The things that make us the men that we are are largely attributable to the relationships that we have with our fathers. Our intimate relationships, in some ways, are also results of the things that we learn from how to be in the world from our fathers, too. 

Too many men simply cannot be the fathers that they should to their sons, because they never got the right role modeling. Men go on to have imperfect relationships, and don’t know how to be effective intimate partners to their wives and girlfriends. Often times, it’s a combination of two problems.

First, men learn how to be emotionally withdrawn from their women. They learn, over time from the environment they grew up in, to shut down, stay in their heads and generally not be present to their feelings. This is the nucleus of the problem.

Second, as children we model behavioral patterns from our parents. As boys, we model the ways of being in a relationship from our fathers (and mothers). Many times, our fathers never got it right, so we simply take from them what we see, because unconsciously, if we do what they did, we just might get our needs met after all. This is child’s logic, and somewhere down the road, we fail to drop those tools when they don’t work for us anymore. As kids, they might have had some basic effectiveness. But as adults, we continue to use outdated tools to create similarly neurotic and ineffective relationships today.

The key is to understand these behavioral patterns, and the emotions that we avoid buried underneath. In seeing these, often for the first time, and experiencing them in the present moment unconditionally, they begin to transform themselves and set us free from the patterns that keep us stuck in conflict and unsatisfying relationships. We can work towards freedom from these blocks if we can first see them. Our fathers might not have been able to do it for themselves, but we can for ourselves.

(From npr.org)

December 5, 2008 · Turns out, misery may not love company — but happiness does, research suggests.

A new study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego documents how happiness spreads through social networks.

They found that when a person becomes happy, a friend living close by has a 25 percent higher chance of becoming happy themselves. A spouse experiences an 8 percent increased chance and for next-door neighbors, it’s 34 percent.
(more…)

(This is a Yahoo! News article I thought was thought provoking)

Jeanna Bryner
Senior Writer

Men are hardwired after eons of evolution to overspend, a new study suggests. Their maxed-out credit cards and mega-purchases have been tied to their desire to attract mates.

The biggest male spenders in the survey were found to have the highest number of reported past partners and desired the most future partners.

The finding, detailed in the current issue of the journal Evolutionary Psychology, did not hold with women.

Vying for women is simply what men do and have done for hundreds of thousands of years, said study leader Daniel Kruger, a social and evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. But how they entice mates has evolved.

“Men in the ancestral environment were valued if they were good providers,” Kruger said. “Now we have this new consumer culture, so basically we show our potential through the consumer goods that we purchase, rather than being a good hunter or providing protection.”

Financial habits of men

Kruger used data collected from telephone surveys of more than 400 men and women with an average age of 34 (100 men and 309 women). Participants rated how much they agreed with three statements about their financial habits, such as “I always live within my income range,” and “Each income period, I set aside at least ten percent for savings.”

(A person who highly agreed with the statements would be considered conservative in matters financial, as opposed to consumptive.)

They also indicated marital status and sexual partners (their count for the past five years and number desired in the future).

Men who spent more (saved less) and who were more likely to shell out more than they earned reported having more sexual partners in the past five years and desired more future partners than other guys in the study.

Specifically, the 25 percent of men who were most conservative about spending had an average of three partners in the past five years and desired about one partner in the next five years. The 2 percent of men with the riskiest financial strategies had double those numbers.

For women, financial consumption wasn’t significantly related to past or future mates.

Why we’re in debt

Kruger said the results could help to explain why so many people are in a financial mess right now.
“It is partially a result of our economic system and recent financial policies, but I really do think that our evolved mating strategies have an influence,” Kruger said. “Our competition for economic displays drives our consumer economy and culture of affluence.”

He added, “In terms of the current mortgage crisis, the findings suggest that one of the reasons why we overextend ourselves is that we’re basically in a status race. We have expectations that spiral upward as people make more money, and everyone wants to show that they are better than average.”

This research involved the secondary analyses of data from a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It shouldn’t be that hard for you to understand: you should know exactly what she wants, when she wants it from you, even when she doesn’t come out and tell you about it. Understand? I thought not.

Reading her mind, or at least attempting to and failing miserably, is something that men have a hard time mastering, and rightly so. Men and women do communicate very differently, and, many times, couples I work with (and, yes, yours truly) fail to communicate based on assumptions rooted in the age-old practice of female mind-reading. 
(more…)