ArcaMax

Terrorized by the possibility of being pulled back into the mire of second-class personhood, women these days have put men on trial. It's not usually a conscious decision, more like a self-defensive reflex, and it masquerades as snide criticism, sharp-tongued retorts and guilt-inducing comments. Anything and everything to put him on the defensive! But why? What did he do to deserve the sneer? When we search ourselves for a reason, things get fuzzy. Still, we do feel threatened by him (or something about him), so we instinctively put up a defense.

Listen up: The big whopper of fears keeping us from delicious loving is the loss of independence. We have that image of our parents' lopsided togetherness and are terrorized by the thought that somehow we're fated to witness our own emotional meltdown (and everything we worked so hard for) to accommodate a beloved. We just haven't figured out how we can hang on to our precious selfhood and love our beloved.

All the time -- yes, literally all the time -- I'm asked how I can love a man and still be independent. The concept seems impossible to many/most women. When we're talking on the phone, I can hear the amazement in her voice. The concept of a close relationship as tight as marriage, involving living together day after day, seems totally unimaginable. Contradictory. Impossible. An arrangement to be dreamed of, hoped for, but not practical in the real world of relationships.

And so, in an odd twist, we women are being enslaved by the very prize we've struggled so hard to win! Well, let's unshackle ourselves and start to nourish friendships with the men in our lives we truly like: maybe the men you work with; the men you bowl with; the men you conference with, whose judgement you trust in business; your children's teachers; the teacher in your children's religious school; the counselor in your child's camp. You see where we're headed: men as friends.

That's the model to look for in a relationship, which is probably a shift in course for you. But do it for me. Try -- this one time -- to look for different strengths than ones you're accustomed to: someone who is easy to talk with, who brings out the niceness in you, a friend you can be real with because you sense he's trustworthy and is real with you. Maybe you won't ever date them, but you will start to relate to men as friends, hardly the preamble to "Can I be independent even though I'm married?"

Yes, you can, if you partner with a man who nourishes your personhood.

Any questions?

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