Is love a feeling or an action? Is it a choice we make, or is the result of a magical bond with another person that is impossible to explain? Do you decide to be a loving person, or are you just born that way?

If you’ve listened to this podcast before, you’ve probably guessed that the answer is “both/and.” Psychiatrist Michael McGee joins Dan this week to talk about love as both a practice and a guiding principle. And, this is not mere navel-gazing, people. Dr. McGee breaks it down into a series of practical steps to being more connected, more purpose-driven, and more fulfilled by building a more loving presence.

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It’s rarely easy for any of us to say “I love you” for the first time. But, this can be especially true when one straight guy loves another straight guy. Of course, those times are changing. Especially thanks to your friends at Budweiser all of those years ago. 

The Water doesn’t leave much room for expressing all the different types of love that men experience. It’s okay to express familial love, and it’s okay to express love for a person you are interested in having sex with or currently having sex with, but expressing love for someone who is not blood-related and/or a potential sex partner? That’s just WEIRD, man. Or strictly verboten.

This week our guest Bob Nickman joins Dan for a Deep Dive on why, even in a culture that frowns on it, it’s worth taking the risk of telling your closest male friends that you love them. It’s one way to tear the social barriers that prevent men from developing close, nurturing friendships with other men. Bob and Dan talk about their own fears in expressing those feelings, and what the result has been of taking the risk.

Practical & Tactical

1. The next time you feel like you have a friend that you love — say it.
2. Put a “comma man” after it the first time. Make it a little less vulnerable.
3. You don’t need to hear it back for it to matter.
4. In the next month, find one man to whom you can say it. And do it!

About Our Guest

Bob Nickman is an American comedian, actor, television producer, and television writer. As a television producer/writer, his credits include Mad About You, Freaks and Geeks, Danny, According to Jim, Big Day, Rita Rocks and Roseanne. As an actor, he appeared in four episodes of Roseanne from 1994 to 1995, as well as guest starring in an episode of Designing Women in 1990, his acting debut. He also appeared in the films Shakes the Clown (1991) and Crossing the Bridge (1992). He is a native of Cleveland, Ohio and performed stand-up comedy for much of the 1980s. He is currently the host of The Exploding Human Podcast where he interviews people in the fields of health and healing in body, mind and spirit. 

Mentioned in This Episode

The 7 Types of Love

“Guy Love” from Scrubs

The post I Love You…Man appeared first on Dan Griffin.

Your intense attraction to this person must be love. So, you enter into a relationship. Soon, your dream lover morphs into a bit of a nightmare. They’re a bottomless pit of need– full of unreasonable expectations, vicious insults, and insane demands. Your own needs and wishes don’t seem to matter to this person at al l… So, you leave, right?

Well … Not, if you suffer from what psychologist Ross Rosenberg calls “self-love deficiency disorder.” Men struggling with it tend to be attracted to narcissists like moths to flame. They stay in relationships with narcissists, no matter how poorly they’re treated, because of an inability to recognize their own inherent worthiness. They feel, subconsciously, that they have to constantly prove that they are worthy of love by sacrificing their own needs and desires for the love of someone else.  

But, wait. Isn’t this whole self-sacrifice-in-the-name-of-love thing kind of… girly? Aren’t most men egomaniacs? How can they suffer from a lack of self-love? Dan and Ross explain all of that and more, and offer up some great resources for men who find themselves trapped in the endless cycle of pathological care-giving, addiction, and shame.

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About Our Guest

Ross Rosenberg, M.Ed., LCPC, CADC, CSAT has been a psychotherapist since 1988.  He is a distinguished international speaker, writer, trainer,consultant, and expert in the addiction/sex addiction codependency, narcissism, and trauma fields.  He owns ClinicalCare Consultants, a multi-location Chicago suburb counseling center, and Self-Love Recovery Institute, formerly Advanced Clinical Trainers.

Ross wrote the highly acclaimed and best-selling book “The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us,” which draws on his own codependency recovery and 30 years of experience in the mental health, social service, and child welfare fields.  It has been published in both French and Spanish.

Ross is an internationally renowned psychotherapist, speaker, and trainer, who has presented in 27 states and twice in Europe.  Because of his YouTube channel, his work has gone globally viral. Of the more than 6.0 million total views, 4 million have been in the last two years. His current subscriber base is at 53,000 and is growing at 23K a year.

Mentioned In This Episode

Ross’s YouTube Channel

Human Magnet Syndrome (Book)

Spanish Human Magnet Syndrome (Book)

Self-Love Recovery Institute  

About The Man Rules Podcast Host, Dan Griffin

Dan Griffin, M.A., is an internationally recognized author, thought leader, and expert on men’s relationships and masculinity. His work and life is dedicated to exploring and redefining what it means to be a man in the 21st century. Dan is dedicated to helping men be better men by understanding the impact of the Man Rules on their lives and finding the success in their personal lives they are striving for in the professional lives. His professional background includes over two decades in the mental health and addictions field. Dan earned a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Kansas where his graduate work was the first qualitative study centered on the social construction of masculinity in the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dan grew up in the DC area and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Nancy, and his daughter, Grace, and has been in long-term recovery from addiction since he graduated college in May of 1994.

The post Episode 26: Self-Love Is So Unmanly! Ross Rosenberg on Narcissism, Addiction, and Self-Love Deficiency in Men appeared first on Dan Griffin.

It doesn’t mean it is always boring, not by any stretch of the imagination. But, when you settle into a loving and committed relationship, you simply have to let go of the idea that love should always be exciting. Or that it should always feel good. Or you should always be having sex. OR—and perhaps this is the most important point—that our feelings alone should ever dictate our experience of love.

I was talking to a friend about his experiences with love. What was clear from our conversation was that he had an idea that many of us have been inculcated with since the day we were born: Love is supposed to be exciting. Always.

That is what countless movies and television shows have told us. In fact, the majority of those shows end with the excitement still going strong. Most of the screen time is spent on the guy (usually) chasing the girl (usually). The assumption is that the happiness and the excitement will continue perpetually. The ever sought after, and implicitly promised, happy ending (no, not that happy ending…okay maybe that one too) will happen. All you have to do is find the person and win their love.  

And there you have it: our culture’s idea about love that we have been drowning in for decades. But it is so much more complicated than that. 

The struggle that many men have just to be able to stay in a relationship can be significant. I have watched man after man struggle to accept love into his life, sometimes under the guise of thinking there is someone better out there for him. Or, sometimes by picking their partner apart looking for all the ways in which they do not necessarily fit that Hollywood ideal.

Finding yourself and being able to commit to another human being can be quite an emotional journey for many men. And that is only one part of the journey. Then comes a deeper level of commitment like engagement or marriage (if they want that), and having a family. Or however they want to express their deeper love and commitment to someone. All of those are additional steps in this crazy dance called love—steps that bring with them their own emotional impact and their own barriers to overcome. When you have been trained for most of your life to devalue relationships – whether in subtle or no so subtle ways – and to not practice much of what it takes to be in a relationship, of course they’re going to be difficult.

That was why my friend was having a hard time as his relationship inevitably began its plateau. There doesn’t have to be drama. He certainly doesn’t have to create drama, though his brain doesn’t seem to understand that. So, he spends a lot of time wondering if his partner is the right one. Maybe there is someone better. He imagines other people. Or just breaking up and sleeping around. Each time he does that he puts a quarter in the drama machine to keep it going. All of these have one major effect: keeping him from being present in his relationship and experiencing the beauty and pain of intimacy.

In truth, saying that love is boring is nothing more than saying you have found a love that actually has a chance of lasting. You have a relationship that is stable. A love that is strong. So here is to boring love.

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The role of trauma in men’s relationships is interesting – to say the least.  What is so difficult about it is how hidden it can be. I have learned a lot about trauma in the past decade. Before then, despite being over ten years in recovery, it simply was not on my radar. At least not as an issue that affected so many men as I now believe it does. And, perhaps most importantly, not an issue that had affected me so much!

Something you will hear from me over and over again is: “The best way for a man not to have trauma, is to simply say ‘I don’t have trauma.’” That, of course, does not make that statement true. I have no doubt that trauma is at the heart of a many a man’s failed relationships. The worst part: he just doesn’t know that.  The thing you have to always remember is that men are not socialized to see their experiences as trauma or to have an accurate perception of what trauma even is.

Until you have quietly reflected on this issue and looked into it at some length with an open mind, you may not know whether or not you have experienced any trauma. What I can say is that I know far too many men who have lived with trauma for many years of their recovery with no awareness that trauma was at the root of their suffering and feelings of disconnection. Do not let contempt prior to investigation prevent you from exploring something that could offer you a degree of peace and freedom you never thought possible.

The challenge a lot of men have is that they do not necessarily see their experiences as traumatic because they compare them to other people’s traumas—what they might consider “real” or more serious trauma. Many men probably look at their traumatic experiences in hindsight with an adult’s understanding, saying to themselves something to the effect of “I see how this could be traumatic for a six-year-old, but I am forty years old now and it’s not a big deal. I am over it. That was a long time ago.” That is the danger. Our brain, particularly our brain’s limbic system, does not care about our age, then or now. And it maintains the emotional memories of those experiences, no matter how long ago they occurred. That is why people’s trauma reactions can be triggered so long after the original events took place. Our bodies also carry the memories of traumatic events, and we may have physiological reactions to external stimuli without realizing that this is a common trauma response.

The challenge for us men is that given how difficult it can be for us to be emotionally aware or engaged is that trauma can drive much of our behavior and we do not even realize it is happening. It eats away at our relationships, from the inside and we think it is everything and everyone else. Before we know it the relationship has fallen apart, the marriage is over, the man is in jail for abusing his partner, his addiction has gotten even more out of control, and/or he has even taken his life. He sits there scratching his head wondering why it is hard for him to connect. Why is it so hard for him to be able to keep a relationship together? Why, when his heart seems to want it more than anything, is it so hard to love and be loved?

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Bobby, one of the men I interviewed for this book, said it well: “Life is meaningful only within the context of the connections we have with the friends and family around us.” I have always cared about the relationships in my life. My guess is that you have, too. I did not always know how to show it, or have the courage to show it, and I would often act in ways that sent the message I didn’t care. Relationships are complicated and challenging territory for everyone, but particularly for men. Even today, relationships can sometimes leave me wishing I lived on a deserted island, just as they did when I was stuck in my active addiction. I still don’t always know, or have the courage to show, how much I care about the relationships in my life. I certainly do not do it perfectly.

The assumption that underlies this book is that all men care about relationships. We want to be good sons, partners/spouses, fathers, and friends, but we need help. We are shaped by these “Man Rules” that tell us asking for help is not okay. We may follow these Rules, but they belie what is in our hearts. I have worked with, sat with, cried with, and even physically held far too many men to ever believe that deep inside of most men’s hearts is not a real desire to connect, to love, and to be loved. Yet, an incredible force inside of them pushes them to separate, disconnect, push away, and pretend otherwise. This seeming contradiction is at the heart of this book and the conversation in which I want to engage you.
If this conversation interests you I encourage you to continue reading these entries over the coming months and join the conversation! I would love to hear what you have found to be helpful and the challenges you have been able to overcome in your own journey of learning how to love and be loved.

The post Learning to Love and Be Loved appeared first on Dan Griffin.

Check out the New Book!

A Man’s Way Through Relationships: Learning to Love and Be Loved

Author: Dan Griffin, MA

An essential guide to the challenges men face in creating healthy and engaged in relationship in all areas of their lives. Every idea is present through the lens of the

“Man Rules” – the often unconscious ideas men carry with them into every relationship they have – that affect their ability to find true connection. A Man’s Way through Relationships offers practical advice and inspiration for men to define, with their partners, their own sense of masculinity, and thus heighten their potential to love and be loved.

Dan Griffin excerpts interviews with men who share their innermost lives and experience with relationships. He draws from his own life with over two decades of recovery and ten years of marriage. Readers will learn to recognize how their ideas about masculinity have shaped who they are and how they approach their relationships.

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For the longest time of my early recovery I wanted someone to love. I do not mean just to have sex with. My heart longed for connection. And I never thought I would find it. Once I started actually dating then I not only thought I would never find love but that, even if I was able to find it, I would ruin it. Somehow. Of course, I would not admit this to other men. I would do what we all did – just talk about getting laid or talk around the fear and insecurity without truly addressing it. Why do we diminish our desire for love and connection so often? Why do we avoid the hard conversations?

The Man Rules imply it is unmanly to admit that we value our relationships and want to connect with others, or that, God forbid, we need others in our lives. Yet there is an incredibly rich and rapidly growing chorus of scientists, psychologists, quantum physicists, sociologists, and others who are finding irrefutable evidence for how human beings are intended to connect to one another; that we are all wired for connection.

For years now, certain putative relationship experts have been calling men on the carpet on national TV and in best sellers for how we act in our relationships and our overall lack of relational competence. But what I almost never see is these folks looking at the man and saying, “You know, Dan, I understand that nobody sat you down and told you how to do these things. I understand that you are doing everything you have been taught to do. I believe there is a part of you that really wants to do things differently.” No, they are happy to put on a show, shaming these men, and playing to the anger and hurt of the women in the audience, with little true respect for either the men or the women. Rarely have I seen a genuine compassion and love in these so-called relationship experts’ diatribes against men. Why is that? It is a lot easier to complain about men’s disengagement from our relationships than it is to attempt to understand where it comes from and what else might be going on.

My work is all about how we find the tools to create healthy relationships when very few of us were given the tools we needed to succeed. Part of the Water is not seeing how men have ended up with these relationship challenges but rather judging men’s difficulty in relationships as an inherent – and even insuperable – deficit. God knows I will not win any awards for the relationships I work my ass off to foster and grow. I will never do it perfectly and the Man Rules can still often rule the moment for me – and maybe even the day sometimes. But I will never stop trying because I believe that the love I have experienced is what life is all about. I believe in that journey I will become the best man that I could ever be.

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