Men's Guide to Women

Here comes Valentine’s Day and another opportunity for you to strike up a little romance. 

 

If you are short on ideas take a look at what I have in store for my wife this year.  Man to man, you need to step up and take care of her on this one.

 

Want to know where Valentines Day came from?  Look here. 

 

I know, I know.  Why should you have to buy her a card just to tell her something that she already knows, (that you love her) Right?  Nope.  No Sweet Tarts for you.

If you think that way, you are missing the point and destined to have a disappointed woman, and a disappointed woman has a way of disappointing her man.

 Valentines is a decidedly female holiday.  Most women are into the flowers, gifts and candy.  I do not want flowers, I do not want a teddy bear with a little heart sewed on its chest, and don't even think about giving me anything with a cherub on it. 

I could eat some chocolate, but I could do without the heart shaped box.  I do not see the point in any of it for the average guy, but I do understand the value for her.

I could give you a long list of tips and great ideas but I am not going to do it. Nope, I am not going to hand it to you, I am going to make you think a little first, because the romance is in the details and details, my friends, are only details if they are important to your woman (and she notices.)

This year I am going to tell you what I am doing for my wife this Valentines and show you my thought process and the details I am incorporating so you can snag a few ideas and do the same. If you come up with something fantastic, though, I want to hear about it.

Where I Begin or “Jeez, it is already Valentines again, what am I Going to do THIS Year?”

(For the record this took a total of four hours to figure out and about two weeks of advanced planning to get the more obvious pieces listed below.)

One of my wife’s favorite books right now is The Da Vinci Code. One of my wife’s favorite movies is Serendipity.

So, this year, I am incorporating elements from the book and the movie into what I hope is the perfect Valentines Day experience.

 

OK, Now What, Genius!

It would be helpful if you understood the plot to Serendipity so you would understand the significance of what I am talking about as it relates to the movie. Here is my Cliff’s Notes version:

In the movie, Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) bumps into a girl named Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) there is some attraction but Sara is not sure if it is "meant to be," so she puts her name and phone number in a copy of a handy used book, titled Love in the Time of Cholera that is subsequently sold.

Jonathan spends years checking used bookstores for the copy of Love in the Time of Cholera that she signed. He eventually finds it and gets a chance to meet her again.

(It is just the kind of syrupy story my wife loves. I am the John Cusack fan in the family and what is not to like about Kate Beckinsale?)

 

Here is the Plan

This year I am going to send my wife on a small scavenger hunt based on elements of this book and movie to find her Valentine’s Day gift.

I am beginning with a code, ala The Da Vinci Code, that she has to read and follow.

See the example below:

 

 

It is not much of a code really, but read top to bottom, left to right, it says:

SEEK THE SMELL OF SOMETHING SWEET

 

I am incorporating two other coded letters at different locations around the house that have significant meaning for her.

The last letter will direct her on a date at home with me watching Serendipity on DVD with all of her favorite home made and store bought snacks.

After the movie is over, I will produce a gift for her, strategically wrapped and hidden under the nearby couch.

The gift, or pre-gift really, is a copy of the book Love in the Time of Cholera, just like the one in the movie.

Opening the book, she will see an inscription (placed exactly where the character in the movie, Sara, wrote her phone number in the book) and another small code to lead my wife to her Valentines gift.

This last letter will lead her to a small wooden box hidden in our bedroom. Once she tries to open it she will realize it is not your average small wooden box, as it has no lid, but she will be able to hear something sliding around inside of it.

The box is a four move puzzle box. You have to slide the panels around on the face of the box in a certain order to get it to open.  If you have not heard of puzzle boxes before, look here.   Check out the video clip at the end of this article for more on puzzle boxes.

Once my wife solves the puzzle and gets the puzzle box open she will see another small box, one that has a more traditional dark blue velvet exterior, otherwise known as your standard jewelry store ring box.

Opening the ring box, she will discover a custom made ring already sized for her with a very small note rolled up telling her just how much I love her.

That’s my plan. Got any ideas for next year?

Image courtesy of Pictures of the Heart 

The US Department of Agriculture calculated the estimated cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $170,460 for a middle-income dual parent family.  They have no estimates for the value you get in return.

 

1. Naming rights. First, middle, and last!

2. Glimpses of God every day.

3. Giggles under the covers every night.

4. More love than your heart can hold.

5. Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

6. Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

7. A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.

8. A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.

9. Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

10. You get to see a beautiful angelic face sleep every night.

11. You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.

12. You have an excuse to keep reading Green Eggs and Ham, Peter Rabbit &, Peter Rabbit, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to kid movies, and wishing on stars.

13. You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

14. For $170,460, there is no greater bang for your buck.

15. You get to be a hero just for teaching them to whistle, helping them learn to ride a bike, removing a splinter, building a fort, picking them up when they fall, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

16. You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

17. You get to be immortal.

18. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren.

19. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

20. In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

Image Courtesy of Linnea Lenkus Fine Art Portraits; Courtesy of Tom Madigan

A few years ago, I wrote my wife a Valentines letter that included what I had learned over the last twenty years.  I recently stumbled across it again and thought I would post a few of the points that still resonate with me today.
 

 

What I Have Learned... 

1. Age 19 – I am not bullet proof.
2. Age 22 - Sometimes I hear better when my mouth is shut
3. Age 25 - I realized I was not a good negotiator and paid way too much for my new car.
   
4. Age 25- I was not nearly as smart as I thought I was at age 20
5. Age 28- I learned that "take your breath away" was not just a figure of speech when I saw my wife in her wedding dress.
6. Age 29- I learned I was not the perfect man, as you subtly, but frequently reminded me.
7. Age 29- I learned what I look like with grey hair
8. Age 29- I learned you hate me/love me/hate me/love me. I now understand hormones.
9. Age 29- I learned what legally loving two women was like when my daughter was born.
   
10. Age 29- I realized “pretty” was nothing compared to “beautiful” as I watched you with our first daughter.
11. Age 29 - I realized they really do send you home from the hospital with a baby and no instruction manual.
12. Age 29 - I realized it was no longer about me, my daughter taught me how to serve someone else.
    
13. Age 30 – I learned what you look like with grey hair.
14. Age 30 – I learned that I was good at “swaddling.”
15. Age 30 – I realized I was not nearly as smart as I thought I was at age 25
16. Age 30 - I experienced the joy of buying our first house and the pain of paying the mortgage.
    
17. Age 31 - I realized how much I did not know about taking care of a house.
    
18. Age 31 – I learned I was not wrong, “beautiful” beats pretty any day as I watched you holding our second baby girl.
19. Age 32 – I realized I was a “Dad,” I had a new vocabulary, with words like “wipey” and “ba."
20. I came to understand that it took 40lbs of gear to go anywhere for any length of time with a  baby and a toddler.
21. Age 33 - I learned my wife did not know what she was doing either as a parent, she was just better at faking it!
22. Age 34 - I understood why my mother cried on my first day of school.
    
23. Age 35 – I learned I was really not very smart at age 30 after all.
24. Age 35 – I realized the smartest thing I ever did was ask my wife to marry me.
25. Age 38 - I realized how many true friends I really had.
    
26. Age 40 – I realized I was getting smarter, but I was still pretty stupid at 35 and that I have a lot more to learn.

Image provided by http://dropsofshk.blogspot.com

 

To view the full version of this interview (without being broken down into Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, click Wayne Levine Full Interview)

 

 

 

 

 

BoingBook: I am here with author Wayne M Levine. He is the director of the West Coast Men’s Center in Agoura Hills, California and founder of BetterMen.org. He has put together a tremendous book called Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men.

We have tracked him down and he has graciously agreed to do an interview for us, to help you get a better feel for what his information is all about.

How are you doing today Wayne?

Wayne M Levine: Terrific, and if it is about helping men to be better men, fathers, husbands and leaders, I am all in.

BB: Excellent. That is exactly what we are here for.

Wayne, we deal with men and the challenges they face in their relationships every single day. There are millions of men out there having problems dealing with the women in their lives. Can you tell me how your book can help those guys?

Wayne M Levine: Look, most men are not comfortable in their own skin as men. They have not been initiated into manhood, they do not have close relationships with other men, and they haven’t had healthy role models. So we are boys, we grow up, we develop bad habits and all of the sudden we find ourselves in long term committed relationships and it’s suddenly a minefield, but it doesn’t have to be.

The purpose of the book is to make it very simple for men to understand that there are some things they have to do to be clear about who they are as men.

There are some tools that are very simple that men need to use to honor who they are as men in their relationships, so the result is you become a better man and you become a better man in your relationships.

BB: Wow that is pretty powerful. Well I think we will just stop the interview right there.

Wayne M Levine: ...but you do have to read the book, and you do have to commit to it, and you gotta take action and that’s what separates the boys from the men. The men are going to do something about it, the boys are just going to whine and complain about it.

I make it simple but make no mistake becoming a better man takes work so you have to be in it, you have to be all in.

BB: I would say the most common questions we get are from guys wanting to know how to talk to women or relate to them in some way. How can your book help a guy learn how to talk to women?

Wayne M Levine: The problems that men have are around listening, really. It is a listening issue and there is a reason why it is difficult for men to listen to their women. Men get into arguments all too often or run away and hide because they can’t take her bitching and complaining or whatever it is they think they are hearing.

When you slow down and start paying attention to the things that are going on in your head just before you argue and start paying attention to what is making it so difficult for you to be there and listen to her you will to see things differently in your relationship.

Most men hear their mommies yelling at them and that is why they can’t listen to their wives, you can read all the psych books you want to find out the details but the truth is that’s the way we are.

Our first model of a woman is our mom, and our first model of a relationship is our parents. We grow up with that and we have to decide for ourselves “Is that what I want my relationships to look like?” “Is that the man I want to be?”

The advice that men have been getting over the years about how to relate to women has been such crap that men are confused. There is so little good wisdom coming man to man that I understand why it is such a challenge for most men out there. This book is all about figuring out what is going on with you.

BB: Your book is clearly unlike anything else out there for guys, how did you develop the material for this book?

Wayne M Levine: A buddy of mine invited me to a men’s group open house. I went and I saw these men talking and interacting with each other in a way I had never seen before. It was the weirdest experience and I loved it. I found out this men’s weekend had an opening two weeks away so right there, that night, I said “I am going to do it.”

It was the first major decision I ever made without consulting with my wife. I was a good little boy. I learned a lot from the men’s weekend I did and from the men I was involved with for years afterwards.

I realized that I had an affinity for this work, a real passion for it. So, after years and years of creating men’s events, and figuring out what worked for me and what worked for the men in front of me, I realized I had something. This was the stuff.

I tried to deliver it in the book the way I deliver it to the men that I work with at the West Coast Men’s Center and the men that I work with over the phone when I coach them. Simple, straight, man to man.

BB: A lot of the how-to manuals and step-by-step guides out there feel like they are adding a level of complexity to a guy’s life. Your material seems to simplify a guy’s life. Was that one of your intentions, or was that just a side benefit of the program?

Wayne M Levine: It was absolutely an intention because we are very simple creatures. Food, sleep, sex, we’re good.

BB: That’s it, we’re good.

Wayne M Levine: But we’ve learned to become very complicated and that is where we have been feminized. Women are complicated, men are simple. We have, over the last several generations, grown to think and behave like women. That is why everything seems so complicated. The point is it should be simple.

Be the man you want to be, take care of your woman. She will get what she needs and you will get what you need. You don’t have to think like a woman, you just have to be a man that knows how to take care of his woman. It is very simple stuff.

BB: In your book you talk very specifically about men being afraid of their wives. I found that a very curious point to say the least. What did you mean by that?

Wayne M Levine: Well, they act afraid. I see a lot of men. They are terrified of their wives. They don’t think about it that way but they are acting that way.

What is really going on is they are afraid of losing themselves in these conversations and these arguments that they have with their women so they go to great extent to avoid the confrontation. Men avoid the discussion because they know what’s going to happen.

She can talk circles around you, whatever it is, and you become afraid. You become afraid of your own reactions.

Women hate that, they feel terrible about that. When you give a woman the power to make you feel that afraid, that is a dangerous place to be. Women don’t want that power. Men don’t want to feel emasculated.

It is really our responsibility to take that power back and you do that by learning the tools needed to be able to be an equal, but uniquely from a man’s perspective. I think a lot of the men will agree that at some level they are afraid of losing themselves and they are afraid of their women. They can change that.

BB: You also make reference to a few other emotions men are experiencing. You say a lot of men today are angry, sad or full of shame. From your experience, why are men feeling this way?

Wayne M Levine: Masculinity is not celebrated in our culture for sure. We’ve been the perpetrators for a long time now. Women are realizing that hey, we have some parity in the workplace, things are changing economically and socially, but our men are wimps.

They are saying “That’s not the man I want. I want a strong confident man. I want a man that is going to run the sex and romance in our lives. I want a man that is going to make me feel safe, take care of me even if I have a career, even if I am smart, I want a good strong man.”

Men feel like there is something wrong with them for being men because the messages we have gotten for so many years from parents, teachers, magazine articles, and the idiocy on television make us feel like there is something wrong with us for being men.

In so many different ways we are not free to be who we are, so we get angry, we get depressed, and then we start indulging our addictions. It’s an epidemic out there.

BB: When we first started we talked about the title of your book, Hold on to your N.U.T.s., can you tell us exactly what that acronym stands for?

Wayne M Levine: Yeah, Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men, that’s the full name and it stands for Nonnegotiable, Unalterable Terms.

( This is Part 2 of an interview with Wayne M. Levine, noted author of the book Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men. To read Part 1 of this interview follow this link: Part 1:Hold on to Your N.U.T.s )

 

 

 

 

Wayne M Levine: Silence the Little Boy is the most important BetterMen Tool. That’s the guy who grew up feeling like he wasn’t fathered the way he needed to be, didn’t get what he wanted, is angry and upset and is stomping his feet through life. He expects her to read his mind, to do what he wants and he is not really taking responsibility for himself, his life, or his relationships.

You gotta silence the little boy inside before you can expect to become the man you want to be. The way you silence the little boy is to act like the man you want to be, and that is why it is so important to have your N.U.T.s. You need to have that road map. The more you act like the man you want to be the more you will become that man.

I recommend that over sitting in therapy and talking about the wounded inner child the rest of your life because a little insight goes a long way. It is good to know where this comes from but, men, we need to take action. When we don’t take action, nothing will change for us.

BB: Tool two, Express but Don’t Defend Your Feelings, to me, seems like one of the most powerful statements in the whole book. Can you explain what that looks like in practice?

Wayne M Levine: (the man) “Honey it really upsets me that you throw the newspaper out before I have had a chance to read it.”

(the woman) Well I thought you were done with it and I don’t know why you are yelling at me.

(the man) It really upsets me when you throw it out when I am not done reading it.

(the woman) W-Well what do you mean? I thought that…

OK, now you have just said something. It’s as clear as day. You have probably talked about it in the past. She knows you don’t want her to throw the paper out before you have had a chance to read it, but she wants to get it in the recycling bin for pickup that week.

There is nothing else to say. She doesn’t like the fact that you are upset with her and she is going to want to have a conversation so that she can feel that you are not upset with her anymore. However, if you keep talking, you are likely to dilute the message. That is like a pretty benign example…

Listen men, she needs to know how you feel. Women have been complaining about this for years. Men have not been telling women how they feel because they’re afraid about having discussions about their feelings. When you start talking about your feelings, women typically try and convince you out of how you feel because how you feel is making them feel uncomfortable.

BB: (Laughing)

Wayne M Levine: Did you follow all that?

BB: Yes.

Wayne M Levine: So men go back into their shells because they are not communicating how they feel. But men, you have to know, you gotta communicate it, open your mouth, let them know.

They may say “I don’t understand what you mean” but they do, they do. You gotta grab your balls and when something comes up you have to let her know.

Rather than having the discussion on her terms, have it on your terms. Just let her know how you feel. You don’t have to beat her up. You don’t make her wrong. You don’t make her feel terrible. You just tell her.

Now, the other part of this is that for some men it’s intolerable for their women to be upset with them and that’s one of the obstacles.

“How do I tell her that, then she is going to get mad and then we are going to have an argument, and then I won’t get laid for a month?”

Well, things begin to change when you are not afraid to say how you feel because you know you are not going to defend your feelings. You are just going to express them.

It’s a big topic, but hopefully some of that will resonate with the men.

BB: Run the Sex and Romance Departments, tool number four. I think I like that tool, but how can a guy Run the Sex and Romance Departments when his wife has the purse strings, so to speak.

Wayne M Levine: It is our job to romance our women. We are not waiting around for her to bring us flowers. We don’t care about that crap, but just because we don’t care about it, doesn’t mean they don’t care about it.

They really care about that stuff. Boy, when you go to the store and you find the right card, you get the perfect gift, you go home, she opens it and she thinks about all the time you spent thinking about getting this card or setting up that date for her. That makes her feel special. You have got to do that. If you do not do that you will not get laid, or at least you won’t have a happy participant.

So, you have to romance, and romance can mean a whole lot of things. It could be the traditional stuff or just the things that you know she likes to have done that makes her believe you really care about her.

When you romance her, she will give you the sign, and when she gives you the sign it is your job to do a bang-up job. You gotta take care of her, in a big way. There are things we talk about at the Men’s Weekend that I am a little reluctant to talk about here because I don’t know who is going to hear it, but there are ways that we talk to the men about sex and what women need that make sense to us.

BB: How do you help these guys out if they need more help than what is in the book?

Wayne M Levine: Well, I think they all need more help than the book. The book is a good place to start, but you need the men and one way to get the men in your life is to do a Men’s Weekend where you can develop some very strong relationships.

We are doing the BetterMen Weekend for men a couple of times a year in southern California, near Santa Barbara. Men have flown in from all over the country, from Canada and Australia to work with us. It’s a three day event, you get initiated into manhood, you learn tools, you learn about yourself, you have a lot of fun because we do a lot of stupid stuff that I think is important for us. The stuff that we do in our Men’s Weekend women would never do, that’s why it is a Men’s Weekend.

BB: (laughing)

Wayne M Levine: That is why I am a big fan of retreats that are just for men. There is a lot of transformational work where men and women share it together. Good stuff can come from it, but I am telling you men, the goal is being with the other men because you can learn how to be a great man with women, from other men. I think it is a better place to learn it than with a bunch of women. Women cannot teach you how to be the man you want to be. You can only get that from other men.

(This is Part 3 of an interview with Wayne M. Levine, noted author of the book Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men.  To read Part 1 of this interview follow this link: Part 1:Hold on to Your N.U.T.s , to read Part 2, follow this link: Part 2:Hold on to Your N.U.T.s.)

 

 

 

BoingBook: I would like a little clarification on Tool 5, Being the Rock. For me, “Being the Rock” always meant not showing your emotions, keeping everything inside, not crying, going John Wayne style, but that does not sound like what you mean by Be the Rock.

Wayne M Levine: No, your woman needs to know that no matter what she says, what she does, what time of the month it is, what happened that day with her mother or her girlfriends, that when she tells you or when she acts out that you will be there for her, that you will not try to fix her, you will not run away to your study or the garage, you will not try to argue with her because it is so uncomfortable for you, you will just be there for her and when she is done you are unscathed. You are the same man she started talking to.

When you can be that strong man, when you can be the rock for her, in those moments, she will want to have sex with you.(laughing) How’s that?

BB: Alright. Hey, uh, sign me up, what was that? That was “Be the Rock.” What page is that in the book?

Wayne M Levine: That is what she needs from you. No matter how strong this woman is, no matter how much masculine energy she has, no matter how successful she might be in her own career, she is still a little girl inside and there are times when she needs a strong man to be there for her.

It is not easy doing that because you have to do your own work, men, to figure out why that is so difficult, but once you figure out how to do it, you will be amazed. That is when men start to regain that power to be the men they want to be in the relationship.

It is not about you calling the shots. It is not about you being in charge. It’s just you being comfortable in knowing your job and your role in that relationship and most men are just not clear about how that should work for them.

BB: Tool six Don’t Argue, that sounds like something that goes hand in hand with “Be the Rock,” but that seems very difficult to execute.

Wayne M Levine: Well, yeah, its tough but you just have to stop it. You know what we say? If in doubt, shut the F up.

BB: Now see that’s a simple rule I can remember.

Wayne M Levine: You probably won’t go wrong if you shut up. Now you can’t do that all the time, but if you are not sure, shut up, wait, don’t argue.

If you want to have a discussion, you can let her know. “I’m happy to talk to you about this, but I am not going to argue about it.” It takes time to get there, I know.

It’s very difficult for some men to imagine that their relationship can change but I am telling you I have seen relationships on the brink of divorce turn around.

When you see the senselessness of arguing with your woman you start to realize you do not need to argue with anybody, because when you know what your N.U.T.s are, there is no need to argue.

Once you realize that you don’t need to argue you realize that’s just a good rule to take with you everywhere you go.

BB: You know for myself, I find that when she starts into her problems, I want to dive in and fix it, but it sounds like from what you are saying, I should just shut up and listen.

Wayne M Levine: They don’t want you to fix their problems. What can I tell you? Everyone knows this, it’s in every book.

BB: Where have I been?

Wayne M Levine: You can’t fix the problems, just listen. I have been married 24 years, every now and then my wife will ask me about how to handle something (laughing) and I will say to her “Do you really want my advice… on this” and she will say “Nnnoooo.”

BB: (laughing)

Wayne M Levine: “OK, good.”

BB: Fair enough, moving on.

Wayne M Levine: No matter how much I soften it, the way I would handle that problem doesn’t even come close to how she would handle it. Don’t fix it. Not your job. Support her. Encourage her to get more help. Encourage her to figure out the solution. Don’t try to give it to her because you will just get disappointed, resentful, and then you are in a mess. Knock it off.

Something that is occurring to me as I hear my own voice is that this is the energy; this is the voice of a man talking to another man. This is not a therapist talking to a man.

There are definitely some good therapists out there who have a sense of their own masculinity and can deliver that to men, but by in large you will not get this therapy because they are not really there to tell you what to do, I am going to tell you what to do.

Listen, the work that we do is about fathering, so sometimes Dad needs to tell you what to do, he needs to tell you how he feels, and tell you what’s expected of you as a man, OK? Sometimes it is asking questions and letting you find your own way, but we do not need therapy all the time. We need some guidance, we need some wisdom. We need to get some of the information that our dads didn’t have for us because they didn’t get it or they didn’t know how to deliver it, or they had their own issues going on with Mom that they were not around.

It is not about you being the man I want you to be. You develop your own N.U.T.s.

Use these tools and be that man and I will support you. Now if I don’t like who you are, I am not going to want you in my life, then you have to decide whether that’s the man you want to be. Right?

I am not telling you the kind of man to be, but I am going to give you my honest feedback about how I feel about being with you and how your actions are impacting me. I owe it to you, because you are not going to get that truth everywhere and that is what we teach the men to do for each other.

Tell the truth. If that guy’s an asshole, then it is good for the him to hear that, because if a man in the group is telling him that you can bet the people in the outside world are thinking it, and it is good information to have, then he can decide what to do with it.

BB: So for the guy out there that has been with us for the last several minutes reading this, what’s the motivation to move for the average guy out there?

Wayne M Levine: Well, first of all, if you are reading this you are probably not the average guy because most men are too afraid to even look into this stuff.

BB: We just get a better crop of guys, that’s all there is to it. (laughing)

Wayne M Levine: (laughing) Certainly there is something in this work that is resonating with the reader that is still reading. So, if you have not read enough to buy the book now, don’t buy the book. If you are still listening, you are already in, man. Just buy the book and keep going.

BB: Just one more question. How can a guy get in contact with you for mentoring or for one of your BetterMen’s Weekends? How do they take it to the next level once they are done with the book?

Wayne M Levine: Go to BetterMen.org. or you can email me at Wayne@BetterMen.org and I will respond. I work with men individually under the name Mentor4Men, I talk to men weekly when we get started and help them integrate what’s in the book into their life.

We have the BetterMen Retreats that we do it a couple of times a year. The next one for us is actually coming up March 6^th through March 9^th, 2008. You can get information about that on the website as well.

BB: And where is that event in March going to be?

Wayne M Levine: Yeah, March 6^th through the 9^th, just outside Santa Barbara and I am telling you if you have never done anything like this before you are going to have the time of your life and if you have done work before, this weekend will be different.

I just want to say to the men that are reading this, I honor you for having the balls to try to be a better man. Don’t quit.

BB: Thank you Wayne for taking the time to give us a little bit of insight into your book and into this new way of thinking. It is not traditional and not like anything else that we at BoingBook have ever heard as it relates to men.

I really appreciate you taking the time today, thank you very much for being with us.

Wayne M Levine: Yeah, thank you.

Men, let me ask you a question. Do you have your testicles, or does your wife/girlfriend have them?

Just for clarification, I am not mad nor do I want to anger you, this is just a question, man to man.

Most men I know would rather sacrifice themselves a little bit and tiptoe around the house on egg shells rather than listen to their significant others argue, cry, scream or get upset.

If you are not completely certain who is in possession of your manhood, ask yourself these questions.

• Do you find yourself acting like an angry ten year old boy over stupid stuff like washing the dishes, taking out the trash or arguing with your wife over little things you would not waste fifteen seconds talking about with “the guys?”
• Does your wife or girlfriend get mad at you for not listening to her? Does she repeat what she says over and over again, driving you nuts in the process?
• Do you feel like your wife or girlfriend criticizes you repeatedly for no good reason?
• Do you feel like you have to be right in every argument, or that you just have to “win” every battle?

If you answered yes to any of these questions I am sad to say you are no longer in possession of your testicles, but that is OK, identifying the fact that they are gone is the first step on the road to recovery.

The only reason I know this to be true is because I have been there. I willingly gave up my manhood to my wife because I had always been taught that that was what being a real man was all about.

I could not explain why I felt bitter, mad, angry,  and resentful or found myself acting like a little boy when I would get in an argument with my wife. I tried to get past it, but there was just no end to my anger or frustration and nothing I did, except walk away, could keep that mad little boy from showing up when the verbal arrows started flying.

I came to realize I was mad because I felt I had compromised who I was just to make her happy to the point that  I did not like the man that was left.  My love for my wife turned into resentment because she never seemed to appreciate my selfless gestures.  She never seemed happy, she just wanted more, more, more.

 

Thankfully, one day I was blessed with just enough clarity to begin to see the solution.  

I am not angry anymore and no, I did not get a divorce, but I do have my testicles back and I am nicer, more considerate and loving to my wife than I have been in years.

I am not a spineless wimp caving into her every whim, I am not an a**hole treating her poorly, and I am not a pouting little boy, resentfully doing things for her under the banner of compromise.

The first step for me was identifing my own core beliefs and rebuilding who I was based on those beliefs.  That meant throwing beliefs others placed upon me or that I placed upon myself, in the name of compromise or keeping the peace, out the window when those beliefs did not reconcile with my own .

I am a man. I say what I want.

I am a man. I do not sell out who I am to placate others.

I am a man. I do not ask for permission.

I am a man. Compassion for my family trumps my need to be right.

I am a man. I do not tolerate my wife’s attempts to belittle me.

I am a man. Patience over temper.

I am a man. I speak my mind in spite of my fear of confrontation.

I am a man. I apologize when it’s appropriate, not simply to please others.

I am a man. I ask for help whenever I am not being the man I want to be.

These may seem like radical statements from a mad, angry lunatic, but I assure you I am happier now than I have been in years. You would be happier too, if all the weight of everyone else’s feelings and expectations of you were lifted off your shoulders and wiped from your mind and you only marched to the expectations you set for yourself.

Acting Like a Man

You are a man.  You should not blindly accept someone else telling you what you want or need to do about anything. You should do what you want to do. If you are uncertain, seek the counsel of other men, not women, as they do not know what it is like to be a man anymore than you know what it is like to be a woman.

You are a man. Do not abandon your position on something just to placate someone else. Change your position when it makes sense or when cooperation makes sense. Cooperate, do not compromise, there is a huge difference.

You are a man. Do not ask for permission to do something, just do it. If you need advice seek counsel from men and cooperate with what is in the best interest of you and your family, but do not ask permission and do not expect her to ask for permission from you.

You are a man.  Have compassion for your family. Stop being the little resentful pouting boy that feels the need to fight and argue to be right. Silence the little boy in you, shut up and just listen without anger. If you do not understand ask for clarification.  Do not try to fix her problems, just listen.

You are a man. Do not tolerate being belittled by anyone. State your feelings, do not defend them. There is no  good way to defend a feeling, just let it stand.  If the underlying basis for your feelings change, feel free to change your feelings on the subject.  When the name calling begins, leave until calmer heads prevail.

You are a man.  Your temper is that little boy feeling wronged, keep the little boy in his place (you still need him for fun) and let patience guide you. This one is not easy, but it is rewarding when you get past the temper swelling inside you and you are able to see clearly again. The moment you let your anger show your little boy is out for the world to see and your credibility on this point has been reset to zero.

You are a man. You have feelings and you have a right to express them and in some cases you have a duty to yourself to express them, even when your thoughts may be unpopular or spark confrontation. The other person may not like what you have to say, but that is not really your problem, now is it?

You are a man.  Apologize when it’s appropriate, when you have legitimately done something wrong, not simply to please others.

The Takeaway

I can already hear some of you saying, so what’s the big deal if you give in a little bit here or there on these issues?

These are my ideals, I am saying that you should be firm on those ideals that are core to you, be it this list or one you create on your own, because sacrificing or compromising one of these points for me is tantamount to compromising me.

Do not plant the flag on something like “I am not taking the trash out ever again.” That is the little boy being defiant. Cooperate with others as needed to get things done but do not compromise yourself or your beliefs in the process.

These ideas may seem new and hard to wrap your head around but Wayne Levine has done a fantastic job putting this concept to paper in his book Hold on to Your NUTs: The Relationship Manual for Men.

To be the best man you can be, find your sack, take it back and put it where it needs to be, above your knees, for without the guts to save your nuts, you will be forever known as the man that never was.

-Archer Parish

image provided by nerdapproved.com 

I saw this and I immediately had a moment of clarity I did not want to admit.  I am a father, but not nearly as good of one as I had hoped to be.  I now know what kind of father I want to be, I have seen it, it is tangible and that is what the video at the end of this article is all about.  If you do nothing else, watch the video at the end of this article.

I originally saw this here.   The story is about human courage. The story is about father and son. I'm now a father to two. I realized there is so much more I can do for my children.

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars — all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much — except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution."

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."

"Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks."

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?"

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 — only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad would sit in the chair and I would push him once."

As men are typically not too observant when it comes to some of a woman’s more subtle conscious or subconscious hints, I decided to consult a small stack of women asking the following question.

 

 

What visual cues could a guy pick up from a woman telling him he will not get lucky tonight?

Here are the top five answers.

1.  No Shaving, No Misbehaving

“If I skipped shaving my legs and armpits it means I have no intention of letting anyone, especially not my guy, get close enough to notice.”

2. Ugly Granny Panties

“She will be wearing the pretty matching underwear if she plans on letting a man see her in her underwear.

If it is that time or if I am going for comfort, I have my old favorites that I like to wear but they are anything but sexy. I would be too embarrassed to let a guy see me in those, let along do anything else.”

If she is not wearing low rise jeans good luck figuring this one out without getting caught. – Archer.

3. Stomach Pain = No Gain

“Sometimes after a nice dinner my stomach hurts for a while if I eat something I am not use to eating. Sometimes my stomach just hurts because I am feeling bloated, gassy or constipated. No man is getting near me when I feel like that.”

4. Showers Before Flowers

“If I feel like I need a shower, or feel sweaty or icky, I am not getting close to a man.”

5. General Maintenance Issues

“It’s obvious, but if I am packing feminine hygiene products he is out of luck.”

If I can see in her purse, great, but if it means I have dig around in her purse, forget it, I swear there are things in there that bite. – Archer.

6. BONUS SIGN: No Door, No Score.

“I will not let a man past my front door if the feeling is not right or there is at least a possibility.”

If you know a good tip I missed, let a brother know.

 image provided by fortunewater.com

I watched a movie with my wife last week called Good Luck Chuck where this guy, played by Dane Cook, tries to win back the heart of this girl he cannot let go of by giving her a room full of flowers, a closet full of balloons, a singing quartet serenade and himself in a giant present dressed as a giant penguin (as the woman in the story, played by Jessica Alba, loved penguins.)

What response does she have for this gargantuan display of affection?

“I need my space.”

Sadly, I see this story repeated in real life every other week usually arriving in the form of an email.

It usually goes something like:

I love her. She loves me. I love her more than anything, I can’t live without her. She says she needs space. I know she needs space, but I do not know how much to give her. She won’t return my calls now, but I know she still loves me. I love her so much I am not giving up; I had flowers delivered to her work. Why won’t she talk to me? What happened?

What happened in both of these instances can be summed up in a single word.

Suffocation or RDDA.

RDDA = Relationship Death by Dating Asphyxiation, or RDDA (pronounced rid-da, slang for “rid of” as in they want to get RDDA you.)

10 Tips That you may be Suffocating Someone

• You think that if giving a little bit of your attention is good then giving all of your attention must be fantastic.
• You call her more than once a day or leave multiple messages before she calls you back.
• She stops calling you back and/or changes her number.
• Your only desirable quality is your undying love for her.
• When you call she gives you one word answers and makes up any excuse to get you off the phone like “Hey, my cats on fire, gotta go!” Click.
• When in her presence she tries to keep you at least 18” away from her at all times, only offering up obligatory hugs and maybe a peck kiss. This is called proxemics, and you are being kept out of her personal space. If you are being kept at a distance of 4’ your relationship is toast.
• When you are convinced that even though your last gift was not that well received an even bigger/nicer gift/engagement ring would surely do the trick.
• When you find yourself saying “I can’t live without her,” or “I am afraid I am going to lose her,” or “I refuse to give up, I know she loves me” or “I know she would love me if only I could express my deepest feelings for her.”
• You find yourself wanting to randomly show up at her home or work repeatedly because you feel you are not getting enough face time or have trouble getting her on the phone.
• You set her MySpace page as your internet homepage.

Bonus 11th Tip

• When you hear them say “Give me some space,” or “stop suffocating me.” Yeah, I know, that one should be obvious, but if you are resorting to checking items off on this list, taking subtle hints is probably not your forte.

Takeaway

It feels good to be wanted, it feels down right creepy to be worshiped 24/7. A woman wants to be part of your life; she does not want to be your entire life.

Your life cannot revolve around hers. Trust me, if you see her as your Sun, she will only see you as her Son (of a b*tch stalker.)

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