Rick was tired. He had had very rough day. Things could have been a bit nicer when he arrived home, but unlike the home of his buddies, his was of great tempest. Sally was always moody. Never a dull or quiet moment. He definitely missed the girlfriend he once had. But, she blossomed into this ferocious creature ready to cut his head off.
Worse, the more Rick kept to himself and avoided Sally, the worse things got. Nothing he tried ever appeased the firestorm she unleashed. He knew that going out after work would not make matters worse. Rick was just trying to be a good husband and come home right after work. However, he was rewarded with constant nagging and reminders of how much of a good for nothing lazy bum he was.
Was it too much to ask for a few moments to unwind after work? It’s like he was going out drinking. He was a good church going guy who did his duty of providing a safe clean home for his wife. Yet, that never was enough.
If only Rick could find a safe emotional place to understand what he was doing wrong. At least there, he’d learn that avoiding his wife was not the best way to handle the problems in the relationship. Maybe another happily married man could show him how to decompress from work before arriving home without stopping at a bar, club, or friend’s house so he could better serve his wife’s needs…
The men’s ministry department at his church had to have something of help, right? Rick had heard that his wife had joined the Woman’s Ministry at the church and the level of intense arguing had decreased a lot. But the nagging had not. What if he joined, could he find a solution to match the one she had found?
Before diving into the blog post series, just a quick introduction. These posts are associated with a page created for a particular church that was holding a special discussion around the topic of Men’s Ministry. Considering that one half of the traditional home make up is male, wanted to spend a bit of time touching some of the planned discussion points. At the end, a link will be provided back to the main page dedicated to the seminar called A Tribe of Men. The blog posts are made available to all to enjoy and comment on.
Safe Zones
Are men even that emotional?
The chatter at a local barber shop covers a lot of different topics. The guys are very engaged and at times quite animated. Movies even have been made about the comradery that takes place inside of a barber shop. It is similar to some of the same types of chatter and banter you find between teammates in sports or highly productive groups/teams of men.
Women on social media have often teased that men can be just as catty or gossipy as women in their inner circle. Yet, when these same men are out and about with their spouses, or just arrived from work, they’re not very emotionally expressive.
One lady quipped that men have three emotions. Neutral. Frustrated. Angry.
Frustration being the one emotion that triggers anger faster than anything else. Makes you wonder why certain things get broken so easily when they cause frustration, but that is for another day.
To answer the question, yes, men are emotional. On a podcast, To The Best of Our Knowledge, a researcher said that men can be just as emotional as a woman, and at times even more. Ask many moms of children of both genders and you’ll hear a degree of cautious agreement.
So, how is it that these guys grow up to be such closed off beings? Without getting too deep, there are many societal, environmental, and experiential reasons why men start to not express themselves. But, the very fact that there are places where men do open up means there is hope and there is opportunity.
Facilitating a place where men feel safe, just like it is very important that men let women have their own safe space, will foster more dialog and openness that is needed for men and their households.
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