David G. Eigen, Ph.D. ™

Everything is a relationship, or lack of one. Relationships are the cornerstones of anything long-term. Your most important relationships are the ones that affected you the most, to the core. What are their hallmarks? Real relationships include being cared about, believed in, mutually. For example: Did your best boss, or teacher, or mentor care and believe in you? The answer is of course, yes, and you felt it too, didn’t you? And you cared about and believed in them in return. This mutual connection of caring and believing in was THE main ingredient, without which no real relationship would have been possible.

This is the secret key to all relationships; being believed in and cared about, not just seen as being “useful.” This is never more important than in a romantic relationship and yet mostly ignored. When a woman feels her man wants her only for sex and to do chores, her soul feels invisible, she feels unimportant, of little value. She resents this and it lessens her. When a man is seen as the stereotypical hero, protector, provider who takes out the garbage, but his essence is not seen, cared about or valued, he feels of little value. He resents and is lessened too. The barter system that has replaced sacred union in many marriages illustrates this.

While the above is clear, what is not clear is that all long-term real relationships are based in the same principals. This includes employer-employee, provider-client, apartment resident-doorman, etc. It doesn’t matter. Even if you remember the smallest personal detail about this person and ask about it indicates they as a human being have importance to you. Remembering a persons name is a good one that I struggle with personally. When I can’t remember, I make sure somehow by mentioning some detail that I do remember to show they are not taken for granted. I use word association to improve my retention and repeat their names when I meet them. Why, because they are important as human beings.

The words we commonly apply to important business relationships include: trust, caring, respect, mutuality, and win-win. These all are a part of creating good solid business relationships. The words we apply to personal relationships include: caring, intimacy, love, passion, fun, and exciting. By the way, intimacy does not mean sex, but a close, familiar, vulnerable relationship with another person or group (in-to-me-see). Here is where our thinking processes are in error; we created a distinction where there is none. Business and personal relationships’ qualities are not mutually exclusive. It is when we separate them that we deny others and our own essential humanness, because it is easier. Relationships require work.

We have become a society that worships the god of easier, laziness. We produce little and want a lot. This is our downfall. Easier means others get to do the hard work. The Chinese have agreed to be our Coolies and now own a substantial portion of our assets. This is the affect of the disease of easier. We have relegated others into transactional associations with us. This allows us not to care. Wall Street has always been about individual profit at the expense of others. Banks that charge ridiculous interest rates are another. Easier and its close cousin, gluttony are readily evident.

A transactional “relationship” is really just an interaction devoid of relationship. In a corporation we can see it in departments that hate each other. There is a complete lack of respect and understanding of the underlying relationships that is at cause. A great example is the department that all love to hate, the so-called Human Relations Department. Inhuman is more like it. Yet, they are not to blame. It is leadership that is. The buck stops there for a reason. They set the tone; they create the proper behavior models. And remember, most executives nowadays are almost exclusively interested in their “compensation packages.” How they get it, or how it affects the company as a whole, which includes the “underlings,” is not their concern.

I recently spoke on the above topic at an event of mostly business owners and afterwards an attendee came up to me and said, “My wife came to me when the economy went sour and said, ‘we have enough money, do not lay off a single person’.” He said he agreed with her and didn’t let anyone go. This says volumes about his loyalty, his caring for his employees. He will reap the benefits, as will his employees. Yet, in corporate America, we send in “efficiency experts” to slash what is seen as a “bloated” workforce. It is now about getting the work of three from one worker who is terrified of losing a job. The long-term effects will be disastrous. Our industries will continue to produce a declining product, because management and the shareholders want short-term profits. The bloat is mostly at the top. Limiting bonuses and incentives would be a great start, voluntarily would be ideal. The essence of this executive problem is covered in my previous article Failure of Corporate Culture, but it boils down to egocentric greed. These scenarios are all possible because transactional interactions have replaced human relationships.

We have come to the time were we are faced with the choice between what is right and what is easy. Essentially, it’s all about easy money versus correct behavior. Easy money has always held an attraction and in the past forty years it seems the pendulum swung heavily in favor of easy. The effects on our world are quite evident, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot, and nothing is easy anymore. Time to make new choices, earn real rewards, and create real things. Speculation to make a quick buck is parasitic in the long-term. Start building real relationships today.

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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, men through training 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 pails with this awareness, doesn’t it?
3. Men believe they will usually loose in divorce. Certainly not always, but usually. One of the things they most often loose 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, loosing 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 loosing 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 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.