I believe it is safe to say that everyone in the world has an interest in sex and love. My interest is both personal and professional. When people visit my website, MenAlive, they are greeted by my welcome video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” Though I had been helping many men and women have the relationship of their dreams, I was having trouble in my own love life. Fortunately, I reached out to get the help I needed and my wife, Carlin, and I have been joyfully married for 46 years.
In my recent article, “Looking for Love in All the Right Places: How to Find Your Perfect Partner and Live Passionately Every After,” I talked about the Five Stages of Love and why too many relationships go under at Stage 3. I also introduced you to my colleague Dr. Kyra Bobinet, a neuroscientist to has done groundbreaking research on hidden reasons that so many men and women fail to achieve success in our sex and love lives.
Here I want to tell you about the unique issues facing men today and what you need to know to have the kind of sex and love life you desire and deserve. Men have been told that we have it all, we are the privileged ones who occupy all the positions of power. But there is something men haven’t been told.
“The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine ‘privilege’ and power,” says psychologist Herb Goldberg. “He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is playing by the rules of the male game plan and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying himself — emotionally, psychologically, and physically.”
What’s the problem with men? Why are we out of touch with ourselves and others? I believe it is because we have lost our ability to love — ourselves, others, and the community of life on planet Earth. Many of us grew up in families that were dysfunctional where our parents hadn’t learned to fully love us. Others grew up in a home without a father and never had a man in our life to demonstrate love in action. We had mothers who did their best but couldn’t give us what only a man could provide.
Never Give Up on Love: Embrace the Four Marriages That Make Life Meaningful
In his book The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationships David Whyte says,
“Human beings are creatures of belonging, though they may come to that sense of belonging only through long periods of exile and loneliness.”
Most of us have experienced the feelings of exile and loneliness that Whyte describes. I found Whyte’s description of the three marriages to be very helpful.
“This sense of belonging or not belonging” says Whyte, “is lived out by most people through three principal dynamics:
- “First through our relationship to other people and other living things (particularly and very personally, to one other living, breathing person in relationship or marriage);
- “Second, through work,
- “Third, through an understanding of what it means to be themselves, discrete individuals alive and seemingly separate from everyone and everything else.”
Following my two divorces, and after the initial shock, loss, and confusion, I looked back over my relationship life and realized the love I had for my work rivaled the love I had for my wives and I worried and wondered if my time spend involved with my work had caused by two previous marriages to fail. It was only years later, deep into my third marriage with Carlin, that I came to understand the importance of all three marriages.
David Whyte says,
“To neglect any one of the three marriages, is to impoverish them all, because they are not actually separate commitments but different expressions of the way each individual belongs to the world.”
This one sentence forever changed my views of love and marriage forever.
In recent years I have come to believe that there is a fourth marriage that has been invisible to most of us. It is like water for a fish wo are immersed in from the beginning of life, so are never aware of their deeper connection. I believe that our connection to the human tribe is a fourth marriage.
I first became aware of this marriage from Daniel Quinn, the author of the book Ishmael. In his book, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, he says,
“The tribal life and no other is the gift of natural selection to humanity. It is to humanity what pack life is to wolves, pod life is to whales, and hive life is to bees.”
He goes on to say, “People are fascinated to learn why a pride of lions works, why a troop of baboons works, or why a flock of geese works, but they often resist learning why a tribe of human works. Tribal humans were successful on this planet for three million years before our agricultural revolution, and they’re no less successful today.”
We have become estranged for our human tribe, and we don’t have to be experts to see that humanity is in trouble. Humans have become disconnected from what works for all our fellow creatures in the community of life on planet Earth.
Thomas Berry was a geologian, and a historian of religions. He spoke eloquently about our connection to the Earth and the consequences of our failure to remember who we are.
“We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”
This fourth marriage connects us to the reality of our human tribe and is our lifeline to the community of life on planet Earth. Like many people who are blind-sided when a seemingly solid marriage ends in divorce, our human survival is under threat, but most of us don’t want to see it.
According to scientist Gregg Braden,
“Scientists, engineers, and philosophers warn us that without a radical shift in our thinking, we are on track to be the last generation of pure humans that the world will know. Within a single generation we will devolve into a hybrid species of synthetic bodies, Artificial intelligence (AI), and computer chips that limit our ability to think, to love, and to adapt to the conditions of the emerging world in a healthy way.”
Kelly Wendorf is the author of Flying Lead Change: 56 Million Years of Wisdom for Leading and Living. We explored these issues in an interview and article, “Why Humanity’s Future May Depend on Our Connection to Our 56-Million-Year-Old Elders.”
Male Mentoring For Sex and Love (MMS&L)
My work with men began on November 21, 1969. That was the day I held our newborn son in my arms. I made a vow that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and to do everything I could to create a world where men were fully healed. I’ve been able to help thousands of men through private counseling and hundreds of thousands through the seventeen books that I have written.
At this stage of life as I move more fully into my eighties (I will be 83 later this year), I intend to offer a series of courses that will teach men how to become successful at all four marriages that make life meaningful:
- Learning the secrets of love and finding a partner who will join you in creating real lasting love.
- Having work where you can make a positive difference in the world.
- Healing your internal wounds and loving yourself unconditionally.
- Joining with other humans in support of humanity.
Rena Malik, M.D. author of The Hard Truth: Everything Men Need to Know for Good Health, Great Sex, and Long Life, reminds us that the skills needed for good health, great sex, and long life, are intimately related. It is the time to re-learn the skills that an increasingly dysfunctional society has lost.
Mentoring men is not only essential for the wellbeing of the men in our lives, but also for the women, children, and future generations.
I’m looking for a few good men who are ready to join me in the adventure of a lifetime. I am putting the curriculum together now and hope to begin in 2027. If you are interested in learning more and applying to join, drop me a note to: Jed@MenAlive.com and put “MMSL” in the subject line. I would like to hear from women as well as men. Women do well when men are fully healed.
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