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Chapter 3 from Jed’s book, Mr. Mean: Saving Yourself and Rescuing
Your Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome
Read Jed’s new book, Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable
Male Syndrome on Scribd at: http://tinyurl.com/MrMeanBook or get a “hard
copy” by going to http://www.menalive.com/mrmean.htm
Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a marriage and family counselor for the last 44
years. He is the author of 8 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong
Places, Male Menopause, and The Irritable Male Syndrome. He offers
counseling to men, women, and couples in his office in California or by phone
with people throughout the U.S. and around the world. To receive a free E-book
on Men’s Health and a free subscription to Jed’s e-newsletter go to
www.MenAlive.com. If you are looking for an expert counselor to help with
relationship issues, write Jed@MenAlive.com
My boyfriend and I have been together for just over four years and I’m noticing
terrible mood shifts that are increasingly difficult to live with. He becomes
extremely frustrated, irritable, angry, confused, unsure, lost, and sad. I can tell
that he is becoming more distant and I’m worried he’s thinking of leaving.
Whenever I try and get him to talk about his unhappiness or what I can do to
make things better, it seems to make him angry and he pulls away even more. I
love him very much and I really think he loves me, but I feel our relationship
slipping away and I don’t know what to do. Please, can you help? BL
For men the 5 most hateful words in the English language are, “Honey, we
need to talk.” The words can be said with anger or with love, with disdain or
compassion, with despair or with hope. It seems no matter how they are
presented, they are met with a resistance bordering on terror by most men. Why
“I feel caught in a horrible trap,” one woman told me. “If I let things alone and
don’t say anything, our relationship continues to go downhill. “If I try and talk to
him about ways we can fix things, he acts like I’m trying to kill him. He refuses to
Fear and Shame Feel Like Life and Death for Women and Men in Trouble
In order to break through the impasse of how to help a man who refuses to
talk about what is going on, we have to understand fear in women, shame in
men, and how they interact with each other. Here’s an experience many people
have had which can serve to introduce us to this critically important topic. A man
and his wife are in the car together on their way to visit family for the holidays.
As he drives around a curve, the wife suddenly puts her hand on the dashboard
to brace herself. He gives her a hostile look, clenches his jaw, and turns back to
the road. Within minutes they get into a fight about some inconsequential issue
Both are a bit on edge as the drive begins since it is holiday time and they
are visiting family. When the man drives through the curve the wheels hit the
divider bumps briefly, the woman is startled, and she feels a jolt of fear. She
braces herself--a reflexive attempt to protect herself. The man does not realize
she is afraid. Instead, he interprets her reaction as a judgment on his driving and
his ability to protect her from harm. He has a jolt of shame. In an attempt to
protect himself from feeling inadequate he gets angry. His anger triggers more
result he blocks the shame from his awareness and focuses instead on
something he imagines his wife did or didn’t do. His wife may be more aware of
her fear, but may also deny her fear to herself, thinking “He’s really a good driver,
I don’t have to worry.” All of this goes on in a matter of seconds and is out of the
awareness of both partners. But the result is that both act as though they were
In order to understand the irritable male syndrome (and a whole lot of other
problems that impact men and women) it’s important to recognize the way talking
about a problem can increase fear and shame for women and men.
Our emotions are critical to our survival and have evolved over millions of
years to keep us alive long enough to mate, raise children, and pass our genes
to the next generation. From an evolutionary perspective, women are the more
valuable for the survival of the species. The woman carries the rare egg (each
woman makes only 400 in her lifetime) in her body. Conception occurs in her
womb, a fetus grows within, is nurtured by her breast milk after birth, and is kept
alive and raised by her until the child is ready to leave home. The man carries a
huge number of tiny sperm (each man makes 500,000,000 sperm per day).
Compared to the woman’s contribution, males have little to do with the actual
business of reproduction, beyond producing sperm packaged in seminal fluid.
Having a man around to help rear the children is very valuable, but as many
the day she dies she needs to feel that “special someone” will protect and care
for her and no other. Whenever, this connection is threatened she feels anxiety
and fear. “Over the millennia, females developed a kind of internal GPS that
keeps them aware of closeness and distance in all their relationships,” say
Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, authors of How to Improve Your Marriage
Without Talking About It. “When a woman feels close she can relax; when she
insecurity. Let’s start with the essence of maleness and look more closely at the
250,000 sperm. Eggs weigh 85,000 times as much as sperm. Think how you’d
feel if you had to merge with someone who was 85,000 times heavier than you?
Now, think of the competition involved in mating. There are fifty million to five
hundred million sperm per ejaculation. How would you feel competing against
Since it is the female that carries the egg, males are the ones who have to
Males often remember, with a great deal of shame, walking across a room
and asking the “cute” girl to dance, only to be turned down and having to walk
back to his seat feeling that all eyes are on him and people are saying to
themselves, “loser, loser, loser.” This is the essence of male shame. We are
always in competition with other males to be chosen by a female who can trigger
our feelings of insufficiency and inadequacy with a casual shake of her head.
Can you imagine how you would feel if you were forced to compete your
whole life and had hundreds and hundreds of small and large rejections, many of
them crushing? Women, of course, have their own issues to deal with, but see if
you can let yourself feel the shame that haunts men.
cherished. He needs to feel like a winner, that he can beat the competition and
be the chosen one. From the time he is born until the day he dies, he is
vulnerable to shame and loss of face. “Shame,” says author Merle Fossum, “is
feeling alone in the pit of unworthiness. “Shame is not just a low reading on the
own momentum.” Both shame and guilt are ways in which people experience
feeling bad. Yet the two are quite different. Guilt involves feeling bad about what
we do or fail to do. Shame is feeling bad about who we are, about our very
being. The shame that men experience is a kind of soul murder, undermining the
Why Talking Can Trigger Men’s Shame and What Women Can Do Instead
For most women, talking is the way they connect. Its how they deal with their
fears and how they solve problems. When they see the man in their life suffering
from the irritable male syndrome, they want to get him to talk about it in the
But as noted at the beginning of the chapter, for men talking often triggers
shame. Here’s why. The truth is that men talk all the time (though not as much
as women) about many things. If you look back, he probably talked more when
you were first getting together when he felt safe and his self respect was high.
over. Usually when women approach men for one of those “let’s talk” moments,
it’s when she is afraid. This triggers his shame and he usually thinks, “What
have I done wrong now?” As we have more and more of these encounters, the
woman builds up more fear and the man builds up more shame until talking is the
It may not be evident at the moment, but one of men’s strongest desires is to
protect and serve the person he loves. When you’re afraid, he judges himself as
a poor protector. His shame levels goes up and he usually gets more irritable
and angry. One of the best ways to lower your fear level is remind yourself that
It only takes one committed person to save a relationship. Most women are
afraid that if they can’t get the man to change, all is lost. You will learn many
ways in this book that you can do to save yourself and rescue your relationship.
You can also set a “check in” date for you to commit to making things better
no matter what he does. I do this with all my clients and just knowing that you
have six months, a year, or whatever time you are willing to commit to, allows
you to relax a little and decrease your fear. What other ways might you lower
noted earlier it often occurs as women become more anxious, frightened, and
are surprised at the things that cause women to be afraid, women are often
surprised at the things that increase men’s shame. Here are a few ways that
author Pat Love noticed she had shamed the man in her life: Excluding him from
his needs, withholding praise, using harsh tones, pushing him to get help, valuing
others’ needs over his, condescending, name calling, ignoring him, comparing,
dismissing. There are many others. Which ones do you notice that you are
doing?
I think you get the idea. Again this isn’t meant to blame you or to cause you
to become ashamed. You have been doing the best you can. But noticing ways
you have been shaming him and stopping yourself can go a long way towards
healing. What are some of the things you’ve said or done that could cause your
man’s shame to increase? Being aware is the first step to making positive
change.
When we become locked into the Fear/Shame spiral, we get locked into
negative perceptions. “He’s mean, he’s inconsiderate, he’s angry all the time,
he’s withdrawn, he doesn’t love me, he’s sick.” Most women I talk with want to
help get the “mean” out of their man. They want to “de-mean” him, but end up
“demeaning” him. Focus your attention on the ways he has been, or you would
Most women really don’t want “Mr. Nice.” They want a whole man, not a
perfect man. They want a man they can love and who loves them. I’ve learned
over the years that what you focus on, increases. If you want Mr. Wonderful,
look for all the ways—small ones and large ones--in which your man is
wonderful. Keep a journal of all the good stuff and read it when you are feeling
afraid.
It’s relatively easy to be your best when you are getting the best from your
partner. It’s a lot more difficult when you are getting a lot irritability, anger,
judgment, silence. Here’s an exercise that can help. Write down the things that
are best about you as a person. Then write what’s best about you as a partner.
Most women wouldn’t write that they are their best when they are fearful, angry,
nagging, blaming, shaming, etc. They are at their best when they are honest,
and you’re tempted to respond with fear or shame, read what’s best about you as
a person and a partner and let that deeper truth guide your response.
For year’s my wife and I have used a “love letter” process that we learned
from John Gray. When you’re feeling a lot of negative emotions in your life, write
a letter to the person who seems to be triggering them. You’re not going to give
“Dear_________”. Then write down any hurt and pain you are feeling. Next,
write down any anger or irritation you feel. Go on to write things that trigger your
anxiety and fear. Continue with the things that cause you to feel guilt and
Most of us either deny our feelings or we get stuck on one level or another.
We get locked up in our hurts or our anger. This allows you to express the whole
range of your emotions in a safe way. People tell me they always feel better
Let me close by saying that I’m not suggesting that talking with your partner
will always trigger shame or that you should never talk. I am saying that there
are a lot of ways we can heal, even when our partner does not want to “talk
about it.” You’ll find as you act on these practices more and talk less, the
emotional climate will thaw out and you’ll be able to talk without triggering more