Every few weeks, I tear a three- or four-paragraph story out of the daily newspaper and toss it in a box in my closet. The stories have datelines from towns all over America, each having its own tragic ending. Inevitably, it involves police surrounding somebody who recently broke up with a spouse or significant other and who, a few months later, gotten frustrated beyond control and decided to take the whole matter into their own hands.<\/p>\n
The sad incidents usually involve a gun or a knife. They occurs at either the victim\u2019s place of work or, worse yet, at home in front of their kids. It rarely ends well. I\u2019ve been reading the paper all my life, but I don\u2019t ever remember seeing a story in which the person who has gone mad and performs these crimes of jealous rage on their own family is anything other than a man.<\/p>\n
If I ever take a break from the newspaper business, I hope to gather all these yellowed clippings and write a book or organize seminars for men who don\u2019t know how to separate well. Then I would host groups where men would discuss \u2013 hold on here, I know this sounds revolutionary \u2013 our feelings. Men are not always comfortable doing that. It\u2019s really not in our nature: our heritage is as hunters and gatherers, not as nurturers. Our modern childhood sport and games and adult career goals are all about winning, achieving, conquering, taking \u2013 and, yes, possessing. We don\u2019t spend any time teaching or encouraging our boys and men about the proper way to lose. About admitting failure, apologizing, accepting our just punishment for our own misdeeds. We haven\u2019t explained to men what to do when something that we think once belonged to us is now somebody else\u2019s. Nevermind trying to make us understand that it never \u201cbelonged\u201d to us in the first place.<\/p>\n
Not that I\u2019m any great example. I\u2019ve done my share of stupid things. I\u2019ve just had the good fortune of never doing anything stupid enough to generate a news story. And I spent a good amount of time exploring the separation process. And now, thanks to friends, family and to God, I have learned my lessons and been healed.<\/p>\n
The problem occurs when men don\u2019t understand that there even is a process. Women generally do. They retreat, cloister themselves, grieve, get depressed, angry and seek support in other women. Men usually don\u2019t allow themselves to ever enter the grieving process. They just stuff those strange things called emotions. They just pass by grieving, avoid depression and go right to anger. The anger takes over and gets mixed up with those other emotions and men don\u2019t know how to deal with it. So they drink too much or begin to date with a frenzy or they overindulge in work. Eventually, the distractions don’t work anymore and the anger returns and this time it\u2019s not controllable.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when men do stupid things. They begin to focus on the person who made them feel these emotions in the first place. They stalk, they threaten, they go into jealous rages. The men behave badly. And when they do this in front of their children, the very precious creatures they\u2019ve helped to create, the very ones that are looking to their parents or step-parents for modeling on how to act when things go wrong, then their bad actions become bad examples and poison the psyche of another generation.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s how it happens, or so I think. Hope to break the cycle? Understand that the men don\u2019t understand and step in to help earlier in the process. Encourage them to read or talk about it. Tell them what the process is like and that they will come out on the other side intact. And pray that their loved ones do to.<\/p>\n\n\n