of the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were people thinking very actively and critically about the expectations around how women and men “perform” our scripts for gender. Because of my experience in adolescence I was more than eager to listen to those who were deconstructing male expectations. My process of recovery gave me permission to begin to give voice to the incredibly painful emotions and thoughts that were killing me from the inside out. I also learned something even more powerful from both of these experiences: I was not alone. I began to see the Water more clearly.
But the shame ran deep, and recovery made it harder to hide all of the pain. I started to learn how to talk to people sober. I learned how to just hang out and have friends. I learned how to connect. I wanted to connect with others so badly. That was always a core part of who I was, and still am. Slowly but surely, I began to learn how to crawl socially, then walk, and then even run. It was terrifying at times. Other times it felt like I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life. Long into my recovery I carried the shame and the feelings of worthlessness from my trauma around with me. It controlled so much of my life, yet I was still unable to talk about it.
Every relationship I ever had was affected by the core belief that there was something wrong with me, and that I was not a man. When I was still active in my addiction, I would only have one-night stands with women. That continued in recovery, despite it being generally against my values. I rarely connected with women in other ways, not because I was trying to be mean or hurtful, but because I was scared shitless. I didn’t have a relationship longer than a month until I was twenty-two years old, and that was long-distance. After that, no relationship lasted longer than a month until I was twenty-five, when the woman I was seeing actually asked me if I was interested in her or just trying to stay in a relationship longer than a month! I was unable to let anyone get too close. The women usually ended up breaking up with me long before I broke up with them. Any woman with the slightest amount of self-esteem would drop me as soon as she got a glimpse of my darker side. Sadly, part of the Woman Rules is that women are supposed to put up with that guy and be able to change him. Several tried with me, but not for long.
I would not be naked in front of women. I would never raise my arms. I spent every second I had with any girlfriend wondering how she could be interested in me. I could never trust that she would stay with me. Or really like me. Or want to be with me over someone else—someone manlier. If I was drunk, that didn’t matter as much. However, once the special elixir wore off, I was left to face me, and one look in the mirror was all I needed to be reminded that any woman who was with me was a fool. And a liar. And just waiting to find someone better.
That was my experience for a very long time, even in recovery. It made it easy for me to choose the work I did for my master’s degree, as well as the focus I have now. At some deeply emotional level it has all been about trying to prove to myself and the world that I am a man. As silly as it may sound, it is true.
This is only a small part of my story but a huge part of the trauma that has shaped my perceptions of myself as man, as well as the man I have become. I now spend a lot of my time going around the country talking with others about the Man Rules and their effects upon how men see and conduct themselves. It is amazing to me, despite how much personal work I have done, how often the Rules control my behavior and lead me to act in ways that are contrary to the man I truly aspire to be. I write this not in a spirit of self-shaming, but rather to impress upon you just how tenacious these Rules are. You may very much want to be a different man than you are, but you also find that you are controlled by the Rules more than you ever realized. And until you can see the Water you swim in, you don’t even know these Rules exist.
We all have our own stories about how we have become the men we are now. Chances are there are aspects of your experience that worked for you and that align with the man you want to be. There are also probably aspects of your experience that do not align with the man you want to be. All of these experiences combine to become your story of becoming a man.
I have discovered something very important ever since I found the courage to bring my inquiry about masculinity out into the world, and my guess is that this also applies to you: Every man I have spoken with or heard from has some kind of conversation happening inside him, questioning how much of a man he is. Very few men feel completely secure and grounded in their masculinity. When they are being truly honest, very few can say they feel deeply confident in their masculinity and their sense of being a real man. Of course, that is the problem with so much of this: What is a real man? Is being a real man solely defined by society? Of course not. Ultimately, it is different for each of us, but it is essential that we reflect on our ideas about what it means to be a man, and the degree to which we have blindly followed the Rules.
Today, as I stated above, I have been happily married for ten years, with a beautiful four-year-old daughter. I am fairly confident in who I am and basically comfortable in my skin. You would never look at me and have any idea about what I have been through or the road I have traveled to become the man I am today. What is most important about that statement is that you can say the exact same thing about every man—you have no idea what his journey has been to become the man you now see. That is why our stories are so important and why I have shared mine. It is in telling our stories that we get to reinforce who we are and create the man we want to be. As sharing our stories transforms us, our map and everything charted upon it is also transformed. We have the opportunity to own our stories—or they will continue to own us.
Into Action
In your notebook, set aside about ten blank pages. Begin to write your story. Focus on specific intervals of your life based on age (0–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, etc.) or specific milestones (childhood, grade school, middle school, high school, etc.) until you get to your present age. Allow each interval to have at least its own page, front and back. For each interval, write your story of becoming a boy or a man during that time, as applicable. Answer the following questions for each interval:
