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October
Going Out With the Guys
My wife and I went to a party at a nightclub the
other night. It was mostly attended by young men
and women in their twenties and early thirties, and
I enjoyed studying the endless poses, posturing,
circling, feints and dodges of courtship. But all
the while I couldn’t stop thinking of what
awaited any of the couples that actually get
married and attempt to claim their part of the
fantasy we think of as marriage in America.
Do any young people really understand what it
takes to stay married? Could they? We are all so
filled with phony ideas that we get from movies,
songs, magazines and all the rest of the American
media machine in the new millennium that it’s
almost impossible to understand what it means to be
married. Our expectations for romance and love are
wildly out of line with the reality of marriage.
And the institutions that used to shape
long-lasting marriages—religion, community,
family, and schools—have become so weak that
many young people look at marriage as conditional:
“I’ll stay married as long as I can. If
it gets too messed up I can always leave.”
One of the ways to remain balanced and sane in
marriage is to make time to enjoy being with your
own sex. Women typically do a better job of this
than men for the simple reason that they are
usually more sociable and enjoy making and
maintaining social relations, while men tend to
share less and reach out to others more seldom. Men
who have been married a while often find themselves
with no friends. Their lives revolve around work
and family, and they begin to feel constrained and
isolated.
I strongly believe that men of all ages need to
hang out with men regularly, whether they are
married or not. Marriage and children can blunt
one’s masculine edge, and in being a
home-body/father/husband we may lose much of our
power. We are masculine beings and enjoying the
company of male friends can help us feel our innate
masculine energy. Besides, men act differently with
only other men around, and it’s good to
remember the “uncivilized” guy inside and
goof around a little bit.
The challenges of young men differ from those of
older ones. Young married men must learn to
cultivate a life with one woman and to turn away
from some of the careless and fun activities they
had with their friends. For young men, this time
can be painful, because they fear that their
marriages will cause them to give up freedom and
independence. When they try to hold onto old
friendships with their drinking and carousing
buddies it can be dangerous to the health of their
marriages.
It’s wonderful to get away sometimes, but
going out with buddies can raise some red flags. If
you are a young married man who goes out regularly
with a group of male friends, notice: Are you going
out with the guys to places where there are
available women? If you are, you are flirting with
disaster as well as women. If you have a few drinks
and “see what happens”, eventually
something will happen, and you will have a sexual
affair that will threaten your marriage. If you are
in this boat I would seriously question whether you
are ready for marriage.
On the other hand, many young men (and quite a
few older ones, too) go out with the guys simply to
escape their marriages, because they don’t
want to deal with the inevitable problems and
let-downs that marriage brings. Frequent escapes
like this are dangerous and self-defeating, and
they can weaken not only a man but his marriage. A
strong man works through the issues in his
marriage; he doesn’t run away.
The marriage fantasy has it that you marry the
“perfect” woman and live happily ever
after. If you want a life-time marriage, you have
to learn how to be in the marriage for the
long-haul, and you have to understand there will be
times when it will be boring and you may not even
like your wife, much less think she is perfect. The
only way your marriage will last in today’s
cultural climate is to make the fierce commitment
that you won’t quit, no matter how hard it
gets. I believe that men need to become
“marriage warriors”, fighting for their
marriages’ health, and they need to put much
of their energy into making an alive, strong
relationship. Our marriages need our attention.
Hanging out with other men, however, can do wonders
to help keep you sane.
©2010, Marty
Friedman
* * *
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is
threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people
together through the years. - Simone Signoret
Martin
G. Friedman is the author of “Straight
Talk for Men About Marriage—What Men Need to
Know About Marriage (And What Women Need to Know
About Men)”. For
many years, Marty Friedman taught corporate
managers how to create good relationships at work
before tackling male/female relationship
issues--and applying what he learned to his own
marriage. The founder of Men in Marriage, Marty is
regularly interviewed on radio and television, and
talks to organizations and individuals from a
unique, inspirational and humorous perspective.
Find out more at www.meninmarriage.com
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