Seems like whenever women gather these days, the conversation eventually gets around to “Where have all the good men gone?” By good, we mean men who are honest, intelligent, financially and emotionally stable. Most importantly, we mean men capable of sharing a conscious, emotionally intimate relationship with a similarly inclined woman. Well, OK. So, what’s so hard about finding THAT?
Well, for one thing, mental health research tells us that people capable of emotional commitment are most often the products of emotionally healthy parents who were committed to personally meeting the emotional needs of their children.
Our closest cousins, the bonobo apes, do this very well in their little ape way. So well, in fact, that they are one of the most peaceful, emotionally healthy cultures on our planet. Their secret: Bonobo moms stay attached, literally, to their male offspring for years, and bonobo dads stay close to play and protect their kids.
So, you ask, what does all this have to do with you finding a good guy?
Well, quite a bit. Anthropologists have discovered that when a little boy bonobo is separated from his mother before he’s ready to let go, his innate peaceful nature suffers an irreversible meltdown. In other words, he becomes rather unsociable. In fact, he’s so scary that no little bonobo female will touch him with a ten foot pole…… ever.
If girl bonobos could talk, they’d probably describe him with words like narcissistic, rageaholic, rigid or commitment phobic. Ever notice how these words often show up in the Where have all the good men gone conversation?
Anyway, just like our cousins, human babies are born expecting protection and physical closeness with their parents. And, just like our cousins, when bonding interruptus happens, especially to little boys, things can go terribly wrong.
Signs Of Men Who Have Chronic Relationship Issues
Over the years, clinicians have observed a very interesting phenomenon. Men with significant relationship difficulties often share similar childhood experiences, mental abilities, and temperaments. These include:
- High average to gifted I.Q.
- Early sensitivity to issues of kindness and justice, i.e. That’s not fair!
- Artistic curiosity, appreciation, and abilities (Well, so far this sounds like your perfect match. But, wait, there’s one more.)
- Rigid, rejecting, unpredictable fear-based childhood
Oh, so when the stork drops a bright baby boy into the arms of dysfunctional parents, there is a great possibility he’ll have love problems later on.
There is one glaring difference between baby boy bonobos and baby boy humans. When a baby boy bonobo can’t find his mommy, he takes about a nanosecond to shoot from 0 to 60 on the rage scale. But, the path to pathology for the human male can take years as he journeys from infancy to adulthood through rather predictable stages.
DESPERATION: Infancy through toddler hood.
Every baby has one primary need. Survival. And one surefire way to meet it. Cry. When the distress signal sounds, conscious human parents do what bonobo parents do. They soothe their little one. Thus, baby learns his needs matter, and he can trust his parents to meet them. Love is good.
But, when the very aware baby’s survival cries are ignored, he tries harder. If his parents don’t get the message, he just screams louder and longer. He doesn’t give up easily.
At some point, Mommy or Daddy may punish these tantrums by denying him attention even more than they already do. After all, Junior needs to learn who’s in charge in this family! Of course, Junior may be brighter than the average baby, but he still has no way of understanding such concepts as power and control. He just knows how to cry to survive, if he has to. In the process, his little mind fills with fear.
Love is not so good. You can see where this is going.
DISILLUSIONMENT: Toddler hood through early adolescence
Little Einstein still believes he can figure out what he has to do to attract his parents’ attention and affection. He tries to become good, or at least good enough to win their approval and ensure his survival. He creates ways to be charming, helpful, or daring. When he attempts a new skill, like riding his tricycle or building the tallest block tower ever, he looks for their approval. When that doesn’t work, he falls back on the tantrum approach. It hasn’t worked that well for him in the past, but maybe this time.
Eventually, he begins to look past his parents for substitutes who will appreciate him for who he is. Even if he’s lucky enough to find a teacher or a coach who sees his potential and value, he still silently questions why he’s not good enough to be loved by his own parents. In the process, his young mind fills with fear.
EMERGING PATHOLOGY: Adolescence through teens
Well, he’s tried everything he can think of to win his parents’ approval, with little or no success. The emptiness from his little boy days recycles into escalating defense mechanisms like rage, depression, and passive aggressiveness. He may try to prove his parents wrong by becoming a top student, athlete, or campus leader. Or, he may try to prove them right by self-sabotaging his grades, health, reputation, and opportunities for the future.
Mostly, he’s still looking for love, and dragging all the baggage from his baby days on his quest to find it. Rejected by his parents, he has spent his life focused on himself, trying to be good enough, smart enough, clever enough, fast enough, handsome enough.. None of it has been enough. Oh, did I mention the sudden bubbling up of his raging hormones? For such a kid as this, teenage love weaves a treacherous web of hope and fear like nothing else can. His insecure attempts to appear secure mask his intense fear of being rejected. He is clueless how love reciprocates between partners. He has no such emotional template to draw from. He’s just a stranger in a strange land trying to look cool. And, his teenage mind fills with fear.
PATHOLOGY: Adult
He marries. He divorces. He fathers children. He has affairs. He leaves a trail of broken promises. Lost, he’s still looking for love, while dragging all the baggage from his baby days on his quest to find it. For such a man, love with a woman weaves a treacherous web of hope and fear like nothing else can. He’s still just a stranger in a strange land. His bravado attempts to appear secure mask his intense fear of being rejected. He remains clueless how love reciprocates between partners, having no such emotional template to draw from. Rejected by his parents, girlfriends, lovers, and wives, he spends his life focused on himself, trying to be good enough, smart enough, clever enough, rich enough, handsome enough. Of course, doesn’t he know by now that none of it will ever be enough?
So, he rages. So, he deceives. So, he tries too hard. So, he grabs at power and insists on control. So, he blames every woman for the sins of his mother. And, his grown up, closed down mind fills with fear, which pushes him to try, yet again, to hunt down the love that so far eludes him. That’s when he comes looking for you on line or in line, anywhere there’s a chance to meet single women.
It is no easy task for you to make sense of the nonsense that so often detours your search for that one wonderful man who is truly able to love you. As Ms. Anonymous once said, There are much easier things in life than finding a good man ……like nailing jello to a tree, for instance! And, sisters, if you have had the courage to read to this point, your heart is likely filled with fear, too………fear that your love life is doomed!
Knowing what you now know, how can you hope to ever find an honest, intelligent, financially and emotionally stable man capable of sharing a conscious emotionally intimate relationship? Surely, all the good men are extinct, or at least on the endangered species list. There are probably more healthy bonobo males than human males!
Time to cue the silver lining onto center stage.
Unlike wounded bonobos, some wounded human males have been known to eventually recognize that all of the negativity of their early lives could not destroy their true goodness. Many have even courageously placed their childhood pain into the hands of a trained, compassionate therapist who can skillfully unravel all the knots, then reweave life anew for these grown up little boy blues.
In a journey I describe as “tender surrender” – rage and rigidity, power and control, fear of survival – surrender to peace. These extraordinary men find the way back to their original sensitivity for kindness, justice and fairness, and are reborn like the mythical Phoenix rising from the ashes of their lives. Their trek back into their most primal pain is rewarded with a rare vulnerability that sets them apart from their still wounded brothers. Now, fully alive and authentic, many rekindle their artistic gifts as a means of self-expression and healing. They all embrace the sensuality of life like a thirsty man finding his oasis.
Identifying such a man as this requires your time, testing and tenacity. Most of all, it requires that you be wary and wise to ensure you find the man your heart truly longs for; the man capable of intimacy. He will be the man with an uncommon ease. He will be the one whom you can trust with your truth and your tears; the one who will keep your soul safe.