David G. Eigen, Ph.D. ™

To be, or not to be (married) – that my dear Shakespeare is the real question. Why are so many more men not taking the “plunge?” U.S. population figures from 1980 to the present indicate that the percentage of men in their forties who have never been married has nearly tripled to seventeen-percent of all men. Why is this happening? Are they afraid of women? Are they afraid to commit? Do they not like women?

Divorce, a rare thing prior to the sixties is now all too common. Statistics reveal that over fifty-percent of all marriages end in divorce. This is common knowledge and an alarming trend.

The sacred institution of marriage is clearly under attack from within. Let’s look at what is different from a man’s perspective. The answer men have given will surprise you.

1. Men don’t like failing, and the odds of success are not in their favor, are they?
2. Divorce is unquestionably an ugly thing for all. It is first and foremost painful. No one intentionally puts themselves in harms way without some trepidation. Add to that fact, through training men have shut down their emotions to one degree or another. So dealing with painful emotions felt during a divorce is more of an unpleasant prospect for a man than a woman. The average man would rather avoid pain at any cost, because he’s been trained not to know how to deal with it. He is looking at the prospect of a painful failure that one out of two WILL go through. The attraction of marriage pales with this awareness, doesn’t it?
3. Men believe they will usually lose in divorce. Certainly not always, but usually. One of the things they most often lose is their children. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that men on the whole do care about their children, especially considering the trend toward allowing men to feel. This is very painful, and even if you work out seeing them a lot, you don’t get to do this like you did. This will feel like the loss it is. All men have seen others go through this, and this does not encourage you to open yourself to the same. Also, losing is not allowed for a “real” man, it’s shameful, and therefore not allowed.
4. The almighty buck also comes into play in men’s decisions. If they don’t have enough, men believe they will have nothing to offer. This reflects poorly on women as it says that they only are interested in a man’s money, not him (see earlier blog: The Barter System). Men in this position will shy away from relationship. I have had women tell me that “a girl must look out for herself,” meaning choose a man that will support them in the manner they wish to be supported. Understandable, but not as THE BASIS for relationship. This is off-putting to men.
5. The other extreme is a man with a boatload of money. They fear relationship with women who pretend to love them, but only want the lifestyle they can provide. Both understand the barter system, but he knows he can never trust her. Men also fear their wealth being greatly diminished in a divorce. This scenarios is anything but uncommon.
6. Many men see women as having become more masculine in attitude, losing their femininity. This is not appealing, nor conducive to taking the “plunge.” At the same time women are more overtly sexual, like men, and are losing what is the most important aspect of sex, intimacy. The very thing men are trying to learn and are hoping women will teach them. It would be unfair to blame women for men’s lack. They must learn this themselves. Women can and should encourage this. Women learn how to manipulate men with their sexuality to get what they want, but men know they are being manipulated and resent this. The women’s movement that rightly argued for equality, also wrongly treated the feminine as weak and wrong. It has damaged femininity in the process of calling for equality.
7. Some men are not marrying because they don’t have too. You can have intimate relationships, in fact with many women and not be married. The old admonition that prevented this told women, “Why should he buy the cow if he gets the milk free?” Either side of this argument is disastrous for relationship. Women are not possessions to be bought, like a cow, and since men are not aware enough yet, they can’t see the truth in not having indiscriminate sex. In fact they are taught this is a good thing. Add to this men’s fear and it makes sense not to marry.

So, it is with great fear and a distorted view that men now view marriage. This isn’t to say they don’t want a partner where there is mutual love and adoration, only that they are not sure how to create this, or sustain it if they do. Men don’t trust women or even their own abilities to choose a good partner. They know they can be manipulated all too easily. And while judging all women as untrustworthy is unfair, it is not without merit though in enough cases to scare men. The unfortunate part of all this is that it these leaves men masturbating, instead of making love, having short affairs from a safe distance, or taking some comfort in paid-for arms. Surely there is no wisdom in this scenario.

The Soldiers Speak is part of a brochure for the worthy organization Forgotten Soldiers Outreach, Inc. that sends gift packages of necessities and letters to U.S. soldier worldwide. Here is a quote from one of their recipients after receiving a package.

“I don’t know what to say. I am almost speechless. You almost got a tear out of my eye, but I sucked it back in. I can’t let my men see that. What would my men think?”

Sergeant Mathew Newman, Iraq

Exactly Sergeant, what would they think? You can’t read this and not feel it in the depths of your soul. We all know the saying “big boys don’t cry,” and soldiers, well, it’s simply unspeakable. But what would they think? What would happen if they did?
Perhaps, that it was OK to cry, or simply to express their feelings about the horrors of war, their fears, their confusion, and why were they really in harms way and not with their families? Soldiers are supposed to be “Terminators,” without feeling and immediately obey orders, like any good machine. I wish someone would tell my computer that.
The Sergeant’s words express the patriarchal role model as demonstrated in real life. A soldier in the middle of a fire-fight is not going to say, “Stop the shooting, ‘time-out,’ I need to go and have a good cry,” but this is exactly what is feared. But what would happen if feelings were not seen as the inner enemy? What could happen is that when the soldiers returned to base, they could discuss with each other what they felt. Instead of a debriefing of “just the facts,” there could and should be a debriefing about feelings. It might go like this: “I shot this insurgent/enemy, he was wearing a bomb, and/or was shooting at us. I saw his life spill out from him. He couldn’t have been more then maybe thirteen. I know I did the right thing and I kept my fellow soldiers and myself out of harms way, but I feel sad that I had to take his life. He was too young to understand what he was doing. He was just some poor kid that was brainwashed by some extremist Mullah. He was just a boy. At the same time I think I am wrong for feeling this way, after all, I did the right thing.”
His fellow soldiers could support him by understanding and empathizing how he felt conflicted by the horrors of war. More importantly, his feeling would have been witnessed, validated. Validated doesn’t mean his feelings are right and his actions wrong, it means both are valid. This is important in the resolution of conflict. He has a right to feel and also the right to make rational choices that may conflict with one another. The issue arises when one of these is made wrong. All humans must learn to balance all aspects of themselves, not by denying any aspect, but through conscious choice.
How would this help? The soldier and his fellow squad members would release and leave behind the charges from their grief and fear, by expressing them, instead of carrying them around inside in an ever darkening holding cell (the shadow side). Then, the charge they carry would be released, freeing the soldiers to make clearer choices and find resolution more easily.
All repressed emotions require constant energy to maintain in our inner prisons. These darkening energies twist human beings on the inside, limiting their abilities to make decisions, to intuit, sense conditions, and to just plain be a fully functional human being and soldiers. The lessening of vitality and sanity is always the result of repression.
Worse still, if the soldiers survive to return home, they are thrown back into society with their pressure cookers of horrors, pain, and fears, all being repressed. Obviously, this can have disastrous consequences. But for those that appear to be handling it, it can affect them and their families, communities and country for the rest of their lives. Look at the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sufferers from Vietnam that surfaced years later, and that is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Most I believe suffer in silence, often drunken silence.
In conclusion, it is my heartfelt belief that our soldiers MUST express their feelings, and yes, even be allowed to cry if they choose to. Permission for this be given and supported wholeheartedly by all.

Thank you Sergeant and all soldiers for you courage in defending our country.