Here’s some ideas about what to do if your girl explodes in a seething rage on you.

1. Don’t leave the scene. Although guys have the tendency to freak out, or leave, or both, I would advise you against this decision. Stay, and let her have her anger. Don’t take it personally so quick, because you’ll react in a way that you’re probably not conscious of. Hang in there.

2. If you’re having a reaction, such as feeling scared of her anger, or feeling angry yourself, say that to her. It will flush it out of you, and it will allow her to recognize it in herself. It may open up the conversation at the critical point where most conversation will go south. You can change the course of it yourself, and not have to succumb to sleeping on the couch this week.

3. Hang in there and listen. Actively listen, and see what is going on with her. It may not be anger. It may be a host of other things, such as not feeling seen, heard, validated, loved, etc. Women are mysterious creatures, and it is very possible that something else is going on with her, that may or may not be related to what you did. Again, remember - it is her anger, and the less you fall into it and react to it, the more perspective you will have on the conflict to help yourself and slice the amount of time battling in half.

4. Don’t apologize just to apologize - then you look like a chump. If you’re truly sorry, wait a little bit of time until the conversation progresses, and then take ownership for what you brought to the conflict. But, just to apologize for its own sake, and too early, will make you look insincere, and might make her more mad.

5. Take a breather if you need to from each other, but come back and finish out the conflict in, say, ten minutes or so. Don’t let it go, and neglect it - it will just fester if it stays unattended to.

Oh, and check this post out. It relates to this topic, about better communication tips form me to you:

http://phoenixmenscounseling.com/blog/2008/09/07/say-what-you-mean-and-mean-what-you-say/

I was having a conversation with my business coach, Marco, and he was talking about this idea, which led me to seek out the article on (gasp!) Oprah.com. It’s interesting, and looks at the reasons behind why men cheat. It’s usually not about the cheating per se, but about a vacancy or an unmet need from within the relationship already. Do you find yourself fantasizing about cheating, or about other women in general? Would you suspect that there is something lacking in your relationship as it is?

See the article here:

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/relationships/couples/20080827_tows_cheating

I’ve been working with this idea a lot in my sessions, about how men feel unfulfilled or not totally “in” the relationship, and then, on top of that, don’t have or haven’t learned the tools to get what they want or what’s lacking. Sometimes, infidelity or even “checking out” of the relationship has already happened, and then counseling becomes more like a clean up job.

If you suspect that there are some things in your relationship that you are not getting from your girl - sex, love, affection, validation, support, fun, intimacy, communication - maybe these are things that begin to create the problems that lead you to avoid, withdraw, or generally “check out” of your relationship. She probably knows that you’re doing this, and may or may not be saying it in words. Get some help now, before it’s too late for your relationship.

This post is the second in a series on dealing with how pornography affects marriages and relationships. Today’s post is an interview with Leanne Grant, Ph.D., who has worked with women who are affected by online pornography in their marriages.

Jason Fierstein: I am interested in learning about a woman’s perspective on the role of pornography in one’s relationship. Could you help me understand more about this?

Leanne Grant, Ph.D: Men don’t understand, from a woman’s perspective, to imagine their significant other getting off to pictures of the opposite sex and how threatening that feels to a woman. I imagine that any guy who comes home to find their wife or girlfriend to watching nude photos of men would feel threatened. For women, the message of “I’m not good enough” and “my guy is looking elsewhere to be stimulated” instead of with them is what comes up for women. Porn is physiologically stimulating, and is new and novel, so is attracted to the newness or the novelty. 

For women, it triggers a cycle about insecurities about their bodies. No woman can compete with an airbrushed image online. Visually, a woman couldn’t be that perfect, but women become obsessed about trying to become that image. Look at industries such as weight loss, plastic surgery, liposuction, Botox, exercise, cosmetics, and the list goes on and on.

Women get obsessed with trying to compete with the images that their men are watching online. Women think that “I’m not good enough,” and remember the point in their relationship that their man was really into them in the beginning.

Women see their guy looking at porn, and imagine to themselves that “he must be falling in love,” and “what if he is falling in love with somebody else.” The initial spark (during the honeymoon phase) can’t last over time. 

JF: So how does a couple break the cycle?

LG: Women need to talk about their own experience, and men need to talk about their own experiences together. Women are making it more severe in their own minds. 

The work becomes to create that spark again in your own relationship again. Women need to understand that that spark between them and their partner needs to be reignited over and over in a relationship. It doesn’t happen as spontaneously over the course of time as it did when you first start dating someone. It’s learning together how to bring that sense of excitement and novelty into your life.

JF: What happens if that doesn’t happen, though? It’s fairly common to see these things not happen, and for a relationship to get much worse?

LG: If it’s not happening, then you need to take the next step and get some outside help, because there might be something else getting in the way, such as feelings of hurt or resentment that impede your communication and intimacy. In the communication, it is important that you talk about how you feel - both you and your partner.

For example, as a woman, you need to admit that you feel scared to your partner when confronted with this. Men need to be able to communicate about why they are doing it, and what they might be needing. They may not need their wife or girlfriend to look like Scarlett Johannsen, but that they need their wife or girlfriend to talk to them.

Each other needs to be able to to express the feelings that each other has. Once you are able to talk about your feelings about it, it takes the tension out of the relationship, and can bring some playfulness and passion back into our sex life.

JF: So, there might be some positive aspects to talking about pornography in one’s relationship?

LG: Yes. Maybe we can look at pornography as the door to improve or enhance our relationships.

I’ve had a number of calls recently from girls (and a couple guys) who are struggling in their relationships or marriages because online pornography comes between them. Usually, she will find the porn sites that he has gone to, and then be in a state of shock and discomfort, and not know how to initiate a conversation with her guy about this.

Maybe the Internet has made porn so much more readily available for guys, instead of walking into your local 7-11 with fake mustache and trenchcoat to ask for what’s behind the corner. It’s much easier and readily accessible to you, and is a convenient place to go when there are relationship problems.

Pornography may be both taking away something from your relationship, or it may be caused by rifts in it already. It seems as if porn could be a chicken-egg dilemma - which comes first - the problems in your relationship, or the porn? Maybe both.

I think that pornography becomes addictive for men, because as men, we are visually wired by evolution. Using porn creates a certain distance from sex or intimacy, by objectifying the online images that are seen. It takes away from sexual intimacy, and creates distance between the viewer and the images. It has an effect of emotional distance, when you have to get off by images that are parts or representations of people, and not the real people.

The use of porn implies having relationships with exaggerated parts of women, not the women themselves or the relationships with them. Real sex is different, and more complicated. If there are sexual fears or inhibitions, they will necessarily come out within your sexual relationship. Porn doesn’t elicit those fears or inhibitions, and thus it is easier to engage in.

For guys, the use of porn can be a stress reliever, and a way to deal with the build up stress (or other emotions, such as anger) that accumulate and have no other avenue of expression for your guy. In other words, maybe the experiences that he is having have no other outlet other than porn. Guys have been masturbating to porn since the beginning of porn time, and trying to not get caught in their bedrooms by their mothers when they are adolescents. There may be some hidden messages of shame that guys recreate when they use porn, if sex was dirty, shameful or not discussed when they were growing up. 

Problems in your relationship may trigger your guy to use porn. He may already be emotionally avoidant, or may have a hard time in your relationship communicating (especially about sex and sexual intimacy). The sexual motivations of your guy to use porn may or may not speak to the problems that you both are having in your relationship. The problem may lie in something unrelated to sex, but then again, it might not. It’s hard to say without couples counseling for this kind of thing. See my website for some more information on my services to help you deal with this problem: http://phoenixmenscounseling.com/index.html.

The use of porn will surely distance you from him in more than one way. He becomes distant from you through his use of porn, and then when you find out he’s doing it, it becomes really difficult to have the conversation with him.

He won’t bring it up, because he’s probably too scared that you’ll catch him using it. And, it’s an easy thing to want to minimize on his part - “I don’t have a problem. I just use it once in a while.” Classic addictive behavior can ensue: lying, falsifying, denying, making up stories to cover it up or to go use it. Watch out for these signs because it may be affecting your relationship.

The goal is to weave in the fantasies and the sexual communication into your relationship, not leave it to the Internet and to one person alone to be fulfilled. The idea is to deepen and develop your relationship through sex, and communication is the door to get there. Otherwise, sex becomes the most powerful wedge in your relationship. It will quickly drive you both away from each other, if it not dealt with out in the open. It needs to be talked about once his use of porn is identified and admitted. 

- Jason

Do we really need Prozac? James Gordon, founder of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., says there’s a better way to treat depression—through diet, exercise and meditation. Roll your eyes all you like. He’s used the approach for 35 years with a wide range of patients, from runaway children and middle-class adults in Washington, D.C., to victims of war in Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel and the Gaza Strip. This week, Gordon is heading to flood-stricken Iowa to see if he can be of assistance there. About 10 percent of American women and 4 percent of men now take antidepressants (according to a 2004 CDC report). Gordon’s new book, “Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression,” outlines a treatment program he believes can be an alternative to medication. NEWSWEEK’s Anne Underwood spoke to Gordon about his recommendations and how he’s implemented them around the world. Excerpts: 

NEWSWEEK: So many people have been helped by Prozac and other antidepressant medications. Why do you say these drugs should only be used as a last resort? 
James Gordon: Depression is not the end stage of a disease process but a wakeup call to examine our lives. There are better ways to do that than taking drugs, which have side effects and don’t address the underlying message that depression is bringing—that our lives are out of balance and significant change is necessary. Instead they tell us, “You have a biochemical disorder, here’s a drug.”

But people with depression do have imbalances in levels of neurotransmitters. 
Some people do, I wouldn’t deny that. What I’m saying is that there are many ways to address those changes that do less harm and may be more productive in the long run because they give people the sense of control that comes from helping themselves.

Do psychiatrists hate your program? 
I’ve heard some do, but I hope that will change as they take a closer look at the evidence.  After all, I’m a psychiatrist myself. I have my medical degree from Harvard, and I worked for 10 years at the National Institute of Mental Health. I’m not the only clinician who believes antidepressant drugs are overused and that we need other ways to treat depression. A major study that appeared recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, which reviewed both unpublished and published studies submitted to the FDA, found that, when the unpublished trials were included, antidepressants were not nearly as effective as they’ve been thought to be. A second study that appeared in February in PLoS Medicine, the online journal, reviewed similar data and found that antidepressants were no better than placebos for mild to moderate depression and only slightly more effective for severe depression. 

How did you get interested in alternative treatments in the first place? 
At the National Institute of Mental Health in the 1970s, I worked with runaway and homeless children on the streets, in runaway houses and group foster homes. They came from chaotic households. Running away for some of them was the sanest thing they could have done. I wanted to develop programs to help them help themselves. Later I ran the adolescent service at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington. Virtually all the patients were minorities, and many were in trouble with the law. I created a holistic, or integrative, approach to their treatment. I brought in a kung fu instructor to work with them. I started meditating with them. I changed their diets and significantly increased their amount of exercise—lots of basketball, a running club and so on. The level of violence went down on the ward.

Describe the program you use with patients. 
It’s a good deal like what I describe in “Unstuck,” but done in a group setting. Each group opens with quiet meditation. You then introduce yourself and say what’s going on with you, focusing on your present experience. There is no analyzing, interpreting or interrupting. You become aware of what’s going on inside. In the first session, we have participants draw three pictures—one of themselves, then themselves with their biggest problem and finally themselves with the problem solved. It shows people they can identify their biggest problem and imagine a solution, a powerful experience when they’re feeling hopeless.

So you aren’t sure if you want this relationship. OK. Maybe it’s been really great for a while, and now you’re just not sure. You know you’re confused, that’s for sure. And you think you want to stay with this girl, but, damn, there comes the confusion again. OK. You’re sure that that you want it now - the times got good again! Oh, wait, uhh, maybe it’s going bad again…. you just have no idea, and you are driving both of you crazy.

Here’s what I think: something else is going on (you’re thinking, yes, Jason, of course it is). Here’s some (oversimplified) explanations that might point you in the right direction and help lower your immediate confusion. These tips/ideas are by no means a quick fix, and understanding where you are stuck will take some time and work to unravel (preferably in men’s counseling). But, it’s a beginning to bring your sanity back.

One: maybe you’re afraid to commit to her. The stereotype that men are afraid to commit in an intimate relationship has some truth, and, although I shy away from stereotypes (especially about me), this one may have some truth to it. Is this you? You may not know the answer to this, except to know that when you get closer in your relationships, you freak out and either directly (or more likely, indirectly) “plug out” or “check out” of your relationship.

Two: you do really know what you want, and it’s not with her. Except you’re too afraid to be alone, and the mere idea of being with the loneliness could keep you in your relationship, even though you don’t want to be in it at all. It’s “sustained comfort,” and you can have this is you want. But it’s fear that is motivating you, and you’re not taking responsibility for your own happiness, and not allowing your beloved the chance to get on with her life and meet someone else.

Three: You’re scared of not meeting someone again (or someone like her). It took you this long to meet her, and the idea that it will take you all that time again is really overwhelming to you.

Four: You have messages from the past about saving your relationship, or not being a kind of person that ends a relationship. The thought of it is incompatible with your idealized image of yourself. You don’t see yourself as someone to end this relationship, help it, or make it grow. You stay trapped in the relationship, and in indecision.

Taken further, some guys then stay stuck in the relationship, and then do stupid stuff and push their girl away, so that she is forced into ending it. And then you don’t look like the bad guy, because she ended it. If you’re doing this, get in here right now and see me. That’s just passive-aggressive behavior, and you need some help communicating yourself clearly and directly.

So, these are some ways that guys stay in relationships, and really don’t want to be there. Let’s talk if one of these things defines the way you do relationships.

- Jason

How would you know this to present itself in your relationship or marriage? Here’s some ways that might help you to identify if this is a problem in your relationship.

1. You feel not good enough a lot of the time when you’re together.

2. You don’t feel praised or validated nearly as much as you feel criticized.

3. You sense that she is quietly angry at you a lot of the time.

4. She conveys to you (verbally or not) that you have to be doing something else, or something better than the way you usually do it.

5. You bottle anger up and (a) sulk and depress or (b) burst out or explode onto her.

6. When you attempt to do something for her, she has a problem with some aspect of it.

7. Your wife or girlfriend never seems to be happy or satisfied around you.

8. She’ll take control of things that you do or say.

9. You feel like she’s your second mother incarnate.

10. You find yourself avoiding her, to steer clear of her criticisms or judgments.

Although there may be somethings that you could be doing to improve your own relationship, it’s possible that your wife or girlfriend expects too much from you, and you’re confused, shut down or unable to give to her what it is that she is wanting. Maybe she’ll unclear about what she wants from you. Either way, maybe you need some professional help to understand what is going on. I would invite you in for a free consultation with me at my office, to see if these things are signs that a bigger problem is going on. Call me today at 602.309.0568. 

- Jason

I have been struck by how many men use their work or careers to avoid certain problems in their life, or, more specifically, in their marriage. Does this characterize you? Do you find yourself investing too much in your work, and have others close to you told you that this is a problem for them?

It makes sense: in our culture, work is prized over all else. We ask strangers when we meet them, “So, what do you do?” Men are especially guilty of this. We overidentify ourselves with what we do for a living, so it becomes that much easier to escape our everyday problems when we have the safety of our careers to fall into.

So what are we avoiding? Stress at home, marital tension, financial distress, conflicts with wives, girlfriends, or partners, our own anger, guilt, dissatisfaction with family life, boredom, our own fears about connecting with others, and the list goes on.

I work with a lot of men that look back on their lives and regret the time that they spent at work, and regret that they didn’t spend that time getting to know themselves (outside of their careers) or the ones that they love. It’s sad and disheartening to me to see that, and one of the reasons that I enjoy working with guys in their 20’s through 40’s is that I enjoy seeing that process of avoidance get easier, before it’s too late.

- Jason

For all you men who would like to communicate better, I offer you these Sunday morning tips in today’s entry. This seems to be the theme this week, from a number of different experiences I have had. It’s true - men play a lot of games when it comes to communication. So, here’s a Cliffs Notes of Mens’ Communication for you, from the Counselor for Men.

1. Don’t make assumptions. If you suspect something, or have certain ideas in your head about your partner, check them out with your partner first before reacting to your assumption. It takes fortitude to practice mindfulness, the art of becoming aware of your thoughts, feelings and experiences in the present moment. Communicate your assumptions, and start by saying: “I am making this assumption that you…” or “I am having this fantasy that you thought or did this….”. A lot of the times, our minds dupe us into thinking that an assumption is our reality, when it is not.

2. Don’t attack. Sometimes the verbal attack comes from when we guard our fearful place, and then react to not become wounded or hurt by our partner’s words. Stay with your inner feelings, and speak from that place - your thoughts, feelings, sensations, assumptions, whatever. Just stay on your side of the fence, and don’t jump it to attack your mate. Things are sure to get worse if you do attack.

3. Say What You Mean. Take your time and get in touch with what is going on inside of you. Speak from physical points of pain in your chest or your heart. This is difficult to do, when our minds tell us that the other person is to blame, so let’s spend the time going to get her. You may be scared instead of being angry, which you may not know until you check that out inside yourself. You may feel insecure instead of rageful that your partner said something about your personality that hurt you.

4. Talk, talk, talk. If you are like many men, walking away and avoiding the situation is common and easier to do, because we want to avoid the pain, which creates conflict and tension. Pain is a common experience for people to want to avoid, as is taking personal responsibility. But, even if the words come out wrong, hang in their and have the difficult conversation with your wife or girlfriend, because if you don’t, the anger, avoidance, tension and conflict will build up over time and cement, making it a lot more difficult to help yourself in the future.

Happy Sunday to all of you guys out there. Leave a comment, and tell me what your experiences are about the difficulties that you have had in communicating with your partner.

-Jason

get-out-of-my-face

Don't avoid conflict like this guy.