friendships, friendships that allow men to drop their egos and open up honestly and authentically with each other. While the lack of this type of friendship can be traced to several places, fear of other men seems to top the list. Fear and lack of trust pit men against one another instead of helping them support one another.

Men need to find their inner heroes with the help of other men if they hope to stop the cycle of violence. A man needs to do the emotional work involved in identifying his issues so that he can be in a relationship with women that eschews violence and intimidation of any kind. I have watched other men heal themselves with the help of the men in my men’s group, so my story isn’t unique.

In the end, I believe that it is only men who can help other men heal their past wounds because male pain is unique to men. Men can and should get together with a group of men dedicated to helping one another heal their wounds. Absent that most men will continue to rage. There is a terrific opportunity for men to make the kinds of friends they don’t have in their lives, friends who they can call when their life begins unraveling, friends who care about their well-being. A men’s group can offer men that kind of deep friendship.

I am often asked by women what they can do to help men move beyond their pain. The best answer I can offer is to create a “safe space” in your relationship for your man to talk about his issues. That means telling a man that he is safe in talking about his issues because a woman’s only interest is in helping him move past it. It means that a woman never uses any information a man has shared with her about his painful past, against him in an angry moment. It means holding your man’s pain in your heart and respecting how difficult it was for him to share that pain with you. A woman who can hold a man’s pain closely and only with the aim of helping him will find that man willing to talk about many other issues in their relationship.

Authentic Men Don’t Wear Masks

Some truths about men in midlife seem absolute. Men don a mask each morning when they wake up. Its purpose is to keep the world at an emotional distance while warding off any discussions about emotional issues. Like looking through a two-way mirror or wearing silver lens sunglasses, no one can see into his soul.

In the process of losing his emotional identity he has constructed an impenetrable wall around his heart just in case the two-way mirror and silver lens sunglasses don’t work.

Remaining on his emotional desert is a choice since he can also choose to leave that desert and embrace those closest to him. At least that is the fantasy many women have regarding emotional intimacy with the men in their relationships.

Any woman over twenty has already learned that they aren’t going to have the feeling dialogue they want to have with men. Their level of frustration simply continues to grow while men persist in not growing emotionally, so by the time a relationship enters its second decade the dialogue has become watered down to boring banalities. While women haven’t lost their edge in the emotional dialogue arena, men can’t seem to develop theirs, preferring instead not to suit up for game that is going to be played on the uneven playing field that represents the man/woman emotional paradigm.

A 50% divorce rate plus more women choosing to remain single than marry looks like women have grown weary waiting for men to “grow up” emotionally.

I know many men who when we meet typically greet me with a lot of noise, backslapping, and bravado, all meant to feign camaraderie. The banter is light and pointless and never really engages either of us. When we say good-bye I immediately forget running into them and consider crossing the street the next time I see them coming. Their masks are always firmly in place and their dialogue is as captivating as the horoscope in the morning newspaper. When I consider the women in their lives I shudder thinking about how boring, impersonal, and irrelevant their conversations must be.

What’s in it for men to lose their masks and open up emotionally to talk with their partners in a manner that promotes relationship growth and intimacy? Most importantly, men finally can get what they want without feeling like they have to jump through hoops or rage angrily out of frustration. Men can have their needs met because women will appreciate that their dialogue is coming from a feeling place and not just their heads. Women respect that and will express their emotions without hesitation in return. This is what healthy relationships look like.

The safest place for men to learn to speak from their hearts is in small, confidential men’s groups where what is said remains in the room. Men can help each other learn this skill and encourage each other to expand their emotional vocabularies. While it might feel threatening to practice this with his partner, other men who suspend their judgment can provide just the safety a man requires to try out his emotional legs. In the 15 years I have been involved in working with men I have yet to meet a man who didn’t learn how to speak from his heart quickly. It’s time for men to level the field that relationships are played on and become authentic partners.

Ken Solin

Unconditional Love-a Man’s View

Is unconditional love only found in romance novels or does it exist in real life? The fellows in my men’s group have been meeting for 15 years. For most, unconditional love means that a woman will overlook his faults, quirks, and habits and not make her love for him dependent on his changing them. This doesn’t mean that men should be unwilling to make some modifications in their behavior, though, because absolute inflexibility doesn’t serve a relationship either.

The characteristics a man exhibits during courtship are a good indicator of his future behavior, and if these qualities are deal-killers, a woman would be wise to skip this one. If she pursues the relationship in spite of her concerns, she will likely try to get him to change what she doesn’t like about him. A man craves to be loved for who he is and what he does, and if, instead, he’s attacked for those qualities and actions, he’ll feel betrayed and judged. This will prevent achieving true intimacy in the relationship because a man won’t feel he can trust his partner, and as a wise older man once told me, “Where there is no trust, there is no love.”

To expect a man to undergo a major personality or behavioral make-over is unrealistic and self-defeating. It’s called projection, and it never works because it’s based entirely on the fantasy of who someone is, and not the reality. If a man snored when a woman met him, she shouldn’t assume that he will undergo surgery to correct his snoring later on. If he has been playing basketball with the same friends every Saturday morning or riding a motorcycle for a decade, he will probably want to continue those activities, and she should not assume that he will stop just because she’s become involved with him and doesn’t appreciate his passion for these activities. In the very early stages of the relationship, she might indicate that these behaviors or activities are problematic for her and ask if he would consider modifying them. If he adamantly resists, she must either accept who he is or if that is too painful, admit that he’s probably not the man for her. For a man to discover that his partner overlooked his prominently displayed behavior with the hidden agenda of changing it later would be perceived as a betrayal that would be impossible to ignore.

Expecting some degree of change is completely reasonable, though. For instance, my wife sat me down the other day to discuss how she feels when I don’t take into account how my behavior affects her. The issue was my faulty memory regarding her schedule and activities and exhibiting what she felt was a less-than-thoughtful attitude. She didn’t ask me to change my behavior or say she would withhold her love if I didn’t. She merely asked me to be aware of how being treated casually that way instead of being considered affects her. This seemed to me to be more about my being conscious than anything else, and I promised to try to take her feelings into account. As I do, I’m sure my behavior will naturally become more thoughtful and respectful. I didn’t have to change who I am to satisfy her desire for emotional consideration and she didn’t withhold love to teach me a lesson. I merely had to be conscious of how my actions affect her emotionally.

Everything I have said applies equally to women. There’s no double standard where love is concerned. Both sexes need and deserve to be respected and loved for who they really are—not for who their partner wishes they were. Accepting each other’s basic qualities and the possibility for a minor amount of behavioral modification and compromise is the first step on the path to unconditional love. No relationship may ever fully attain it, but if the partners consciously pursue that goal, they’ll be on a solid path. Conversely, a relationship that fails to acknowledge unconditional love as a goal will likely fritter away its precious energy nit-picking and arguing endlessly.

Ken Solin

I feel, are two words that make men very anxious

It doesn’t surprise a woman when she notices that her partner breaks out in cold sweat when she asks him to express his feelings about a problem issue in their relationship. A Woman grasps early on that her relationship isn’t going to include much dialogue that emanates from her partner’s heart, and not his head, and whether she likes it or not, she realizes that their relationship issues will probably be forever stuck in first gear where they will grind away and resolve at a snail’s pace if at all.

A man likely expresses his sense of sexual frustration by stating that he doesn’t think he and his partner are being sexual enough. A woman responds that she just isn’t feeling sexual. This then becomes a circular argument that plays like a loop on U Tube, except it isn’t entertaining. No amount of conversation about a relationship issue can lead to any real resolution as long as men and women speak different languages, and I think versus I feel, are two entirely and distinctly different notions.

So how do men and women get on the same page so that they can engage in real dialogue about their relationship? Since it is primarily men who are lacking the necessary skills required to speak from their hearts, it is men who need to learn a new language. This isn’t a trick for men to get women to have sex, but instead is a behavior men can learn to get whatever it is they want and need, through clear communication.

Absent explaining what he is feeling to a woman a man’s requests are open to challenge and debate. Thoughts can be argued because they are opinions. Feelings cannot be challenged because they are intimately personal and not open to challenge. I don’t think we’re having enough sex can be debated, but I’m not feeling sexual can’t be.

A man who knows how to speak from his heart and who is feeling sexually frustrated can tell his partner that he is missing the warmth, connectedness, and closeness he feels when they make love. A woman wouldn’t likely ignore that heart-felt remark, and while it might no guaranty a sexual romp, at least she would truly understand what her partner is experiencing and feel more amenable to working with him to resolve it.  It puts a man and a woman on an even playing field in their relationship, probably for the first time.

This isn’t a trick however and shouldn’t be construed as one, because it isn’t about how to get women to have sex. It has far wider implications that go beyond just sex. A man who knows how to access his feelings and can enunciate them candidly can explain how he feels about every issue that arises in his relationship. His chances for making his point with a woman are greatly enhanced because she recognizes from where his point emanated.

Where do men go to school to learn this heart-based language? It is most easily and least painfully learned with other men who are struggling with the same problem. The reason men sweat the feeling conversation is that they are uncomfortably unskilled in it. Men can teach one another how to access this place in the confines of a men’s group whose only rule is confidentiality.

After 16 years working with men I know how quickly they can learn this new language. In as little as a few months men begin to feel comfortable talking about their feelings and the more adept they become the closer they move towards holding their own confidently in a relationship dialogue with their partner. It isn’t easy and men should expect the same difficulty they would encounter learning any new language. Becoming fluent in a language takes some time and practice, but the reward becomes obvious. Men have a far better chance to get what they want and need by explaining how they feel about it rather than what they think about it.

Ken Solin’s The Key to the Men’s Room: What Men Talk About When Women Aren’t Around will be available in September. It is an authentic look at men that women haven’t seen before. It is very much a reality show where men speak in their own voices about their issues, particularly relationship issues.

Male Anger and Women Who Suffer

Male anger is high up on women’s lists of issues they want their partners to address. Irrational, uncontrolled male anger devastates a woman’s sense of safety and well-being. It is particularly frustrating because the reasons behind the anger and the potential for resolving it are mostly out of her control. What’s behind male anger? How can men learn to control it? What can women do to help?

What I have gleaned from decades of working with men in the confidentiality of a men’s group is that male anger is nearly always linked to painful past events in a man’s life that he mistakenly believes he has resolved by stuffing them deep into his psyche and never thinking about them again. There is no magic act for making past pain vanish, however; and stuffing it simply keeps it just beneath the surface, where it simmers and is easily triggered. Two important issues that underlie much of men’s anger are broken hearts from failed relationships and physical and/or verbal abuse by a father.

Failed Relationships

Peter had had his heart shattered by a woman decades before. This heartbreak had affected his relationships with every woman he met afterwards—including his unsuspecting wife, whom he married on the rebound and doesn’t trust. Instead of working through his pain when he first felt it, he convinced himself he could simply make it disappear by never thinking about it. Instead, his resentment of women instilled a sense of chauvinism in him that borders on misogyny. Peter believes that women are only useful for providing pleasure and aren’t worth engaging in serious dialogue.

It took him ten years of listening to other men’s stories before he finally came clean about his pain and then, only because another fellow told his own similar, painful story. The other seven men in the group encouraged Peter to talk with his wife about his recently uncovered pain but he resisted because he didn’t feel she would understand and wouldn’t forgive him for decades of condescending behavior. But now he knows that being abandoned and left heartbroken is the cause of both his pain and his dysfunctional behavior with women. He must make the choice to either continue treating his wife diffidently, or to learn to treat her differently.

A Father’s Physical and Mental Abuse

Until I was 40, I was the poster boy for male anger, raging at anyone who crossed my path. I had a lifelong mistrust of all men and was weary of living in the vacuum that being a lone wolf without male friends creates. I knew that my behavior was wrong and that I was out of control, so I started a men’s group to discover why.

It wasn’t until I began to talk with other men in confidence about my boyhood that I was able to connect my anger to the physical and emotional violence my father had inflicted on me. I remember what felt like a rushing river of relief washing over me when I first broke through the logjam of my long-buried pain. The sting became blunted after telling my stories several times, and I realized how eventually letting go of painful memories allowed me to lose my anger and begin to control my emotions. I learned that it was not only my lack of trust of men that is based on fear, but that this is a pervasive phenomenon for men in our culture.

What Women Can Do to Help

Men can’t be pushed to do their emotional work—either in therapy or in the confidentiality of a men’s group. A man has to want to end his angry cycle and realize that only comes with facing the damage his behavior is causing and the inner demons that are at its root. What women can do is to encourage their partners to unload the baggage that interferes with their lives.

My book, The Key to the Men’s Room: What Men Say When Women Aren’t Around, due for release in September, gives women a fly-on-the-wall opportunity to listen to men discussing their thorny issues honestly and openly. Women needn’t remain the victims of male anger nor do they have to end their relationships to escape it. The Key demonstrates how a woman’s love and encouragement can go a long way towards helping a man end his—and her—suffering and heal his pain.