Creating the Intimate Connection: The Basics to Emotional Intimacy

As Herb Goldberg points out in The New Male: “In the end, the rewards of his success are revealed as masturbatory. There is really no one to share them with when he gets ’there,’ no one close enough who really cares or knows him and whom he genuinely trusts and feels close to.” One man once said to me, “Well, I have everything I worked hard for all

Her resentment quickly surfaces in the marriage since she wants to be treated as a capable adult by her husband. The man who doesn’t recognize this, and who persists in his good-husband, head-of-the-household role, is well on his way to the divorce court.

The good husband pays a high emotional price for having to win or always be right in his marriage. The aggressive behavior that works so well for him in his pursuit of money may alienate his wife. If someone has to be right, then someone else must be wrong. If someone wins, then someone else loses. In this case, the someone who loses is usually the

As long as he is limited to the good-husband fantasy, a man will place an inordinate amount of importance on his ability to help his wife with her problems. The trouble is that if she gets better or ceases to need his help, he’s out of a job—at least’s in his own mind. It is as though he were saying to his wife: “I want you to get better, or become

The good husband’s fantasy that he shouldn’t be dependent on others cannot help but lower his sense of self-esteem. The good husband will eventually find himself stuck in a double bind. He believes he must never be weak, and he sees any dependency as a weakness. At the same time, he feels tremendous stress at having always to be

Good husbands can find a variety of excuses for not talking to their wives about their jobs. I often hear husbands say they don’t want their wives to worry. On the surface, this seems like a thoughtful gesture, but when it is further explored, most couples discover that the good husband is really following that part of his marriage fantasy which te

part.” The only problem with this noble viewpoint is that it is not realistic. It is almost impossible to be responsible for another person’s feelings and behavior. Everyone has normal ups and downs, but when his wife is on a down cycle the white-knight character is engaged in the good husband and sets out to rescue her. She may not have ever reque

But all too often the dream turns sour. Though the husband earns more money and purchases the things that he and his wife always dreamed of enjoying, they now have become strangers to each other, and no matter how wonderful the things they own, their wealth cannot compensate them for the loneliness they feel.

When the American Dream is taken to its outer limits, there is often a kind of existential breakdown among men who have followed the good-husband fantasy to the letter and have gotten to the top of

Another set of problems presents itself when the good husband goes to work after a fight with his wife. He finds it hard to keep his mind on his job.