• Listen. Don’t fix. Listen.
• Validate her. Affirm her. Questions? Ask her for help.
• Don’t flirt with other women. Flirt with her.
• Talk about your feelings. You won’t die of vulnerability.
• Clean more.
• Hold the door open for her.
• Don’t criticize or attack her.
• Say you’re mad when you’re mad.
• Remember her birthday.
• Initiate date night.
• Tell her she’s sexy more.
• Tell her she’s beautiful more (it’s different from sexy).
• Don’t avoid her during arguments.
• Know she’s scared you don’t love her if you do avoid her.
• Cook more.
• Keep yourself in decent physical shape.
• Cap the video game/watching sports time a bit.
• Don’t bag on her to your friends - talk with her about what frustrates you
• Make eye contact.
• Initiate sex more.
• Tell her you understand how she’s feeling.
• Treat others kindly. Especially her parents.
• Don’t bag on her friends.
• Don’t hide your emotions. She’ll read it on your face, chap.
• Make yourself interesting. Pick a new hobby.
• Prevent relationship boredom before it starts.
• Prioritize ‘us’ as a couple that’s different from being parents together.

Men dealing with fear is one issue that is so common among guys, yet hardly talked about.

Questions to consider:

• How much of a man’s defensive posturing covers up his feelings of fear?
• Are we really that far removed from that scared little 5 or 6 year old boy inside of us?
• How does running from the fear hurt us and our loved ones?

The culture of men has no room for fear in our culture. American culture encourages guys to stuff it, annihilate it, drink it away, or obscure it with enough anger or rage. Men and fear don’t mix: they never have.

From ancient icons of warrior-kings to modern movie archetypes, men have historically been engaged in a war on fear, which has had negative effects on the planet and the environment, as well as in our families and relationships with ourselves.

Instead of staying with the emotional (and often physiological) experience of fear, men run from it. They hide, and, over time, construct fantasies and illusions that feed the fear and make it exponentially larger than it really is. We suppress and avoid the construct of fear, not really the fear itself. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” proclaimed Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his first inaugural address in 1932. The walls we construct around our fear makes us avoid it more.

We create imaginary sand castle fortresses, when the reality is that when we can truly experience our fear - in a lived, experiential way, and not just thinking about - then it reduces and goes away. Fear, like any emotion, is a natural emotion that needs to be processed. Think bodily functions, or how the body maintains itself in homeostasis.

Dealing with fear is critical to improving our relationships with others, be they business partners, wives and girlfriends, our children or, most importantly, with ourselves. Fear can be dealt with, but it needs acknowledgement. What it doesn’t need is to be swept under the rug anymore, because that just doesn’t work.

Trying to block out or push back chronic negative thinking about our jobs usually means one thing: we’re not listening to ourselves. Although it’s tough to talk about “do what you love” in the worst economy since forever, it’s another thing to live under a blanket of justifications and reasons to stay inactive and hating our jobs.

Like emotions, which need airing, pushing away that what makes us light up professionally will always be lurking if you choose to not attend to it. As we push our emotions away, they come right back to haunt us, usually with much greater power. Emotions don’t like to be pushed away. Neither does one’s true vocational inspirations. We can push them away, sweep them under the rug, and put up with things as status quo. Our grandfathers and ancestry did this, often toiling away in industrial settings for hours on end.

Symptomatically, we create a world of stress and conflict within our own bodies, our families and our relationships - not just with ourselves, but with those we love most. Our wives and girlfriends know we’re unhappy, but they’re not sure why. They want to help, but feel helpless to change, as do we. We grudgingly paint on our morning smile, and show up to work like a good trooper, masking the discontent we really experience inside. We’re angry, depressed and hiding from ourselves and the world. Is this sensical?

If you’re unhappy in your current work or job, what keeps you there? Again, acknowledging current financial realities, what would happen if the economy were o.k., and you were o.k.? Would you look for a change then? Would you take a step off the plank and seek greater fulfillment and happiness for your worklife then?

It’s a fine line between the current economic realities and using those realities to justify our fear and lack of movement in the world and in our lives. The line is so fine that it takes close introspection to discern one from the other, and only you can do that.

A friend asked me this really great question: “What are the specific challenges that men face in relationships at during each decade?” The question naturally led me to want to blog about it, and share it with you all. I accounted for three periods: 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, as these are generally the periods of life I work with, but feel free to add your own experiences/other decade challenges.

20-30’s: Still settling down, and finding themselves. Work and jobs are sporadic, so lots of long-distance relationships and conflict as a result. Guys in their 20’s are still into hooking up and partying, so they’re looking more for women who fit this bill (generally). Some get married, but are unhappy because the marriage is too early, or it wasn’t right for them (maturity levels low).

30-40’s: Settling down, getting married and having children. Guys have to deal with their lost youth and death of the “wild horse” mentality. Some guys hold onto youthful entrapments, such as partying, alcohol, video games, etc., which creates relationship/marriage tension and fighting this way. This is where the communication problems and issues start to ferment, for problems later into the next stage. Not knowing how to deal with everything: being a new dad, added responsibilities with their work/careers, and juggling it all creates stress and relationship strain. A lot of guys tend to start having problems, because they didn’t learn how to take care of themselves earlier on, or didn’t really have a need to take care of anyone else (e.g. wife, kid) other than themselves.

40-50’s: Kids are growing, and problems have fermented another decade. Couple has drifted away from each other, and the problems that have arisen in the 10-15 years since marriage have been avoided, or not dealt with. Money, things, trips have all been used as “happiness surrogates,” and are employed to stave off dealing with the real problems of unhappiness, sexual problems, loss of love, etc. Some men start to have affairs (although earlier stages, too) or lose themselves in other diversions other than their marriage, because that’s what they know, and that’s what culture encourages (alcohol, sports, video games, porn, etc.). Couple needs to reinvent their marriage, and create a reason to be together, other than “for the kids”. Men will also lose themselves in work and career, which is a socially-sanctioned place to go, yet slowly erodes a relationship over time. A lot of men who over-identify themselves with their work and careers unconsciously avoid their wives and their problems by dedicating themselves to their work. Phsycial problems can start to manifest as a function of problems not dealt with, with leads to depression, stress, pain, fatigue, etc. The body speaks, even when men are not.

Without a rudder, it becomes really difficult to steer our boat. We get tossed about on the seas, swing this way and that. The sense of direction is lost, and our journey is haphazard and without focus momentum.

Finding purpose — whether that be in our relationships, work, play or friendships — is outfitting your boat with a rudder. Actions and behaviors become intentional, and they become filled with a focused purpose. No longer are we just victims of circumstance or of our own lives.

Many people without that purpose, without that inner knowing, enter and exit situations within their lives in a very indiscriminate way. Without purpose, we are left to our impulsive mind to take over. And often times, that impulsive mind makes decisions for us that are not aligned with our deeper and truer purpose. We get into relationships that we look back on and think, “That was really not good for me in the long run.” we take jobs that we don’t really want to take, and spend money in places that we don’t really mean to.

Developing purpose is like bringing a high-powered laser into the equation. We have a very powerful tool in which to create a focus and energy to direct towards those people, places, and experiences that will enhance our sense of purpose, and fulfill those ideas about how our lives should be led, which makes us happier.

Connecting to that purpose — not just identifying it — is just as important. Learning how to connect regularly to that which brings us purpose is critical to our success and our happiness. Creating a regular relationship with those things that bring us purpose reinforces our sense of purpose and continually teaches us how to spend our precious time, energy and resources. What’s just as important is to identify those roadblocks and barriers to finding our purpose, which in some cases, can be just as much of a pursuit as going directly after our purpose.

A lot of counseling clients that I talk with have difficulties knowing how to take care of themselves. They are so busy taking care of work, family, money and other life stressors that they don’t have the time or the know-how to develop and practice good self-care techniques.

One of the most important ideas to understand is your personal threshold point. At what point do you start to show wear and cracks? Can you recognize when you get to that point? More importantly, how can you remedy those issues before they really start to affect your mind and body wellness?

That personal threshold point is different for every person. Developing an understanding and clear self-awareness about when that point arises is the first step in practicing self-care. Some people have a very high threshold for stress; others start to show wear earlier.

For men and women alike, the concept of saying “no” is one contributing factor to practicing better self-care. We live in a very demanding culture — one that expects constant multitasking and perfectionism. Being able to say “no”– even when our environment beckons that we say “yes” - is a practice in honoring and respecting yourself. It’s knowing your limits, and it’s not giving out more than you can give, which erodes one’s ability to give anything at all.

Another way to understand self-care is to know what blocks or barriers come between you and the healthy image of you in your mind. We can all agree that eating well, exercising, practicing spirituality or contemplation, and the like, are all positive pursuits on the road to self-care. But, what’s more interesting is how we limit ourselves from the inside with negative self-talk.

What negative messages or beliefs keep you in a state of procrastination or lack of motivation? How do you undermine your own efforts, and keep yourself from the ideal healthy you in your mind? I think those questions are much more relevant, because we need only to listen to our culture which tells us to eat better, exercise daily, be happy… we know all this, and yet sometimes we don’t always do what we know is best for us in the long run.

Practicing good self-care is very important, but understanding our motivations and intentions, as well as the roadblocks and barriers to our own success, is even more important. If we create the right motivations and intentions, we are laying a solid foundation for the continued practice of good self-care over the course of a lifetime.

Phoenix Men’s Counseling - some of the benefits!

- Learn better communication with your wife/ girlfriend
- Feel more appreciated
- Get “in sync” again with her
- Break the “suffer in stoic silence” mode
- Generate energy, fun and laughter
- Lower stress and reduce tension
- Less “thinking too much” about your problems - get out of  your head
- Get help for your depression & start feeling better
- Stop avoiding!
- Be more productive on the job
- Cool your angry feelings
- Get the respect you deserve from others

I specialize in working with men who are struggling in all aspects of their lives: in relationships, in work, with money and with self-image and self-esteem issues. I am a therapist that understands the unique and complicated issues that men might not feel comfortable talking about with a general counselor. I work with guys in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler and surrounding areas. Give me a call, or e-mail directly through my website to find out more information about my services.

It’s 7:35 AM, and you’re slamming down a couple cups of coffee and a bagel. You’ll be late for work again, and your wife is back at it, nagging and harassing you. The trash is overflowing from last several nights of dinner, and the dishes are still sitting idle in the sink. She wants them done. You’re exasperated that these things keep causing fight after fight, and end up in defensive mode time and time again. Does it get any better than this?

A lot of people find themselves reacting in response to the problems in their lives, whether it’s in their relationships, work, friendships, personal or self-care. Problems do arise, granted. All of these things — when properly balanced — provide happiness and success, but all too often people slide into “reactive living.”

What happens is that choices beget other choices, and we both lose sight of that snowball effect, and sometimes shun responsibility for doing anything about it to change some of the original choices. We get lazy, or rely on others to lean on or take care of our messes.

When we live reactively, we live in response to our environment and the people within it. We allow other people and situations to dictate our lives, as opposed to assuming responsibility for ourselves. Life becomes a series of ” call and responses.” Something happens in our environment, or with someone we love, and we react sometimes mindlessly to troubleshoot the problem or situation.

We are constantly putting out fires, where we could be using that psychic energy to build well controlled fires that create life, energy and renewed power. We create a lot of unneeded stress, tension, depression, and interpersonal conflict with those closest to us.

Stepping back from our lives and differentiating between reactive living and proactive living is very important in a variety of different ways. When we can admit that there are some parts of our lives, we wise up to the fact that we have lost control and responsibility in some facets of our lives.

There are many examples of this: from becoming a better husband or boyfriend, to paying our bills on time, to proactively taking in our car in for maintenance so it doesn’t fail us, or to going out of our way to develop relationships that had been unattended to for a while. It could even mean coming up with a better organization system, either in our homes or offices, or in our minds.

Learning where the cracks are in the various facets of one’s life is important. Then, understanding how to fix things so you can play a more participatory part in your own life, instead of reacting to problems and situations that are thrown at you, is critical to turning the ship around.

(My article appears in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix Online (and print) in the September 11, 2009 edition)

Dating success, like success in life, is often a function of our attitude. Carry optimism, hope and openness, and your chances of success are infinitely greater than when you’re dragging around negative, limiting beliefs.

As much as most daters don’t care to admit it, they are unintentionally undermining their own attempts at success with internalized and destructive messages, or IDMs, about their dating lives.

IDMs can come in one of two forms: either as negative self-talk (such as how we talk to ourselves about dating) or as critical or judgmental assumptions and beliefs about the potential mates in our dating field. When we listen to IDMs, we either abruptly stop ourselves short, or stop others short, and destroy opportunities that have not yet been created. We shut down and say “no” before we’ve had an opportunity to say “yes” to others or possible dating opportunities.

To date or to be in a relationship is to risk getting burned, and a lot of daters can’t let go of some of those previous fiery experiences they’ve had. They’ve been hurt, and to help prevent themselves from being hurt again, they generate limiting beliefs about themselves or about their potential dates. In some cases, these messages have been there all along, from childhood, in different ways.

Fear and vulnerability drive many IDMs, and keep us caged inside our own heads. We generate unconscious and irrational stories to keep us from having to deal with the pain, anguish and fear that may come up in another dating situation. Dating has not been kind to us, we say to ourselves, and we’ll go to great lengths to see that we’re not hurt like that again.

One popular IDM I hear a lot is, “Well, there are no good men/women out there in the world anymore. They’re all taken.” I find that one disputable, and it’s a negative message that guides all too many people through dating, unfortunately.

The problem is that those destructive messages get communicated either verbally or nonverbally to people in our lives (including possible mates). Others will feel turned off or generally uninterested in learning more if those messages are communicated to them, intentionally or not. Or we may attract other negative people or toxic dates into our lives. Most of the time, though, we are so unconscious about what we speak verbally and say in our body language to others that we end up turning others off.

Maybe you’ve been rejected by a mate, or have suffered a recent divorce. It’s possible that your last relationship was awful, and you’re still nursing your war wounds. If so, IDMs may be floating around inside your mind and ruining the possibility of a relationship. Change your negative beliefs, and you change the way you relate to your dating life. People are far more attracted to people who are positive and open-minded.

If you’re ready and willing, turn around the IDMs, and you’ll attract a whole new kind of person into your life.

Jason Fierstein, MA, LPC, is a counselor for men and couples and practices in Phoenix. Call 602-309-0568, or visit phoenixmenscounseling.com for more information.