Ask Dr. Helen: Suicide, Men, and Money
We have all heard in recent months about executives taking their lives for financial reasons. David Kellerman is an example:
Investigators say that the acting chief financial officer for Freddie Mac may have killed himself. While officials cannot confirm the reason, it may have been due to stress related to the company’s financial troubles.
In 16 years, Kellerman rose through the ranks at Freddie Mac. He capped his career by trying to untangle the company’s financial woes. But the stress may have been too much.
Kellerman, 41, was found dead in his Virginia home from an apparent suicide by hanging.
Apparently, a number of professional men are feeling the strain of the financial crisis and are opting out, sometimes taking their family with them:
Financial stress has people all over the country feeling the pressure. Police in Maryland are investigating a bizarre murder suicide. While in New York, a lawyer suspected of bilking investors out of millions reportedly killed himself, his wife and two children.
Other similar stories across the nation include a money manager who slit his wrists, a former Bear Stearns analyst who jumped out of a 29th story window and a hedge fund manager who suffocated himself. Houston is not immune to these types of suicides.
In January, a financial advisor jumped off of a downtown building, leaving behind a wife and three children.
Notice the pattern: the majority of suicides are men. In 2001, there were 24,672 men who killed themselves vs. 5,950 women. Seventy-three percent of all suicide deaths are white males. A growing trend is middle-aged men committing suicide:
Before 1999, the U.S. suicide rate had declined for 13 years. The new numbers are especially puzzling because other research has found that for most people, middle age “is a time of relative security and emotional well-being,” Baker and her colleagues wrote in their paper. Their analysis was based on death reports compiled by an injury prevention program of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Even six years of consistent increase in the suicide rate among the middle-aged is “not a long enough period of time to get terribly concerned about,” said Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, a nonprofit research group based in Washington D.C. He said it can take years to identify definitive trends and causes and there was no clear reason why the suicide rate rose among the middle-aged.
Still, Berman said he fears the struggling economy could accelerate the trend. “We know that unemployment affects suicide rates and that when people feel a severe economic strain, suicide rates tend to increase among people experiencing that strain,” he said in a telephone interview today.
I do not mean to belittle women’s depression and stress over financial problems, but men in large numbers and in a variety of jobs are bearing the brunt of unemployment. Approximately 80% of the unemployed today are men.
My husband is uber depressed. He takes too much on himself over our finances but he also had his day in the selfish ‘sun’. I’m angry at him and forgiving but the harboring anger resides within me.
When times were ‘good’, my husband abandoned his/my daughter and I for his dream of being a ‘rock-star’ and when that grew stale he wanted to be a ‘golf-star’ all the while my daughter and I were lonely, sad and feeling the pain of abandonment I knew all too well.
My husband and I were attracted to each other about music first. I am the singer/songwriter…he the base/lead guitarist.
I wanted to have a child with him and he ‘obliged’ and after 2 months of ‘trying’ I conceived my wonderful daughter.
As my daughter grew up, I continued writing songs…sometimes I’d wake up with songs blaring in my head and I’d have to quickly write them down. Hubby and I decided to record some of our songs in an ‘official’ song recording studio and send our songs ‘out’ to song publishers.
LUCKY?
We were ‘signed’ but there was one glitch…the guy who wanted to sign us wanted me to sing my songs like I sange them on the tapes. Well, my daughter was just 5 years old and I was intent on home-schooling her and the idea of trying to make my own fame and fortune was a no GO. Needless to say…our Do I regret my decision? NOT ONE FREAKING DAY.
I’m just not a “ME ME ME ME ME ME MEEEEEEEEEEE” person, yaknow? Yeah, I’m talented but so freakin’ what? In the big scheme of things, I’m just fortunate to be alive and in the HERE and now with the gifts god has given me.
Did I digress? Yikes.
In closing, Helen…
My blues, my aches, my fears, my pains, my hardships are part of the human experience. Giving birth was pain that finally gave release from pain for life…death will be agony giving up life from pain.
We are mere mortals.
-But, Angels are with us too.
Always.
Riled professor kills three in Georgia theater rampage
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=17&art_id=81361&sid=23611201&con_type=1
As long as men are measured by the paycheck this will continue to happen during times of economic downturn. A man’s worth is measure by how well he “takes care” of his family. That continues to mean how much money he bring’s home. Men have internalized this so effectively that being unable to provide means that you have failed as a man. Men do not talk about that because we are raised to take punishment and drive on. As long as men cannot communicate effectively about themselves it will be ever thus.
A lot of suicide is contagion, where people pick up the behaviour map from others and follow it for ‘their own ends’.
Media presenting the stories wrongly can create many imitators, they need to add protective factors to this kind of story. Its the same for mass shootings. Protect your loved ones – hold that journalist partly to blame!
My husband is uber depressed. He takes too much on himself over our finances but he also had his day in the selfish ‘sun’. I’m angry at him and forgiving but the harboring anger resides within me.
When times were ‘good’, my husband abandoned his/my daughter and I for his dream of being a ‘rock-star’ and when that grew stale he wanted to be a ‘golf-star’ all the while my daughter and I were lonely, sad and feeling the pain of abandonment I knew all too well.
My husband and I were attracted to each other about music first. I am the singer/songwriter…he the base/lead guitarist.
I wanted to have a child with him and he ‘obliged’ and after 2 months of ‘trying’ I conceived my wonderful daughter.
As my daughter grew up, I continued writing songs…sometimes I’d wake up with songs blaring in my head and I’d have to quickly write them down. Hubby and I decided to record some of our songs in an ‘official’ song recording studio and send our songs ‘out’ to song publishers.
LUCKY?
We were ‘signed’ but there was one glitch…the guy who wanted to sign us wanted me to sing my songs like I sange them on the tapes. Well, my daughter was just 5 years old and I was intent on home-schooling her and the idea of trying to make my own fame and fortune was a no GO. Needless to say…our Do I regret my decision? NOT ONE FREAKING DAY.
I’m just not a “ME ME ME ME ME ME MEEEEEEEEEEE” person, yaknow? Yeah, I’m talented but so freakin’ what? In the big scheme of things, I’m just fortunate to be alive and in the HERE and now with the gifts god has given me.
Did I digress? Yikes.
In closing, Helen…
My blues, my aches, my fears, my pains, my hardships are part of the human experience. Giving birth was pain that finally gave release from pain for life…death will be agony giving up life from pain.
We are mere mortals.
-But, Angels are with us too.
Always.
Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.
“It is not your job to be the therapist of a depressed spouse or friend…”
Dr. Helen, I’m sure you understand there are many people who refuse to entertain the idea of entering therapy. Imagine a spouse that suffers from terrible depressions but is highly skeptical (not without justification) about professionals who claim to know better.
Now imagine that spouse isn’t the provider.
What options does that leave the provider? Right. Bring home the paycheck, provide a sympathetic ear for the depressed spouse, and don’t go looking for pity. That’s called stoicism, right?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
I have learned a valuable lesson along these lines – let me share it with you.
Financially and stability speaking – it is NOT about how much money you have in the bank or elsewhere. Investments can tank and money in a coffee can in the yard can be inflated away. Stability and security comes from abilities and skill sets. Financial security comes from being a producer. True security comes not from the size of your bank account – it comes from your ability to refill your bank account. While you are investing in mutual funds – invest in you too. Keep your skills current. Diversify not only your investments – diversify your income streams too. Get a graduate degree. Start a part time business. Don’t allow yourself to be in a position where any single failure is life destroying. Take charge of your own life and prepare for contingencies before they happen. Choose not to be a victim BEFORE the crisis happens.
Remember – even if unemployment hits 20% – all you have to do is stay in the top 80% of performers. If you choose to be in the top 1/3 you will thrive even in the worst of times.
Dr. Helen, you seem a little surprised that men are human too. I suppose the femi-dominant culture took root in you too…
Men are disproportionately more likely to lose their jobs in a downturn because they disproportionately hold blue-collar and trades jobs. Construction, service-industry jobs like groundskeeping, and manual labor jobs. In short, men tend to hold the kinds of jobs that are the first to go down during a recession.
Women also tend to have “softer landings” during hard times because there are all kinds of social programs and support groups for them. Men are not so lucky; a man who is unemployed for a long period of time is usually ridiculed as a slacker or a couch-potato. Men are under *enormous* pressure to work and provide for their families, and when they lose their job it can be a soul-shattering experience.
Often, men *define* themselves by what they do for a living. “What do you do?” someone might ask. “I’m a mechanic!” the man might reply. Not “I fix cars” but “I am a mechanic”. And when that self-defining job is lost…there’s often nothing else to replace it. Women don’t really understand this all that well. “Just get another job,” they say (as if it were just that easy). Isn’t working the drive-tru window at Burger King acceptable to being out of work? They don’t consider the brutal humiliation a man feels at this comedown: years of striving and effort, struggling to move up; and then only the prospect of being given orders by some kid barely out of high school, and at a wage that will barely cover the cost of the gas for driving to work.
In this technological society I think men often feel superfluous. Men like to grapple, to contend, to achieve. We live in a society that sometimes demonizes this aspect of men. When a man fails in work, he fails doubly: he fails his family, but he also fails himself. A man has to be able to get up every morning and look squarely at that person in the mirror. Am I doing right by my family? Am I the kind of man I want to be?
When you stop being able to look at that guy in the mirror, when those questions bring only pain, then it gets hard to face an endless line of such days. The wife may not know because most men don’t (or can’t) verbalize this kind of thing. And even when the wife or girlfriend does know, I don’t think they really understand how devastating it is.
In Jesus time, someone also committed suicide. The one who betrayed Him for a couple of silver. Sorry, Dr. Helen, I have no personal therapeutic insight on today’s ‘Suicide, Men and Money’. In my own small circle of family and friends, I pray fervently to God and saints in heaven, for their peace of mind, wisdom and well-being. God Bless you in your work.
GDT: wise words!
There isn’t more welfare support for women. There is for families with children! Big difference. I am a child-free woman and there was nothing for me when I went through 14 months of unemployment and underemployment and lost everything and endured the shame of working chump jobs for cash flow and didn’t even have a place to call my own. It took me YEARS to get over that even when my situation turned around, and I still harbor lots of fear because of it.
If I had babies in or outside of wedlock I would have been showered with Section 8 housing, food stamps, Medicaid, etc. etc.
Having children makes a woman more economically vulnerable, but so does not having them. Trufax.
@Richard Cook:
“As long as men are measured by the paycheck this will continue to happen during times of economic downturn.”
And who is holding the yardstick???
Women.
Oh good grief! I double posted on here? Helen Smith, feel free to delete one of my duplicate posts. ARGH!
I agree that men can take a lot of heat and the ‘male ego’ is often wrapped up in being a ‘provider’ but men can also be selfish jerks too. I’ve been married for 22 years and my husband has come a long way from where we used to be. He used to be impatient, intolerant, abusive, selfish, controlling etc. and now he’s humble, sweet, kind, selfless, giving and repentant.
The only time my husband was actually suicidal was not over money but over the thought of losing ME.
Money means squat if you don’t have LOVE and COMPASSION and EMPATHY.
Sometimes I have to tell my husband every so often, “If you were on your death bed, would you wish you had spent more time working or more time with your family and loved ones?”
Bruce, I can’t think of anyone in the media today to whom your criticism applies less.
Two things I’ll mention, as someone who has been dealing with depression since I was about 13.
First one is that drugs can help. Really. But a person who is on antidepressants and dealing with their first acute episode may also be, transiently, at a higher risk of suicide; your energy and focus may come back before the pain and despair goes away. Therapy along with antidepressants is always a good idea.
Second: there is a high incidence of “occult depression”, ie, unrecognized depression, in men. For various reasons, men may not recognize depression in themselves. Not least among these reasons is that they may think those feelings of worthlessness are valid.
When someone kills themself over money, it’s not about the money.
A guy I know killed himself when his business failed. His widow went to the islands the next day. He had problems other than financial ones.
Bruce:
“Dr. Helen, you seem a little surprised that men are human too. I suppose the femi-dominant culture took root in you too…”
No, I am not surprised at all. I have always thought men were human. My work and columns are about helping society to realize that. Men commit suicide more readily than women and often have different ways of displaying their depression, something many people do not understand. Not sure what about this column left you feeling that I am surprised men are human but then, I may have missed something?
I think its largely inherent in a man’s makeup that he is to be a protecter and provider. Societal mores have reinforced that. So, when a man is no longer able to provide he is less likely to be able to protect, at least in his mind. That’s a tough place for a man to be.
Last fall I had to sit down with my two college age daughters and explain to them the new facts of life (they had never experienced financial stress). My company crashed, my deals went south, and my ex had tearfully requested to a sympathetic judge that she get lots more money from me – the moron agreed. All this happened in six weeks and I went from a well-off guy who could provide and protect, to a frightened guy with an uncertain future. It was very difficult and humiliating to some extent to lay this out for my girls, but they needed to know. Of course, their tears then anger (they used mother-learned words) broke my heart.
I didn’t consider suicide although now and then the thoughts of not being on this planet crossed my mind. I didn’t consider therapy because my experience in the past wasn’t very productive. I turned to God, then dusted myself off, stopped the negative thoughts and self-pity, and got back on the street looking for work.
I am back in the game and covering my cash flow needs and paying down some debt. My girls are still angry for scaring them. My ex-wife is, well, a typical ex-wife hunting for more dollars (she uses my girls to learn the status of my business – so now, I can’t share much success with my daughters, so they stay scared and angry).
Its really a matter of perseverence. I commend a book to all those folks suffering through this tough time – it helped me “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale – it is practical, God=based, and it works.
Final thoughts – to wives, give hubby some love and support, to ex-wives – take a hike, to Delia – good grief!
Lets first identify the problem.
A culture whose primary motivation for almost everyone is materialism which takes money.
A lot of this is driven by a culture where the more financially successful a woman is the more successful her male partner must be. This is do the fact that women on the whole still expect their male partners to make more money than they do.
It is basically not acceptable in America for a woman to make more money than her male partner. Now of course there are exceptions but far and away the pressure is on the man to bring home more of the bacon.
So when he doesn’t it becomes extemely stressful for him especially if his female partner is not sensitive to what he is growing through without trying to mother him.
The way to solve this problem is for women to start taking sensitivity classes and being more in tune with how their male partners are feeling as a result of being unemployed and to a great extent feeling hopeless about future employment opportunities
Purely anecdotal – been there, done that. And a prime example of why it always pays to be polite.
The pressure described is real, and the weight can become absolutely intolerable, to the point that absolute nothingness becomes a very, very tantalizing and desired respite. Those feelings of shame, guilt, shortcoming – if they take root, they very rapidly become self-reinforcing, and can also become, in ways, self fulfilling.
Well, real enough in my case to extensively research an available PDR, compose a heavily tranquilizing cocktail using the various prescription and over the counter meds in the house, composed a farewell note, downed the concoction, then wandered out to a wooded area away from the house, to lay down and open the veins on my ankles with a box cutter.
So why the first person account of the plan, instead of a sketchy second hand reconstruction?
Because it always pays to be polite.
On the way out the door, it occurred to me that it would be extremely rude to leave without a quick note goodbye to someone who wouldn’t see the note I’d just left. So, I took advantage of the running laptop that happened to be right there, and woozily pecked out a couple of mis-spelled and almost non-sensical sentences, and actually emailed them. . .somewhere? At any rate, when the time came to use the utility knife, I was so incoherent, that apparently I didn’t extend the blade.
Woke up about 17 hours later, covered with bug bites, stiffer and sorer than I’ve EVER been in my life. The only thing I can recall is that it was the blackest, stillest, emptiness I’ve ever experienced – and it was comforting. Peaceful. Not to be desired – but not to be feared, either.
And finally, earned the hard way, I understood what Ray meant when he said (rough language due to direct quotation) – Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh – it’s ONLY f*cking money
Life’s been a lot more pleasant since then. Not necessarily any ‘easier’ – the same daily grind and concerns abound – just with a re-aligned perspective.
At a post at Dr Helen’s blog, I quoted something General William Slim wrote, and believe it’s appropriate here. Slim is describing his emotions in the wake of a military defeat for which he was responsible, but his words may be helpful to people in other fields who are dealing with a bad career setback.
“The only test of generalship is success, and I had succeeded in nothing that I had attempted…Defeat is bitter. Bitter to the common soldier, but trebly bitter to his general. The soldier may comfort himself with the thought that, whatever the result, he has done his duty faithfully and steadfastly, but the commander has failed in his duty if he has not won victory–for that is his duty. He has no other comparable to it. He will go over in his mind the events of the campaign. ‘Here,’ he will think, ‘I went wrong; here I took counsel of my fears when I should have been bold; there I should have waited to gather strength, not struck piecemeal; at such a moment I failed to grasp opportunity when it was presented to me.’ He will remember the soldiers whom he sent into the attack that failed and who did not come back. he will recall the look in the eyes of men who trusted him. ‘I have failed them,’ he will say to himself, ‘and failed my country!’ He will see himself for what he is–a defeated general. In a dark hour he will turn on himself and question the very foundations of his leadership and his manhood.
And then he must stop! For, if he is ever to command in battle again, he must shake off these regrets and stamp on them, as they claw at his will and his self-confidence. He must beat off these atacks he delivers against himself, and cast out the doubts born of failure. Forget them, and remember only the lessons to be learnt from defeat–they are more than from victory.”
18. gordo,
LOL! “Good grief” indeed. Oxymoronic ain’t it? Nuttin’ good about ‘grief.
Your story was heartening…I’m glad for you! Sorry about the ragged ‘ex’.
I’m glad I stayed with my husband long enough to love him more than I thought I could love anyone. I’m still a bit angry at him from time to time but wounds heal. He’s a good man and GOD gave him to me and I to him. We are frick-n-frack. We are the “Bickersons” personified and we love to rouse each other with verbal hot-pokers, but luckily we both have a wicked good sense of humor.
I’m honest about my life. What can I say? I’m an open book and then some.
I’m certainly not ashamed or shy about my truths. The more people share of themselves the more we find human connections. 
To John Galt re:#19
Regarding women making more money than men. Right now, I’m fine with that – send them my way
David, that is an amazing quote. Thank you for sharing it.
I think another facet of this problem is that (as mentioned above), many men are not aware of our own feelings.
As a teenager, I often found myself with mild tics (teeth grinding, etc.) when under stress, such as with a large project nearly due at school and nothing really ready to turn in. I never felt nervous — I just showed the symptoms to an outside observer. As a result, I often had to be made aware by my mother, bless her heart, how I was feeling!
Now that I’m in my 30s, I’m much more self-aware, but unless the emotion is strong and immediate (joy, anger, lust, etc.) I really don’t get any direct information from my body or mind. I have to look at how I’m acting, measure how I’m feeling, and come to my own conclusions.
It’s a bit like a general getting updates on the progress of a war from cable news — the information is incomplete, delayed, and sometimes wrong, but it’s still better than nothing.
One other thought. As I described in my earlier post (18) I went through a very rough period and I went through a depression. Depressions are no joke and they are awful. A wife will see her man withdraw, look haggard, become short-tempered, maybe take more alcohol, and he will be much less loving. I hope that a loving wife will be understanding and stand by him. But she should not hector him, but quietly suggest some options (medication, counseling, walks, job counseling). Sometimes just holding his hand or hugging him without saying a word is the best medicine of all.
I also was recently working in a large telecomm corporation as a contractor. The marketing department had three white men out of about 40 people in the office where I worked. Most of the rest were women, and a large part of those were minority women.
One old hand told me a few years back, it had been a corporate decision to skew the hiring heavily that direction, to keep a “diverse workforce” in place to keep the “issues” away from the doorstep. He was one of the minority males and a pretty level headed guy, but as our contract ended, it was looking like he’d soon be a casualty.
My sense, based on no scientific data, but casual observation, is the males go sooner in cut backs where a mixed gender workforce is in place, too, which isn’t helping. Keeps the lawyers from calling with law suits…which goes to an entirely different conversation regarding that profession in our culture…and it is linked in.
John Galt has some interesting points. I’m wondering how many women see their men as just a paycheck (or a sperm bank). I know quite a few women who act that way, including my own mother when she was alive. I take great pride in working full-time and contributing to the family finances (in fact, I’ve made more money than my husband for just about every year we’ve been married). I can understand women who want to stay home for a few years when children are very young, but I don’t know how women can stand to be dependent upon a guy for absolutely everything year after year. I know it’s not fashionable to say that on a conservative Website.
I lived in NYC for nine years when I was single, and I can remember the ridiculous expectations that my female friends put on men. They wouldn’t even consider a date with a guy unless he made a certain income and could provide certain material conveniences, not to mention the fact the guy had to look like a movie star. The whole culture was really disguting. I’m sorry, but I want a meaningful relationship of equality, and that means both partners taking responsibility for finances. My husband says that men are hard-wired to see finances/providing as their main responsibility, but I think women should help things along by encouraging the family to talk honestly about spending, saving, potential problems, etc.
It’s too bad that modern feminism has established men as the enemy, instead of as equal human beings. The backlash in response to 70s and 80s feminism is young women who don’t have a lot of ambition and who want to be the traditional wives and mothers of 50s television shows. Some blame can be placed on this scenario too.
Just some ramblings . . .
I wonder how much of men testing ourselves in comparisons with other men is culture and how much is hard wired into us. My hunch is that it is a part of us and would be there even without the significant cultural support it gets.
Perhaps it all comes down to perspective, can we believe that we can fix things or overcome them or make things better? If we do, then suicide is not even a question. Complicating this is how depression messes with our ability to think and process. We become measurably more pessimistic when we are depressed.
For me it is a difficult topic, but keeping some optimism seems to be a lifeline.
Trey
I think depression in men goes largely unnoticed because men do not like to appear to be weak, even to the women & friends they trust. If, as a man, you find yourself feeling an overwhelming feeling of weakness, then the man you see in the bathroom mirror is a man drowning alone, because we see asking for help as admission of weakness.
We’re competitive & prideful. When we feel like we can’t compete, we lose that pride and when the self-ptying starts – and it will when you feel alone with your fear because you isolate your feelings within yourself – it opens the door for a host of negative behaviors, including drug & alcohol abuse, porn addiction, family neglect, and so on.
Men will find ways to to attempt to gratify themselves first to the extent of putting almost everything else second. It’s not necessarily a selfish act of “me first”; sometimes it’s a way to cope, but it is destructive nonetheless.
To parents out there, the way to nurture a boy into becoming a man is to counter all the negativity that surround males in this society: not every man is a chauvanist pig that started as a chauvanist piglet. Boys should be taught that despite the obvious differences between themselves & girls, the respect that boys ought to show girls should also be applied to themselves. If a boys sees value in himself early on, he will recognize it in others.
White middle aged males commit suicide the most ?
Gee, I wonder why ? Is it that they have lost their job/promotion to someone who is less qualified but has the correct gender/skin color? That they have few if any resources available to them ? That as a White Male, they are automatically the lowest on the Totem pole for help? When was the last time (if ever) you saw a blog or section for White males? Ever ? Bueller? Bueller?
Psychology studies have shown that 50% of women would marry a man for reasons other than love- usually money. But those same studies also show that 95% of men would NOT marry for any other reason than love. Therefore the pressure is on them to “be a man” and support their family and feel as if they are a failure if they cannot. Wives who work usually spend their income on nonvital items, like luxuries, vacations, etc… The man’s salary is spent on necessities- food, housing, etc… So it hits the man much harder to lose a job.
27. mariecurie,
My husband and I are business partners in the ‘truest’ sense of the word. My husband is clueless with computers and still struggles with proper English (Chicago public school system victim). My daughter now helps with our business too and she blows my husband’s mind with her grasp of writing and comprehension as well as math skills.
I’m a multi-task master…I cook, clean, manage our websites, emails, write letters for us etc.
-Nuttin’ wrong with a woman working and HELPING manage a family! I think that’s what truly makes a family great.
25. gordo,
Good advice.
After my husband broke two of my ribs I decided the ‘nicey nice’ approach was useless. Once I got tough right back, the man emerged from his coccoon and woke-up. He’ll never lay a hand on me again. EVER (unless he wants to die).
Quite a few years ago my marriage, business and life were circling the drain. My marriage and business didn’t survive, but here I am. I don’t remember being suicidal, but depressed and fearful, you bet. I kept treading water until I finally turned to God, joined a church and got on track.
Suicide is the ultimate selfish act, and as I understand it is usually aimed at punishing someone. It’s understandable how someone who fails to avail himself of God’s strength and comfort could kill himself, but my sympathy is with the guy’s kids. What kind of person would abandon his kids? “Let go and let God” turned out to be sound advice for me. I believe depression is often a matter of self-centeredness and faulty perspective. Our lives are a gift from God, and abound with promise. If we look outward rather than inward we are more likely to fulfill that promise.
Who is the “we” that Dr. Helen refers to? If a middle-aged, married man is deeply depressed and potentially suicidal, I think his wife is the person who notices it first–and the person best positioned to do something about it.
Years ago, in my role as a church deacon, I was involved in ministering to a large family after a murder-suicide (the father killed the mother with a shotgun, then blew his own head off). I have been involved in other cases of what we might term “professional depression” that weren’t nearly as dramatic.
The standard newspaper coverage always includes comments from neighbors expressing shock that such a horrible thing could happen. Note that you never hear a comment from the close family saying that–after the shooting stops you have to minister to THEIR guilt and depression about not seeing “the signs” (what signs?) and doing something to prevent it.
When a successful man is suddenly rendered powerless, a wise woman a) recognizes that; and b) acts to help her husband still play the role of the provider.
How? Simple things. One of the easiest is how you walk together. Be old-fashioned–move to the inside of the sidewalk (so carriages driving by don’t splash manure on your gown) when you walk down the street, and pause for a half-second to give him time to remember to hold the door for you. Learn–even if you have to find an older woman to mentor you–the womanly art of negotiating a set of double doors so that he gracefully manages to hold both doors for you. Let him drive–even if you’re the one making the car payment.
All of these things make a world of difference–but only if you make it appear effortless. Any hint of condescension, any glimmer that you are “matronizing”–and the whole thing blows up on you. But hey–this is how you persuaded Bubba to ask you out on a date back in high school in the first place, right?
Just about two years ago I saw an elderly woman do this beautifully. She and her husband were easily into their 80s, perhaps even older, and they were coming from an ophthamologist’s office. She was guiding him, slowly, by the elbow. Despite the fact that she was guiding him, she managed the situation so that he held the door for her as they left the building. I offered to help, wondering how she’d get him in the car–”no, no…we’ll manage, thank you,” she said. And slowly walked her husband to the car, where she had him hold the driver’s side door for her before he got in. The message was clear: you may be a bit too old, and a bit too slow, for some–but you’re still a provider for me.
Which is a pretty good example of sacrificial love, in my book.
(That said, I’m sure that this post will be entered into evidence against me when our new leaders in Washington get around to local Thought Tribunals and I am denounced for revanchist chauvinism.)
To MarieCurie #27
You make some good points regarding the down-side of modern day feminism. I am part of the divorced, white professional ranks in the 40s-50s and I can tell you that there are many men in this group very reluctant to re-marry a white, feminist trained queen again. Men my age are looking for women that like and respect men for being men. An interesting trend is emerging; that is more and more guys in this group are dating interracialy because the general view is that non-white professional women, for whatever reason did not buy into this men are bad thing. Over the last several years I have dated black, asian, and middle eastern professional women, and currently have a serious relationship with a black woman. She is smart and no pushover, she isn’t in it for the money (my business crashed when the market did), and she treats me with respect that I don’t find, generally, from white professional queens. I know I am generalizing here, but the interracial thing works for me and a number of my white collegues.
As mentioned by many above, men are largely valued (and self-valued) as providors and protectors. Statistics show a correlation between suicide and unemployment. While that does not necesarily indicate cause & effect, I suspect to a large degree it is so.
I wonder what proportion of the unemployed male suicides are age 45-55? Young enough to still have responsibilities to provide for but pretty much too old to find another job (other than if they can create their own)? It can be an entirely rational thought for such to consider suicide – if they have appropriate life insurance they have greater Net Present Value dead than alive.
Another interesting stat – middle aged white men who decide to commit suicide actually get the job done. Check stats on various groups that ‘attempt’ suicide but survive (take pills, call 911, pass out) and note who says ‘AMF’ and leaves us. Competence can be a curse.
It’s not the job loss, It’s not the financial strains, its the HUMILIATION, the cracking of the false construct of their gloriousness and success the high-profile failures suicide over.
gordo… Fortunately the “white, feminist trained queen” you speak of are a minority in the US. Maybe not in your part of the world, but in mine, they are but a tiny portion of the whole. I’d say before you categorize white women like that you ought to look around. Might I offer up Michelle Obama as an example of a black, feminist trained queen? There are far more compelling examples, but I’d hate for you to be accused of being not only a sexist pig, but a racist one too. Just a thought.
How many of those men suffered from chronic pain? This is a dark side of the stoicism men have. They suffer physically for a long, long time and job loss is less about money and mostly about seeing that your family can survive without your paycheck, so there is no need to continue suffering the pain – especially when treatments options either don’t work or aren’t availabe or are socially unacceptable.
Even 38 is too old to switch careers…I’m in a profession where the jobs are dying out. (Classical Music) It’s a lot easier to keep on living, though, if you have people to live for.
If you’re just living for yourself, it can get mighty hard to see the point some mornings at 4 a.m.
He used to be impatient, intolerant, abusive, selfish, controlling etc. and now he’s humble, sweet, kind, selfless, giving and repentant.
Delia, oh Delia,
Your husband has grown as a person over the years. Can you say the same? Are there any less than admirable qualities you used to have that you no longer have.
Women feel that it is a man’s obligation to change his behavior to suit her, but few women are willing to recognize that their own behavior needs changing.
33 & 34 – gordo and John make some excellent points – my situation was fueled in part by a partner with an unannounced, undiscussed, and not necessarily rosy agenda, of which it seems I was only a part as a means to whatever ends she had in mind. Yes, I’m saying that the woman was literally prostituting herself to get what she wanted – the emotional aspect probably was never actually much deeper than that I happened to be a guy who pissed her off less than men in general, at least once in a while, and I provided access to resources she wanted. Basically, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Lacking someone to spot the subtle signs (and the signs of a middle aged male entering this condition are usually very, very subtle, as he struggles to ‘keep up appearances’, or ‘avoid disappointing anyone’), it’s a condition easy enough to find oneself in. And from experience, it’s fairly apparent that it’s easy enough for someone with nefarious purpose to grease the skids to personal hell if they notice what’s going on.
Have to agree that the assessment that the exit option is both supremely selfish, and meant to punish – little bit of ‘screw this I’m taking my ball and going home’ and ‘let’s see how they like THIS!’ is a part of the brew stew of mental mush that someone at the point of suicide is likely feeling.
and 36 Glenmore – why 45-55? Think about it – for the ‘average’ American Dream career arc, that’s just about the point that it becomes apparent if the carefully laid plans for retirement and ‘the golden years’ is on track or is in the process of crashing and burning, or simply doesn’t exist, and the realizations of mortality combine with a ‘ticking clock’ – and quite often, thought gaming rocky scenarios out very often visualizes nothing but failure. It’s the point where someone has enough of a life experience to look back on, and decide if it has been a success, or a failure. Some people turn to God – several here have mentioned it – some merely shrug, and resolve to themselves to press on, try again, and make do with whatever outcome – and some begin to feel so cornered and out of options, in combination with a profound and overwhelming sense of personal failure, that is capable of snowballing into a self fulfilling prophecy.
Men seem to have fewer options, especially when they reach middle age, especially depending on their financial situation. Men unhappy in marriage can rarely leave without ruining their lives- sometimes said ruin is temporary and sometimes it is permanent. If you don’t have a loving partner with whom you can share the trials and tribulations of life in general, you are even less likely to understand you have options.
Gordo makes some good points- I know ALOT of men in the exact same situation – feminism has ruined many couples. I’ve noticed more and more importance woman I know who are dating place on how much money the guy makes or what kind of car he drives or even his looks. I almost never hear descriptions of the man’s character. Men have been demonized, especially white men, and this has put a much greater risk when trying to find the right partner and considering getting married. Without a loving supportive spouse, my humble opinion is suicide becomes more and more of an option.
“Women feel that it is a man’s obligation to change his behavior to suit her, but few women are willing to recognize that their own behavior needs changing.”
Ugh… My husband lost his job two years ago and is doing little to find a new one. In fact, he’s told friends that he’s enjoying being retired. Retired? He’s 51! He used his severance pay to take a trip to Europe. Now he spends the day online or in the library doing genealogy research. Yes, he cleans the house and cooks, but I have to do the rest. He says that he feels so much more relaxed and at peace with himself now that he doesn’t have to deal with job stress or have to be nice to people he can’t stand or do repetitive boring work.
Meanwhile, I have to be the one who financially supports the household. I have to be stressed out by work. I have to deal with people who I’d rather avoid. I have to worry about paying the bills on one income. I have to worry that I will get laid-off from my job. Oh, and did I mention that when I went back to school to get my degree, my husband insisted that I still work full-time?
“feminism has ruined many couples”
Just as many as have been ruined by lazy, irresponsible men.
32 Delia . . . Please heed this advice: If he hit you once, he’ll hit you again. My sister runs a battered women’s clinic offering medical/counseling services to women at risk, and that is their mantra. IF a man breaks two of your ribs, you are a woman at risk. I can have my sister call you if you like.
To Athinking person #39
You can accuse me of whatever you want – doesn’t matter to me. I stated that my points were general. Another way to put it is that men in my group make decisions based on perceived risk. I live in a major east coast metro area filled with divorced and never married white professional women who are quite aggressive now in looking for a new or first mate. My anecdotal-based view is that this group of women is viewed with great suspicion by many professional men who have been beat up in court over money and kids and demonized generally. In other words, why take the risk again with this group of women. May not be fair, but the perception of risk does guide behavior. I view ethnic women with different cultural values as a lower risk category, and so far its working ok. I don’t mind white women, I’m just hesitant to invest, again, in one (fool me once, etc etc)
Gordo makes an interesting point. I think that women of some ethnic/cultural backgrounds (let’s say non-WASP) have different attitudes about marriage. They don’t see a conflict between being a strong-minded, independent woman but also respecting and honoring a husband. Some are perhaps less likely to walk out on a marriage the minute things get rough (this may have to do with religious and cultural norms). Okay, this is a stereotype, but it does define some of the Hispanic and Asian women that I know. Also, many immigrants know what it takes to achieve the American dream, and both partners of a couple will work very hard to improve life for their family.
I do consider myself to be a feminist. But here is my perspective: Talking trash about men is not feminism. Thinking that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicylce” (aka Steinem) is not feminism. Abandoning responsibilities to self and community just to fulfill a career ambition is not feminism. Taking men for a ride during divorce proceedings is not feminism. Treating a guy like a paycheck is not feminism. Advocating abortion and some ambiguous idea of “choice” is not feminism. Feminism, in the true sense of the word (going way back before the 1960s) is about providing equal opportunities for women–for personal development and contribution to the community; providing equal protections under the law (i.e. a woman should be able to buy a house and car–my mother couldn’t in the early 70s); allowing women equal pay for the same jobs done by men.
Unfortunately, however, feminism has indeed turned into the things that I list above. I actually think the entire feminist argument is irrelevant in 21st century America. Women can now basically do what they want, and at times, I admit, they have been privileged unfairly (for jobs, in the courts, etc.) I think modern-day feminism creates animosity between the sexes and has become defined too much by the pro-choice agenda. This is why I like Sarah Palin and the “Feminists for Life” group. That is what feminism *should* be about.
But what I don’t get about this article: I pretty much know when my husband is feeling down about something. If he doesn’t want to tell me what’s going on, I eventually get it out of him. Usually it is a problem that we can solve together. How could these women not know that their husbands were absolutely devastated about something?
I remember when I was in third grade and my dad was fired from his job. Against my mother’s wishes, he started his own company (which he still runs today). She made life hell for him, because she didn’t think he was providing her with the financial security and material goods that she wanted. (She never worked a day in her life, by the way. Even after the kids were safely esconsed in school during the day). She threatened to divorce him and sue him for every last penny if he couldn’t pony up money for private school, piano lessons, etc. (Yes, people, this was my childhood. Fun, huh?).
Makes me wonder if the real issue underlying this article is the modern marriage and the expectations laid on a man within that institution.
If you are their friend, or family member, you can call every day. You can offer food, and fuel also.
Little things go a long way.
gordo… I find it a HUGE disservice to women the world over to classify women according to their ethnicity. Are you seeking out Asian women because of their supposed cultural bent towards submissiveness? Are you seeking out Hispanic women because of their assumed cultural bent towards religion/large family size? See how pigeonholing women can back you into corners? I’m thinking that you need to seek companionship outside of whatever boundaries you’re currently working within.I’m thinking it’s less of the enthnicity of the women you’re encountering than the caliber of women. Have you ever taken into consideration that the working women you’re in contact with are behaving the way they do because they too, have been burned by men? Maybe they are behaving in an aggressive way towards you because that’s the vibe you’re sending out towards them??? Just a thought. After reading yours and others postings on this topic, I’m truly saddened by the plight of the modern American woman. It’s a no win situation. If she wants a career she’s aggressive and demanding. If she wants to be a nurturer and stay home with the children she’s a blood/life sucking vampire that is not being supportive and is a drain on her man. Modern men cannot have it both ways no matter how much they’d like to believe they can.
mariecurie… So was the intent of your post to basically throw all stay at home moms under the bus to garner the male posters’ favor on this thread? It’s “feminists” like you that make the modern woman look tragic if she dares choose to stay home and raise her kids. I feel for your childhood and that you viewed your mother in such a bad light but as one who was raised by a stay-at-home mom, I would choose the same for my own children if at all possible. Has it ever occured to you that some males might find the idea of a woman who dares to put a high priority on children/husband/family as an appealing albeit 1950′s choice? Not all men find a career woman as the height of sexiness no matter what NOW has been telling us/them/you.
I find it worrisome that free choice for the modern woman has been taken away and diminished.
45. Anneke:
…In fact, he’s told friends that he’s enjoying being retired. Retired? He’s 51! He used his severance pay to take a trip to Europe. Now he spends the day online or in the library doing genealogy research. Yes, he cleans the house and cooks, but I have to do the rest. He says that he feels so much more relaxed and at peace with himself now that he doesn’t have to deal with job stress or have to be nice to people he can’t stand or do repetitive boring work.
Meanwhile, I have to be the one who financially supports the household. I have to be stressed out by work. I have to deal with people who I’d rather avoid. I have to worry about paying the bills on one income. I have to worry that I will get laid-off from my job. Oh, and did I mention that when I went back to school to get my degree, my husband insisted that I still work full-time?
…
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Hmmm…
That –TO THE LETTER– sounds like what wimmins expect of men.
Sounds like he treats you like you’re the man…
How horrible!
46. not so fast:
32 Delia . . . Please heed this advice: If he hit you once, he’ll hit you again. My sister runs a battered women’s clinic offering medical/counseling services to women at risk, and that is their mantra. IF a man breaks two of your ribs, you are a woman at risk. I can have my sister call you if you like.
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Mind your own business. She knows how to use a phone.
Now you’ll say that “when a wimmins is hurt it is my business.”
Um no it’s not, actually. You’re obnoxious and power hungry. (And a hypocrite too, I’d wager 10 to 1.)
And when you expect the state to be your own bully box you’re a tyrant.
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You dumb white males have allowed yourselves to be hijacked by these conspiratorial busy bodies. They were savvy enough to use your own chivalrous instincts againt you.
And now you are the suckers enduring the hot potatoes of state-ist oppression.
I currently work in a job I loathe, in a career I hate. The problem is that I’m very, very good at it and pretty much suck at everything else. Now there are a few other things I’m pretty good at, but they barely pay enough to support one person, if that, and certainly not a family.
Tim Allen observed that while women have lots of options, men can either get a job or go to jail. I continually amazed at how few women understand and respect this. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad women have all these choices, but I do that as a group, they need to be a bit less hypocritical.
50. AThinkingPerson:
After reading yours and others postings on this topic, I’m truly saddened by the plight of the modern American woman.
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Well if that’s the way you feel, there’s always suicide…
I’m probably considered suicidal.
I’ve considered it many times over the last few years. I’ve considered it almost daily over the last 2 months.
Bear with me, I’m going to try to explain it.
Maybe I’m unique, maybe I’m typical. I have no idea.
I’ve always tried to fulfill expectations others have for me. Perhaps I lack proper boundaries.
But because others expectations for me form my standards, I’ve never really lived my own life. I married the women that pursued me, agreed to divorce when they grew bored of me.
They grew bored of me for many reasons. Partly because I’m easy to push around. Partly because I’m somewhat passive toward life. Partly because I’m a little scatterbrained. All these things make women feel like I cannot protect them, even though I’m a good provider.
My current wife is the only one I have actually loved.
She is from a foreign country, and believes in what most people would consider 50s stereotypes:
She flies off the handle, and expects me to not overreact or be hurt. She expects me to take care of everything, to be in charge. She expects me to shrug off insults, difficulties, setbacks, and never have the need to complain or vent.
We had many misunderstandings at first before I understood her.
Some of those misunderstandings resulted in me doing what she said instead of what she really wanted.
One situation was she constantly vented resentment towards my ex-wife’s meddling and towards the existence of my kids from that previous marriage. She had her reasons. But when I tried to fulfill her demands (which were just ventings, but I didn’t understand that at the time), we ended up losing my kids in a lawsuit (my mistakes just opened the door for the custody lawsuit, I lost them due to maternal bias in the courts). That has only allowed my ex-wife to torment us even more.
We are having difficulty having children of our own.
I recently realized many mistakes I’ve made in my career (for many of the same reasons I’ve had problems in life and marriage) may mean I won’t get promoted. I most likely will, but there is a chance I won’t. If I get promoted to the next level, I can retire at a bare minimum of my wife’s demands for comfort. Even if I get promoted, it is 90% likely to be my last promotion.
My wife loves me…but she also hates me.
She hates me because we don’t have children, and because I failed to protect the family from my ex-, and can do nothing to stop my ex- from tormenting us now, and because we don’t have the money/comfort a 41-year-old man should have (in part because much of my money went to my ex- and now goes for child support: fully 1/5th of my take-home pay).
She vents about once every 2 weeks.
I feel like a failure. I cannot seem to resist her opinion. I have no space to vent my frustrations, fears, anger. I know when she is just venting, but sometimes it still hurts.
I had considered suicide in the past, but always told myself that if I hung on, it had to get better. I’ve been telling myself that for 12 years now. Sometimes I wonder why I bothered to hold on. Life isn’t better than 12 years ago, it is far, far worse. I see little hope of it getting better, because the deck is stacked against me in the courts with my ex-wife. My current wife’s temper will not improve.
I know that many of my problems come genetically from my mom. I can see that she is just as scatterbrained, just as clueless about life, just as sensitive and emotional. But being a woman, she found a steady man who indulges her weaknesses. My resentment is increased because being a man, there is no woman who will indulge my weaknesses and let me just take care of the parts of life I am good at. In fact, my wife expects me to indulge her weaknesses and deal with life, even though I am far less suited to it than her.
I feel doomed to failure. I have tried extremely hard to improve myself over the last 3 years, and have succeeded somewhat…but I’m still forgetful, scatterbrained, and it is probably too late for me to resurrect my career.
At this point, I think all it will take is one more failure before I give up. If I don’t get promoted, I will kill myself. If this attempt at inseminated pregnancy fails, I will kill myself. I’ve given up on anything more than fleeting happiness and ever being satisfied with myself long ago. But I can live for fulfilling my responsibilities and making my wife happy. But if I can’t do that, why should I even be here?
The only reason I haven’t killed myself yet, and the only thing that would make me hesitate even in the face of one of the failures above is that I think it would really hurt my wife. Right or wrong, I will not hurt her if I can avoid it. Unless my continued living brings her more pain than if I just died? I haven’t answered that for myself yet.
But no one should criticize my wife in this, nor tell me to leave her to “find myself” or anything like that.
I can point to the things she has done that have hurt me or affected me, but I also know that if I were half the man I should be, if I actually met the minimum of what the entire damn world expects a man to be, she would be satisfied, happy, and secure.
But I’m not.
I should have been an artist. I should have been a rock star (I have the talent, but derailed the attempt out of a sense of responsibility…long story), something where I made enough money to hire the people to take care of the daily grind of life. I’m too emotional, too sensitive, too scatterbrained.
That is what I think is behind all the white male suicides:
White males are blamed for almost everything. They are told “do this and you will be successful”, and when they sacrifice and work and endure pain to succeed, they are told it is only because they are a white male, who will be successful just by waking up and going to work, unlike all those women and/or minorities who have to actually work for what they get. Then when they succeed, they are vilified for being greedy white males who are ruining the world by greed and corruption and laziness. They are assumed to be racist, sexist, insensitive to women’s needs, afraid of commitment, lazy, immature, etc. No matter what they achieve, they are expected to achieve more. Everything that goes wrong in their woman’s life is their fault. Everything that goes wrong in any woman’s or any minority’s life is their fault.
Some measure up, sure. Some don’t face those levels of pressure. These are the ones who don’t commit suicide. But some feel like frauds, wondering when they just won’t be good enough, and all the shit that has been said about them by feminists and news media and ex-girlfriends, etc, will now be proven true…or at least believed to be true.
They have children, and their wives satisfaction in the marriage (meaning: love for their husband) plunges and never regains pre-children levels. But if they refuse to have children, they are vilified, or their woman may leave them for another man, or their woman may lie/cheat/deceive/cheat to get the child that will pretty much ruin the love in the relationship.
And when they finally retire and can be at home, their wife resents the disruption of her routine, wishes he’d never have retired, and can’t wait for him to drop dead so she can enjoy life again, spending the money he saved from decades of work.
Yeah, that’s cynical. But do some research, and those sort of wifely attitudes are not all that uncommon.
Is it any wonder that at some point, the men wonder: is it worth it?
The good news (for me, for now), is that I had a good talk with my wife last night. I cannot let her know the depth of my despair, because then I would not be doing a good job as her protector. But I know that doing a good job as her protector absolutely means that I cannot seek any help.
Oh, yeah: if I actually go seek help for my depression and despair, I will guarantee I won’t get promoted, because someone so emotional as to consider suicide isn’t reliable enough to trust with increased rank and responsibility. Ditto if I attempt suicide and fail.
Maybe my scatterbrainedness is unique. I don’t think the rest of it is.
I am saying this in jest (mostly):
Hey Anneke-
So, how’s it feel? Remember that song, ‘Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better”? It almost seemed like the unofficial anthem of women in the 70′s. They wanted the chance to prove it, that they could “bring home the bacon/fry it up in the pan”, etc.
Well, there you go. Why complain? I mean, don’t you feel…liberated?
SM: “Well if that’s the way you feel, there’s always suicide…”
Nice. You must be one of the “gems” that gordo seems to keep coming in contact with. I apologize gordo. If this is the caliber of woman you’re referencing, I take back all of my previous comments.
Boy, talk about interesting timing. I am the guy described by Jamison in your quotation. Far too complex too explain here, but with hard work I’ve been very successful. Built great business, became “rich” according to Obama, Hillery & the gang. But, with growth comes expenses that cut into personal income, combined with lazy partners, now owe taxes. Have enough insurance to finish the kids’ education comfortably. Amazingly I repeated mistakes of first marriage with second one,and the only thing she will miss is the money.
So now, I have “it” planned, will avoid family finding me or anything too upsetting, certainly would never harm anyone else. Have done everything I can to be rational, but cant find a rational reason to continue. Just wanted to thank you for your attention to this problem, maybe it will help get some support for men like me. I doubt it, because we’re simply supposed to make money and shut the hell up.
Nathan: My God Man…get OUT of that marriage before you have kids with that woman! Seriously! You got out of what sounds like several bad marriages only to begin another one and are now considering suicide because you cannot procreate with this woman? Have you ever considered there’s a REASON why you two cannot have children together? Sorry to sound so harsh but from your post you sound like a reasonable, successful, introspective guy with much to give someone who is deserving. Truly a partner for life’s journey should make you more of yourself not less! My sister jumped from one dissasterous marriage to another and has yet to get the happiness in life she is searching for. I talked until I was blue in the face with her about “if you can be happy by yourself and content just being you, when someone else comes into the picture they won’t be required to COMPLETE you they will just add to your happiness”. To no avail. Truly Nathan, you are worth much more than your parts. Who are you? Why must you be everything to her and sell your soul in the bargain? Suicide is the wimps way out. You have kids to think about. You have their future to contemplate. Why you would throw all of that away for an unsatisfiable woman is beyond me. You love her? There is a fine line between love and hate. I’m thinking you are skating on that razor thin barrier.
LIFE IS TOO SHORT to waste it trying to make someone who doesn’t appreciate you happy!
Nathan-
No one can tell you what to do. And no one can tell what not to do. But you have kids; even if you never saw them ’til they were 18 while paying out the ass for their support, you’re still daddy. That cannot be taken from you – only you can throw it away. If your ex marries a rich Brad Pitt-esque guy with all his original hair & teeth, he still won’t be able to replace you as their daddy.
A quote I like for its bluntness is this: “Sometimes life is just one damned thing after another.”
Yup.
Sometimes it’s one sh*t sandwich after another. So it goes. But the worst defeat is self defeat, and as long as you have breath & a pair of testicles, give no one the satisfaction of saying, “See? He just gave up…loser.”
Seriously. And if you’re not “religious”, that’s OK; I’m totally willing to pray for you.
This may be a stretch, but if you want to talk sh*t with someone not directly involved with your life, but does have some empathy, then hit me up:
MySpace.com/AlanABQ
Send a message & I’ll get back to you.
I’m not a shrink or anything, but if you gotta vent, then do.
God bless.
Dick: What? Please say you’re using sarcasm here. Truly there is nothing worth ending a life especially where children are involved. Did you realize most insurance policies don’t pay off in the event of suicide? Not only would you leave your children fatherless but destitute. It seems to me that they need you NOW more than ever. What sort of example would you be sending? The going gets tough so Dad checks out? It’s been great kids but you’re not worth putting up with hardship for? Seriously. BE AN EXAMPLE to them! Show them WHAT to do when times get rough. Show them that there are different paths. Good God! Bernie Madoff went to jail for far worse than I’m sure your situation could ever be without killing himself!
Truly, if you are being sarcastic, then I look a fool right now. If not, take stock of your situation. Think outside of yourself and step into your children’s shoes. Never seeing your grandkids? Never knowing how you will be remembered (or worse yet, knowing that you will be remembered as taking the chickensh*t way out).
Haven’t you ever heard of survivors that have jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge and the last thing that goes through their minds before they hit the water is Why did I do this???
There are far worse things than having to start over. Having your children pick out your casket would be one for starters….
The thing that I know that most wives don’t understand is how much their husbands need their admiration.
I kept working in a job I absolutely hated because I felt that I needed to be a good provider. I wasn’t any good at it, though, and I was eventually fired. I secured a job the same day making the same money in a field that I loved. My wife was still furious with me because the new job didn’t have benefits and had less long-term security. She made the humiliation of getting fired so much worse — and that was really the worst day of our marriage.
60. AThinkingPerson:
Nathan: My God Man…get OUT of that marriage before you have kids with that woman! Seriously! You got out of what sounds like several bad marriages only to begin another one and are now considering suicide because you cannot procreate with this woman? Have you ever considered there’s a REASON why you two cannot have children together? Sorry to sound so harsh but from your post you sound like a reasonable, successful, introspective guy with much to give someone who is deserving. Truly a partner for life’s journey should make you more of yourself not less! My sister jumped from one dissasterous marriage to another and has yet to get the happiness in life she is searching for. I talked until I was blue in the face with her about “if you can be happy by yourself and content just being you, when someone else comes into the picture they won’t be required to COMPLETE you they will just add to your happiness”. To no avail. Truly Nathan, you are worth much more than your parts. Who are you? Why must you be everything to her and sell your soul in the bargain? Suicide is the wimps way out. You have kids to think about. You have their future to contemplate. Why you would throw all of that away for an unsatisfiable woman is beyond me. You love her? There is a fine line between love and hate. I’m thinking you are skating on that razor thin barrier.
LIFE IS TOO SHORT to waste it trying to make someone who doesn’t appreciate you happy!
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Yeah but…
The courts are not just going to give him a house and car and paycheck every month while he finds himself. Indeed he’ll owe her and have to start over again carrying now two parasites ‘leaning’ on his efforts.
‘No fault divorce’ doesn’t mean no fault for the man.
Number two he’s a man; ie he most likely married for love/addiction to looks or similar not material ‘convenience’ or manipulation –so he can’t just turn off his sappiness should he want to go find himself.
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Do you types see now why your ‘feminism’ is bad? It focused on over over amplified issues of females or out and out canards and fallacies about female plight at the expense of very real problems of the men –that have been here _time immemorial_ and have now been exacerbated.
Just because women complain more doesn’t mean they have it harder than men. Just like with a baby crying more than the adult: crying is a trick the baby has developed to get food.
All this nonsense about females being more empathic is bunk; females simply complain. It is accepted by men as part of their sexual display to prove to the female they can protect and conform.
=====================
Nathan I agree: don’t make children yet. I would work through myself, before I pulled more kids into the world. (And don’t let her breed in your house using your money.)
I don’t know why you got married again.
———
Raise the previous kids. What do you know? Teach them that. _There_ is your ‘reason for being’ that can give you purpose.
Unfortunately many men don’t say what they’re unhappy about – they pretend it’s something else, and it takes ages for them to admit they’re depressed.
#45 Anneke
Sounds like your husband is acting like a wife. Wait until he takes you court, divorces you
and takes you for everything you have and you have to pay him Alimony while he moves in with his new girlfriend.
That my dear, is called being a Male Husband.
Nathan, gordo, Delia, my heart goes out to you and to others who have responded to this column. I have had my share of heartbreak, serious health problems, and losses. I have not gained any particular wisdom from these experiences other than to hang in there and try to keep moving in a positive direction every day. If I am around someone who makes me feel bad about myself, I try to get away from them or them away from me.
In particular, Nathan, I hope you keep posting comments to this board. We don’t always agree here but this is one of the better sites anywhere.
This is a tough time for a lot of people and I hope Dr. Helen will have a column like this on a regular basis.
SM seems to get it.
AThinkingPerson…sorry, you just don’t understand, and I don’t think you *can* understand.
AlanABQ:
“Sometimes it’s one sh*t sandwich after another. So it goes. But the worst defeat is self defeat, and as long as you have breath & a pair of testicles, give no one the satisfaction of saying, “See? He just gave up…loser.””
It is this sort of thinking that does keep me going.
In any case, posting here was to give an insight into why white males between 30 and 50 are killing themselves. It wasn’t to seek sympathy or support or advice or even leave a suicide note.
Call it the (hopefully) last gasp of immaturity, the husk left behind as I grow (finally?) into a man, where I will evaluate, make a decision without seeking approval or advice from anyone else (advice/input being tantamount to forcing someone to take some responsibility for my decision/action), and carry it out that decision as I see best, without complaint, without hesitation.
46. not so fast,
Meh. He SAT his fat ass on me to keep me from leaving him (he weighs 100+ pounds more than me) and that’s how he broke my ribs. Was it wrong? Yes, but his intent was to keep me my will.
He learned a hard lesson. Is he perfect? Nope. Am I? Nope.
To Athinking person #50
You are way over analyzing my comments. My only point is that I have found more enjoyment being with women from non-WASP type backgrounds than with WASP types. Its that simple, and much of it arises from a feeling that I am respected more as a man and for being a man. And, I know a number of successful professional white men who feel the same way. These guys just flat out view white professional, feminist types as high risk, brittle, and tough to deal with. The ethnic women I am referring to are not subservient, uneducated women, but strong, successful professional women who happen to have a bit more color to them. You can classify all you want – which is symptomatic of the problem, seeming to always seek and find a grievance or a perceived injustice that needs to be corrected. Another way to look at it is to be happy that a man has found a good woman and he is happy and she is happy and both respect the other. What a concept, but not easily grasped by those of the feminist persuasion.
I will also say this, when I lost my company and got slammed in divorce court for more money etc, my ethnic/different culture/etc girlfriend stuck right by me and gave me what I needed. Some love, some acknowledgment that I am a good and talented man, and periodically a gentle nudge in a certain direction which was helpful. She also knew I went through a period of depression and in those moments she would make some tea, give me a hug, and smile. Whenever she smiled I knew things would be ok no matter what.
52. SM:
That –TO THE LETTER– sounds like what wimmins expect of men.
In who’s “Leave It To Beaver” dream world? Both of my parents had to work just to keep the family alive. Their parents before them were farmers… anyone in the family who could stand on two legs was expected to work. Maybe I’m from the wrong socioeconomic group, but I don’t know any cases where the woman stays home UNLESS the family has small children.
Many yaers ago, after losing my dream job I stopped by the side of the road driving back from my sacking (the company that hiredme went bust) and put the barrel of a .22 rifle in my mouth. I had lost the only thing I had wanted to do (proffesional diving), and had spent a few years training/working for.
I didnt pull the trigger because I wasnt confident the rifle would do the job properly. (damn man instincs of wanting to do a job properly).
Ive lived about 15 years since then, complete with its ups and downsbut have never come that close or that low again.
In addition I went from spending a lot of time and money doing what I loved as a hobby, (Diving if you must know) to having never done it again. Not even once.
Ladies please understand we define ourslves (at least a lot of blokes do) by what we do. Its been said above but needs repeating. Imagine a woman who has lived her whole formatve years being devoted to the idea of being a mother. Then shes pregnant, gets to nine months and loses it, to top it off the doctor says she may never have kids again.
Would you consider her suiciding an irrational act? Or a logical one born of dispair?
52. SM:
That –TO THE LETTER– sounds like what wimmins expect of men.
In who’s “Leave It To Beaver” dream world?…
========
I didn’t say what all wimmins get from men. I said it is what wimmins expect from men.
T’is.
Nathan, Dick,
I want to let you both know that I am praying for you. I realize that is not what you may be looking for, but it is the best thing i can offer. I have been through several incidents in my life where i was suicidal, this was when I looked at life as a challenge that I was failing. The worst time was when I took a cocktail of pills and alcohol when I lost the person I then considered the love of my life, luckily God saved me from that fate. I have since become a Christian, and that has done more for me than anything else in my life. Please contact me at the email address below if there is anything in particular I can pray for you about. The most important thing I have ever learned is that God is ready to provide for all of us if we let him. As Jesus says in Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
Also, remember that depression can be caused by a chemical imbalance, please seek out professional help before you do anything. You may think that you are thinking clearly, but suicide is never the logical result.
Please email me at the address below if you want to talk about anything. There is nothing wrong with you all, you are just trying go through life on your own, while Jesus is offering to be there to help you along the way.
s y s i p h u s s a v e d – a t – g m a i l d o t c o m
I truly believe that as a society we have expected boys and men to behave as if they have no feelings. Instead we celebrated femininity, supported it in the schools and simply forgot about boys and young men. While more girls attempt suicide, more boys succeed. And boys have little acceptable outlet for their anger or grief. As a teacher, I see the schools setting up curriculum that supports female learning styles over male and rather than reaching out to male students, we simply tell them to suck it up and get ‘er done. If the prior century was one of male chauvinism, couldn’t we say that this latter part of the 20th century was a period wherein boys and men were forgotten. More men are unemployed. More boys are cited as learning disabled. More men are jailed. There’s a trend here and it has more to do with doing what works over doing what looks politically expedient on paper.
Dave, Nathan,
My previous comment seems to have disappeared, so I wanted to reiterate that I am praying for you both.
It is important for anyone who feels suicidal to seek counseling. Nathan, you must remember that any professional help will be confidential, and not impact your job opportunities at all. Just having someone you can talk with confidentially will be an immense help. Also, I have had multiple friends who had chemical imbalances that lead to these kinds of thoughts, there is nothing wrong with necessary medication! Would you turn down a pain-killer if you had a broken leg?
I have also struggled with thoughts like you all describe in my life before, and have found my peace in a personal relationship with God. Jesus is there for all of us, prepared to help. I realize that others do not see this as a solution, but I can also attest that in my life there has been nothing more comforting than prayer. Matthew 7:7-11 shows what God is offering us in a relationship with him.
Please contact me at the email address below if you want someone to vent to, or if you want to talk more about any of what I have commented on.
God Bless You,
Jason
s y s i p h u s s a v e d a t g m a i l d o t c o m
As a computer engineer who was out sourced years ago and replaced with 5 guys in India and 2 in Singapore and a survivor from the wreck of the good ship ****** piloted by an nth generation Harvard graduated in-breed…
I take umbrage at seeing the job loss always posted as blue collar white boys who just need some more skills.
The Ivy league elites who run this country have had a policy to destroy the native born work force and replace them with offshore and onshore indentured servants (nie H1B…)
Thinking back… the last time I talked to the CEO if I had instead pushed him out the window 60 or 70 thousand hard working hi-tech engineers would still have meaningful employment with healthy families today.
I think our workforce has become too cowed. So we meekly accept being mis-treated and thrown away then neaten up the world for them by suiciding.
We need to rethink work in this country.
Oh,,, and the elites need to be outsourced along with politicians.
Then replace the politicians with jury duty selected folks instead of self-promoting crooks.
Oh … myself I live contract to contract off the government. Private industry no longer has use for white American engineers over 50. None at all.
To all the posters here who feel that despair-
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow -
You might succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt -
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit -
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.
16. No there:
He had problems other than financial ones.
Apr 27, 2009 – 7:54 am
Yeah, sounds like his wife was dead cold to him.
Nathan: Sorry that you don’t think I “get” it. As an outsider reading your comments it seems pretty obvious what you were saying. Maybe I didn’t coddle you as much as the other posters and tell you to carry on despite that b*tch of a wife. So please, carry onward. See, I can be as helpful as the rest.
AThinkingPerson,
Okay, I’m going to get dragged through the coals for this one, but here is my blunt opinion, which I know is not a popular one on a conservative Website. Yes, I find stay-at-home moms annoying. Here is why: In my community, stay-at-home moms look down at working women because they think they have made the morally superior choice. They do not develop their intellects of personal interests; everything they do centers around the kids and they live vicariously through the kids. Despite the fact that they are home all day long, their houses are messy and they often can’t seem to get a home-cooked meal together. They spend their husbands’ hard-earned money at the mall in days out with other stay-at-home moms and their toddlers. They seemed hopelessly overwhelmed most of the time. They don’t understand the challenges that their spouses face in the workplace and don’t understand how business works, thus they can’t understand why their spouses must stay late at the office or why they might be depressed. They don’t make an effort to reach out to other women or couples who aren’t just like they are.
Yes, this is a harsh stereotype, and not all stay-at-home moms are like this. But this is my experience. I happen to live in a rather small, conservative community in the Midwest. Sometimes I have thought that I might want to stay at home. I nearly went nuts when I tried it for six months.
I think women are going to hate each other, and society is going to be critical of their choices, regardless of the decisions they make. My sister is a dentist. She envies the stay-at-home moms in her community because she would like to be home with her kids every day (she only works part-time anyway). She can’t quit because she has student loans and lives in a hugely expensive city. The other moms have told her that they envy her because she has a career and a skill and can support herself outside of the home.
Which brings me to Nathan’s post: maybe if women would try to create an identity for themselves separate from their husbands, and if they would focus on obtaining education and skills that can benefit the larger community (and if they would acknowledge the need for a community outside of their immediate families), then they wouldn’t feel powerless within a marriage and lash out at the spouse when he hasn’t managed to fulfill their every wish. A woman doesn’t need to work 60 hours a week outside of the home to achieve this. If she has small childern: What about taking college courses online? Or working part-time locally?
Yes, Nathan has hit the nail on the head. A lot of women really do think like that. You should see the crass, anti-male jokes that our secretary sends around the office. Sad.
Mariecurie:
I agree with you about housewives, except I would have stated it in an even more extreme way.
I have no respect for them personally.
But why does a man want to get himself into that situation? Is it due to an illusion that the media and society have created? It’s just incomprehensible to me to have a sit-at-home, demanding, materialistic bitch. And have to pay for her out of your hard work.
mariecurie: Assumptions can be a dangerous thing. Your assertion that stay-at-home moms don’t benefit the “larger community” and that if there are small children involved she ought to take college courses online or work part-time is biased and wrong. It does sadden me to see that with all of the work women have done to make ALL choices available to them, one of their own (I assume you’re a woman from your moniker) still labels them as subhuman for choosing to raise their children and support their spouse full time. Sad, truly sad. So much for the feminist movement.
From reading a lot of the posts here, most of the angst comes from males who have spouses who aren’t supportive of them or their decisions. That is what I believe is the crux of the matter and that can come from a spouse who is a career person or a full time mom. Believing that having a career path spouse assures you of having a supportive spouse is wrong on it’s face. Bad eggs come in all forms.
mariecurie: As a sidenote please see comment #82 Tapfer. This type of thought is what is being fed by the feminist movement’s and by comments like yours. Scary to know there are people who think children would be better served to be raised in daycares and spouses would be better served to exchange paychecks instead of putting their families first. We don’t live in a perfect world, some women desire to work or NEED to work to support their families BUT to throw out a blanket statement that those who are lucky enough to have a supportive spouse and a lifestyle that allows them the luxury of raising their own children should be vilified if they choose to? Well, that’s a sad day not only for women but America as a whole.
81. mariecurie,
Even though I live in a 3500 sq. ft. home my husband and I built together, I do all of the cleaning and my house smells great and is always well put together (except on Saturdays when I let us be total slobs). I’m also heavily involved in running our business together and I’m a master at cooking at baking. -But, I only had one [homeschooled] child. Besides the drudgery of scrubbing toilets and doing laundry my husband and I wrote music together.
On the flipside? Here is where I can agree with your assessment of SOME SAHM types. When my husband and I moved into our very first home (new development/neighborhood) when my daughter was three years old, quite a few young parents moved into the development too. It was an ‘instant’ neighborhood because all of the homes were brand-new and therefore everyone was pretty much ‘new’ there.
Well, quite a few of the women sat on lawn chairs in their front yards watching their children play all day while I stayed inside teaching my daughter or cooking/cleaning and bein’ all domestic-like (lol). I allowed my daughter to play with the other children a few times a week and the ‘other’ mothers would keep an eye on all of the children.
My next door neighbor was a complete slob though. She sat around all day long and her husband would come home from a hard day’s work to cook, clean, do the laundry she had let pile up in their living room. UGH!
There are a lot of moms that are more like me though and work hard to not only school their children, but keep a clean, beautiful home and bake bread and create wonderful, healthy and economical meals from scratch and manage to web-master, create logos and other ‘geeky’ computer stuff for our business.
Granted, my type of SAHM are becoming rare but we do exist. Now that my daughter is full grown and out of the house, I’m more of a SAHW now. I can do whatever I want and if I want to do something outside of the home my husband would have no problem with that.
Thanks, Tapfer. Nice thing about an anonymous Website is that I get to state something that has bugged me for years but that I can’t exactly say openly in public.
AThinkingPerson: I can disagree with you on feminism/working women, but you are entirely right when you say that there is a lot of angst that comes from having a spouse that is not supportive of one’s decisions. I really don’t want to villify women who stay at home, but it’s hard not to when other women look on my choices with smug condescension, especially when I like working and need to work.
There was interesting and controversial book written in the last few years that discusses the problems that result when women take themselves out of the workforce for 5-10 years, or longer. Women find it difficult to re-enter at a level of responsibility and a wage that matches their age and experience; they often have not kept up with the technology or trends in their field; they have lost SS and possible 401K contributions (and thereby the compounding interest). A women who stays out of the workforce indefinitely can find herself in situation of poverty if her husband becomes ill and cannot work, or if she is widowed. Some sobering ideas in the book. Our society has changed dramatically from what it was 40-50 years ago, and I think that women do themselves a disservice if they go through life with blinders on.
I’m wondering if some of these men would feel less pressured if they knew their wives could/would step up to the plate in hard times, if women had a contingency plan and the ability to take care of themselves.
The main reason we now have so many working Moms (or Dads) is that with todays ruinous income taxes, the other spouse HAS to work to make up for the lost income. In the 1950′s, income tax was only 5-10% and a family could afford to live on one income.
Thanks Government!
Delia,
It sounds like you have a wonderful life and have many talents and are resourceful. You are definitely a rarity and can move to my neighborhood any time.
When I was young, I thought that suicide was a violence perpetrated on one’s loved ones. When my father succumbed to PTSD (Korean War survivor, Pusan Perimeter) and finally placed a revolver to his heart when he felt he couldn’t control his flashbacks, I realized that I couldn’t begrudge him his only exit, regardless of how much one could argue against his conclusion.
Now, I think that any suicidal thought is the first symptom of mental illness, regardless of how small or developed that thought process might be.
Oh what a vast territory is that of the human mind, that we know so little about it! We are all so much more vulnerable than we really know.
88. mariecurie,
Aww shucks. You’re sweet! he-he How’s the property tax where you live?
~
As to suicide. I don’t like drumming up these sad memories very often but since it *is* the topic…
My sister tried finding her real father [who was a raging alcoholic] after she had three children of her own…she finally tracked down his sister in Canada and was informed that he had committed suicide. She was heart-broken. My sister eventually divorced the Mormon father of her three children and he remarried but became a gambler and an alcoholic and eventually committed suicide himself.
On my husband’s side of the family, my brother-in-law was a severe alcoholic and abused my sis-in-law frequently when he was on his drunk booze binges. My husband often had to ‘rescue’ her from the violent situations. Then, one fateful afternoon he drank himself into a stupor, tied a rope around his neck attached to a rafter in his garage and wrote a ‘good-bye’ note to his two sons and wife. He died of alcohol poisoning before getting the chance to hang himself but his two young sons (only 5 and 6 years old at the time) found him dead in the garage with the ‘note’ in his lap.
Sometimes, I can’t help wonder if alcohol/drugs aren’t typically involved in many suicides since it *IS* a depressant?
I can’t speak for anyone else , and wouldn’t try.
What sends me to the pits of despair is the feeling that I am trapped, without options.
As a highly trained technical manager I am used to being the breadwinner for the family and when that is threatened- as it currently is by ill health and the global financial situation it leads to despair and feelings of isolation and desolation.
I am lucky in that my family understand me and my occasional need for time on my own to get my head straight. It is easy to understand how some people can’t stand the emotional pain associated with these thoughts and feelings. I am used to a level of background physical pain and it pales into insignificance against the feelings of hopelessness and despair that can flood over you in a bout of depression.
For me the answer is to work through the feelings, look back at what I have accomplished and set myself goals to look forward to.
It’s equally difficult for people to understand the idea that the enjoyment literally drains form life at these times – and things that would otherwise bring enjoyment feel flat.
I don’t suffer from thoughts of self harm – but understand how someone without the right coping strategies could do so.
Like the old saying – don’t judge a man till you have walked a mile in his shoes.
A blessing on all those who carry a heavy burden and those who help to share the load.
Love the manifestations of double standards. Anneke what a shock….its hard going to work and handling stress? Really? Ever spend much time deep in that thought about hubby when he was doing it?
Sheesh, at least you let it all hang out and thanks for that. Men need to see that.
91. Mr H,
What a great post and so true.
As someone who grew up as a deeply depressed, suicidal teen [I still have the scars], I know all too well how deep and dark the rabbit hole can go. In 2007 after being able to manage my winter depression fairly successfully on my own, I sunk to that low spot and ended up naked in the ER with heart monitors stuck all over my body. It scared the crap out of me! Now I’m much more aware of my moods and I’m careful to talk to someone right away if I’m feeling really low.
God bless all of you who have ‘gone’ there or even thought about it. I’m so thankful to be alive and healthy and each day is a blessing no matter how hard it gets I’m just glad to be here.
I truly feel for all the men here who are despairing. Here, I will make you a virtual bowl of nice hot soup with a slice of homemade bread. I don’t know what else to do, I know you don’t want my sympathy, and I respond to every crisis with food.
And now I will proceed to stick up for SAHMs AND working moms. Yes, there are some snobby women out there who project their doubts about the morality of their choice to stay at home by trying to bully people for not making choices identical to theirs. If those women were in the workforce, they’d be bullying their neighbors and co-workers into feeling guilty about something different. That being said, it is absolutely the wrong thing to do to retaliate back at them by trying to guilt them about being a SAHM, because that puts electricity in the motor that runs their guilt projector. If you want to stop the guilt projector, quit trying to deflect the guilt back on them.
I’m in rather a unique position of being forced by circumstance into being a SAHM. Two of my kids have a high-functioning form of autism, and they need more care than normal children and more accommodation than the school was willing to give them. I would love to work outside of the home and in fact I did for many years, putting my Master’s degree to good use. But my work schedule was destabilizing for the autistic kids and trying to keep up with it all was killing my health. I could have any two of kids, health, and job, so the job went. I’ve started a business but it’s not going so well right now because of the economy. Not all SAHMs are parasites on a man, nor do all of them suffer from a lack of career skills or work ethic. I work harder than most of the people I know, and my house is still a mess and I’m always behind on the laundry. I didn’t plan on having a career as a full-time volunteer aide in a group home for autistic kids, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be damn good at it.
94. Wacky Hermit,
Preach it, Sista!
I don’t know how you do it, GF! I have so much respect and awe for women like you dealing with children that have disabilities. It must be exhausting!
((supportive hug))
You’re wonderful. All of you. Just wonderful! If I could reach out and validate each and everyone one of you I would. I’m awash in agape. Thank you.
AThinkingPerson,
I wasn’t looking for support or coddling, and I don’t feel like anyone coddled me.
I’m sorry I offended you.
What you don’t get is that I love my wife, and have accepted responsibility for her.
Having accepted responsibility for her, I cannot give up until/unless I literally cannot continue another day. I’m man enough to not dump my responsibilities because it would be easier.
She needs me. She needs to feel safe with me. It would devastate her if I walked out on her.
She has a bad temper, yes. What if it is a mental illness? Should I walk out on her if were injured and paralyzed? If she got MS? If she developed schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or dementia/alzheimer’s?
No.
So I won’t leave just because she has a temper.
I’m a man. I’m supposed to be able to take it. I’m man enough to know that, and man enough to try, and I’ve become man enough to be able to take it most of the time.
Nearly everything that has gone wrong in my life has been from giving up too early. Aside from that problem, everything else that has gone wrong in my life has come from listening to what women say rather than really learning what they really want. Including the mistakes that lost my children.
I know what she wants and needs.
She is my baby. She sought me out for that, and I accepted. I cannot go back on my word. I am man enough to insist on that from myself.
My problem is that I’m not man enough to be successful in a very difficult situation.
Because as I grow, I realize that a Man should be calm, steady, deliberate, gentle, responsible, effective, careful. And I’m not all those things.
Maybe, hopefully, it is just that I am not all those things *yet*.
It’s kind of a race to see if I can grow faster than my failures.
Because if do kill myself, it will be because I failed at too many things, and cannot live with my failures
Don’t bring up “every life is valuable” and “believe in yourself” and “you need to love yourself”.
That’s bullshit. That’s for women.
I will stay in this world and keep trying with all my effort until I cannot take it anymore. My responsibilities end only with my death. I can choose death only if I am so broken down that I cannot fulfill my basic responsibilities anymore.
All of which means that I will probably live to the ripe old age of 80+. Along the way I might become the man I want to be. If I do, I will find satisfaction in myself.
But I live or die, am happy or depressed, succeed or fail, by what I *do*, not what I think or feel.
It’s hard to be a man. The world is harsh on a man. The cruelest thing our society does to males is we don’t teach them to be men anymore, but 70% or so (stat pulled out of my ass, but clear not all men, and clearly more than 50% of men) will find themselves in a situation that demands they be men despite no training. And of those 70% that find themselves in that situation (where they must be strong, tough, successful, and mostly emotionless) without any training from society, most will succeed anyway.
Thus far, I’m not one who has been successful in becoming a man.
But it isn’t my wife’s fault.
In fact, some of her harshness has helped push me into being a man. My despair doesn’t come from her anger or words, but from my failure to fix the problems in me that cause her distress, disappointment, and anger.
Call it co-dependent, I don’t care.
It’s the way I understand life, marriage, and being a man.
96. backatcha:
OOMY, you’re one of the few people I wouldn’t talk down from a ledge.
This may sound as if I’m not serious but three things help a lot for men. Their own room (yes a man room), time for themselves (doesn’t have to be away from family) and sex, yes I know this hurts some women to hear but that is THE stress reliever for men. Other than that life is just hard someimes.
Nathan, Jesus bless you, for you are a husband in His image. Let Him give you the strength to live. Because He died and rose again, you can have the strength to live, the liberty of forgiveness, and the courage to stand in the face of your problems and tackle them. He bore all of our guilt and pain out of love for us, for the Church is His Bride. How wonderful is it to live out the love of God! That’s what marriage is supposed to be about.
99. jbrookins:
“This may sound as if I’m not serious but three things help a lot for men. Their own room (yes a man room), time for themselves (doesn’t have to be away from family) and sex, yes I know this hurts some women to hear but that is THE stress reliever for men.”
~
Yeah. That whole two minutes of quick ‘ from a man is why women want you men.
The good Lord gave ya two hands. USE ‘em.
Most of us carry around some version of a “world of hurt” in some form, don’t we?
My initial take on this article was that it bothered me that somehow men should be made to feel that they are “a special project” when it comes to despair that turns in to an open-ended bad dream. If they’re already struggling, I can’t imagine it’s much fun to have a spotlight turned on you.
However, reading the responses lets me know that it has been helpful in a variety of ways, with lots of great comments.
For those of you who feel strongly bout personal faith, (not that you would do this…but)….don’t ever let anyone “use that against you” as in, “Well, I thought you had such faith. You ever feel like giving up.”
I will never in my life forget the day a “giant of faith” teaching a Sunday School class I was in said, “I don’t see how ANY Christian could ever consider suicide.” If I hadn’t been almost unable to speak or move that day, I would have dearly loved to have stood up, asked for the floor and told him how that could be.
Take care of yourselves and know that it never stays at the worst. Eventually things do change. Living life at “average” isn’t such a terrible thing!
I imagine many men have bought into some impossible goal and financial task for any number of reasons.
If you see that you have done that and the pressure is building, for what it’s worth… here’s one country girl from Minnesota who gives you permission to re-evaluate your goals, lay down the impossible ones, cut yourself some slack and change your own rules.
Several thoughts along the different threads. First, depression is an awful thing to experience whether it be caused by chemical imbalances, life situations, or both. I have gone through a major financial crisis in my own life due to the market crash but I was fortunate to have a little to get me by. No matter, depression set in and I think for several reasons. First, just the practical aspects of supporting children and paying tuitions, supporting an ex-wife who cut me no slack, and paying my own bills. My heart goes out to the folks who had little to live on and lost their jobs. Second, as a man, a provider and protector, I could do neither and I felt trapped in a downward cycle and afraid to boot. That just made the depression worse. I never felt like I would commit suicide but there were some days when the idea of leaving the planet, hopefully to a better place, crossed my mind. At one point I had a friend take my hunting rifle and handgun and store them in his gun locker. Through faith and basic U.S. toughness I came through the other side – perserve my brothers, get some help (counseling or talking with friends or loved ones), and things will change for the better. Don’t buy into its all your fault, its not, its the vagaries of life.
Regarding spouses, whether they be at home or working, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the integrity of your relationship. If its strong it will stay together, if its not, depressing circumstances may rip it apart.
The variable is the attitude, for men or women. Many women these days, the modern women who have been trained to believe that they must have it all, often don’t really understand a man’s perspective. We haven’t had a social enlightenment that we can have it all with no cost, we have been holding fast on our basics, provide and protect, and for that, we have, in some quarters, been villified. A man needs to have confidence that his woman (is that ok to say these days?) understands these things. More and more, it appears that that understanding is being lost. A marriage or relationship built upon the shifting sands of the latest societal empowerment won’t last, especially in times like these. Women are now finding that out, men have known it for some time and have been powerless to effect change. You want depression, add life circumstances and put it into the context of today’s relationship climate and expectations. That will get you down, and maybe look for the door. There are many women now wondering what happened to their perfect life dreams. Men ain’t perfect but a good first start is to look in the mirror.
Delia, I would add to let him have his own friends and hobbies
Trust plays a major role, you know whatever would happen you won’t be left aside.
My hubby got fired out of his position at the age of 55 some years ago, because his salary was too high for the results of the Cie, he could have stayed in his Cie at a lower position, but this would have ruined his mental, I was aware of the pressions that he was bearing, I can say that every evening I had the brieffing of the day evenments, and how things were worsening in the society.
I was the one to tell him to leave that Cie, even if we had to sell our house, material things are nothing if you can’t enjoy them, and this stressing situation was overwelming our everyday life, and enslaving us.
So, might be my paysan common sense that made me lead the decisions, better be poor but free. We sold our house to buy a small business, an auberge, where he could still have some responsabilities until he reached the age of retirment ; now he is a happy retirer, he’s got plenty to do with his passion, as a agility competitor and dogs trainer, he’s got a lot of friends, he travels a lot with his dogs, while I am still on duty with the business, he, I am not a retiree, I could have sold the business, not a good idea for it’s difficult to sell it at the moment, so I’m waiting better opportunities to get rid of it, cuz, I’d like to travel too
It’s been both hard and uplifting to read these stories. Guys, if you are suffering, please don’t feel you have to bear it in silence, crawl inside a bottle, use drugs, or take your own life. Get some help; you are worth saving! I should know, because I have survived severe depression and made it out the other side, not once but on several occasions. Been unemployed, too, and know how that feels. For those you feel “worthless” if you make less than a set amount of money, or if your wife makes more than you – take heart, because a man is more, much more, than his income or lack of same.
I’ve never been that good at making money, I just don’t have that capitalistic, entreprenuerial knack that some people do… that and a few life mistakes mean that I don’t make much as much dough as I’d like even though I have a good work ethic. I’m fixing that problem, but in the meantime, there are many ways I prove my worth as a man and as a husband.
Since my wife is in a high-powered professional career, I handle as much of the handiman work around the home as possible, and our vehicles are my responsibility also. I spend time with my wife, listening to her and enjoying her presence, just being alive together – as much as possible. And I take very seriously my responsibility to defend her physically, as well as emotionally. I have taught her street survival skills (she is from a small town), some basic self-defense (I study martial arts), and taught her how to handle a firearm. I am also in the healthcare field, so I am the “family doc” (though I am not an MD). Last but not least, I tell my wife everyday that I love and treasure her. For her part, she supports me and lets me know that I am much more than a dollar sign to her. My wife met me when I was worth next-to-nothing, and I still don’t have a lot of money, but that hasn’t fazed her one bit. She loves me because of who I am, not what my bank balance is. My folks had some money when I was a kid, so I’ve seen that rich people are just as miserable as the rest of us. Some of the happiest people I’e known have also been ones with modest incomes. Money separates people, poverty knits ‘em together, has been my experience. Having less forces you to become resourceful, to learn to live on less, and something tells me that skill will come in handy these coming years.
It’s been painful, but hardships have taught me much more than my successes ever have. Making lots of money would be nice, but if there is anything that life has taught me, it is that everything comes with a price, including big-money and prestige jobs. Don’t confuse who you are with what you do; they are not the same. Besides, to paraphrase Don Henley, “You don’t see no hearses with luggage racks.”
Suicide is usually a selfish act, because it deprives those who love you of the one thing that can’t be replaced, your presence. So – please get the help you deserve. It’s paradoxical, but acknowledging your vulnerablility actually frees you, and makes you stronger. No, that doesn’t mean becoming Alan Alda (I haven’t cried in years); it just means forgetting the notion that you are superman. Being down and out can either kill you, or temper you into something stronger. It’s a cliche, but the old saying really is true, “Tough times don’t last, tough people do!” Hang in there, you aren’t alone.
One last point (author’s opinion only of course): Feminism, of the post-1960s variety, has been devastating to not only American maleness, but I would also argue, to male-female relations generally, our families and our society in general. As much as we might try to deny it, men and women are very different, and are far from interchangeable. Men are wired biologically to be hunters, warriors, builders – and when we cannot fulfill those roles, we are less than we were born to be. A society that shuns the virtues of manhood, is flirting with disaster. Diana West addresses this subject, among others, in her brilliant book “The Death of Adulthood.” The pendulum has swung too far toward accomodating women, who are now doing better than men in most metrics; we need a movement to reclaim our patrimony. While we can’t return to “Leave it to Beaver,” we have to strike a better balance than we are now.
“What does all this mean? It means that our society needs to pay more attention to the mental health of men . . . ”
Baloney!
It means that a combination of pop culture and government schools have feminized and sissified American men. Among the men I grew up with and used for models sixty-five years ago, suicide rates were extremely low. During the Great Depression, suicide occurred but was rare, even in the effete east. Out west where I grew up, it was even more rare. If the Code of the West was taught in schools instead of feel-good collectivism, men would cowboy up instead of kill themselves.
Great post, Mike. Thanks!
LOL at Don Rhudy.
Men just need to “Cowboy Up”.
Yet another Internet tough guy.
101. Delia:
Yeah. That whole two minutes of quick ‘ from a man is why women want you men.
The good Lord gave ya two hands. USE ‘em.
=======
He didn’t say “two minutes”. He said simply “sex”.
You said what you said cause you’re an over entitled jerk.
And specifically in response to your comment…
The [make believe] good lord gave you a mouth. USE it for something other than jabbering nonsense.
109. SM:
The [make believe] good lord gave you a mouth. USE it for something other than jabbering nonsense.
~
Right back at ya. Men seem to be better at that kind of thing anyway so put your money where your mouth is.
P.S. I guess I should have clarified regarding men using women as their ‘stress’ relievers regarding sex… It’s dehumanizing. Women aren’t dirty towels for the pleasuring of men. Sex should be a mutual loving thing and not some ‘tool’ for a quick high.
That is all.
Gracious me sakes alive, such talk! How do you think your pastor would react to such salacious willywagging? Mayhaps you should return to the good book for a refresher course in the blessed union. I’m no prude, and lordy knows I like getting sat on by my man as well as the next gal, but lord o mighty, such nasty wasty thinking is giving me the vapors. Please forgive me, Lord, they know not who they do.
there are also many man who create their own hell by constantly chasing. Chasing power, prestige, the better looking mate, etc etc. Men, by nature are competitive beings, sports, jobs, hottest girlfriend/wife, whatever. They want either to be “that” guy or to best that guy. When they lose at that, it deminishes their “ideal” of themselves. It has little to do with women, we seem to only be the bystanders of mans reach for power and glory and if not disposing of the proper praise, motherly comfort or sex if he fails in his quests, all he’ll breaks down. Men, while talking their own lives, seem also happy to take others with them. They kill their families, they kill their co-workers, and they kill their fellow students. They take down All around them in one way or another. Now I am not saying ALL men who commit suicide are the same – I’m suggesting (due to facts) that all mass suicids/killings Have been perpetrated BY men. The reasons for doing so always seem to be in THEIR minds: unfair treatment, being laughed at, being wronged.
104. Marie Claude,
Sorry…missed your comment before. Oh…Hubby has always done whatever he wanted [even if it annoyed me at times].
We are best friends now and have grown-up a lot together [23 years and counting]. I’d love to travel one day too but Hubby and I are both afraid of flying.
~
112. sheesh,
LOL! You do know what ‘the vapors’ are? Hint: You probably should take some Beano or Gas-X. he-he!
~
113. ddc,
Interesting points… Hmm. The ultimate act of selfishness is to take other lives along. Suicide is bad enough but murder/suicide is whack.
———————————————————
Side note: Relieving stress can be done with a great back-neck-foot massage [one of my specialties].
And so it is that a few mentally unstable women AGAIN take the situation to the FURTHEST extreme and accuse ALL men of being guilty of that extreme.
First off, MOST men who commit suicide do not go on killing sprees. Most men just kill themselves. Killing sprees are fairly rare… and yet, suddenly they now apply to ALL men, just like how Marc Lepine, (1 Canadian man out of 15,000,000) has been used for the past 20 years to pass punitive legislation against ALL men.
Thanks to vindictive, hateful attitudes like those displayed by a few inconsiderate shrews such as those trolling around here.
In fact, the first mass shooting WAS committed by a female, in the 1960′s.
Also, Genene Jones is a mass baby killer, destroying between 40 and 50 innocent lives.
Men don’t have the corner on the sin market.
Women are also the SOLE victims/perpetrators of the mental disease known as Munchausen by Proxy. Is it rare? You bet! But, it is NOT as rare as men going on killing sprees and then blowing their brains out… which is what some shrewish woman is trying to put men on the defensive for.
I don’t see these wingnut type women screeching that laws ought to be passed against ALL women because they are the only ones that inflict harm upon others to attract attention to themselves. (Munchausen by Proxy)
What hatefulness and contempt women display for men.
Small wonder that 21st century men are turning their backs on women and society, as this puke continually belches forth on any issue.
Enjoy your cats.
Right, Rob.
Good job, Rob.
#115 fedders
That is a whole lot of female hatred you have going on there. You should seek to examine that, as that level of hatred is probably affecting your interpersonal relationships.
That said, no one said ALL men are mass killers in cases where there is male suicide/homicide, what I DID say is that MOST cases of mass murder/suicide have been male perpetrated and I stand by those facts. And those instances were the direct result of being wronged by someone, being laughed at by someone, being treated unfairly by someone…
No one makes another kill oneself or anyone else in these cases, these are personal choices. A man OR woman for that matter who feels they are “coming apart” mentally either make one of two decisions: they either seek help or kill themselves. Taking others with you is the highest form of cowardess.
It is very easy to mistake to confuse being depressed with being upset.
It is normal to be upset over the loss of a job or relationship or in response to an injury.
When we are hurt we feel sad and often this changes to feelings of anger towards someone we feel is responsible.
Sadness can lead to depression – but simply being sad isn’t being depressed.
The motives for suicide can be many and varied a depressed person is more at risk of self harm due to the inability to see beyond their current situation and most importantly the intense physical malaise and emotional pain associated with it.
I would expect a mass shooter to be suffering from a narcissistic disorder and be simply projecting their anger at an available target with a “that will show them” mentality.
Recently some research has suggested that sleep disorders can cause depression by meesing up seratonin levels.
Exercise helps, and coping ability has absolutely nothing to do with willpower – or simply toughing it out.
Prompt medical intervention to identify and handle the root cause is important – The ability to handle each day as it comes is also really helpfull.
There used to be a recognised “cycle” of emotions associated with a bereavement. It would be interesting to compare the emotional journey of someone losing their job with this cycle – I suspect that there could be a degree of correlation in the experience.
Also – whats with the gender generalising?
Does anyone who uses their head for more than a hat stand honestly believe that the entire opposite sex behaves with a single mindset?
And quite coincidentally you sound no different than the woman who hates men with equal passion. These are the characteristics of those who find no fault in themselves for failed relationships – “it’s all her/his fault!”
“if our disposition is one of hatred, you will never find lasting happiness.” ~dalai lama
DDC sez (in an attempted “high-brow” attack on Rob Fedders): “That is a whole lot of female hatred you have going on there. You should seek to examine that, as that level of hatred is probably affecting your interpersonal relationships.”
—-
DDC, I think the same way Rob Fedders does, as do a whole lot of (invisible) men. I have found a sane woman, so my attitude doesn’t “affect my interpersonal relationships” a bit.
And your cluelessness would extend, I suppose, to telling a slave that his thoughts about being free are interfering with his relationship with the master.
Women like you are tiresome, but everywhere.
Speaking of clueless, I’d venture that there’s an equal amount of women who view men the same as you and fedders, and that neither group would ever consider they are at all at fault for the way they’ve been treated by the opposite sex. You seem to enjoy that company.
Been happily married to the same man for 24 years, great love/sex life have two happily married sons and am expecting our first grandchild in June. Life is good because I chose the right mate for all the right reasons. Take responsility for your faults/shortcomings (we all have them) and your own happiness and don’t blame. Pretty much starts there and ends there.
121. ddc,
So true. When many of us marry, we are young and naive and have no clue how to go about a relationship especially if we have come from broken homes ourselves. Forgiveness and accepting each other’s faults is a BIG one.
I love my hubby now more than I’ve ever loved him even though we are going through a lot of financial stress. We know we aren’t perfeKt and we have grown together as a couple who refused to give up on the other when the going got tough.
Oh sure, there are days when he’s the biggest b*tch and there are days when I’m the biggest b*tch but, thankfully we usually aren’t both moody on the same day.
P.S.
The men who complain about ‘women’ here are probably the ones who have never been able to have a stable relationship in their entire lives thus far and have probably had multiple divorces.
Oh women can be just as bad. My mother was case-in-point psycho cruel to the men who loved her and my father was the biggest, lazy load of dung ever flung on society [never worked a hard a job in his life and never paid a cent of child support].
Men have pressure but so do women. If we are housewives then we are regarded as ‘losers’ and if we work outside of the home we are considered ‘bull-dykes’ or ‘abandoners’ or ‘selfish’.
The pendulum swings both ways regarding males and females.
IMHO it would be nice to see a ‘happy medium’ between patriarchy and matriarchy… but, just as man-haters exist, so does misogyny.
Good Christmas,
And if ever there is a thread about MEN committing suicide that the ladies who show up don’t divert it to women being victims somehow… well, then maybe we will one day achieve that happy medium.
But, I’ll tell you. After 40 years of non-stop bitching at men by feminists, and the DEAFENING silence of the “non-feminist” women who didn’t give a toss that their fathers, brothers and sons were being degraded as animals and stripped of their fundamental rights… it is pretty rich now for the “non-feminist” women to show up and mock and shame men every time they try to speak up about issues that concern them.
NOW it’s time to hush up and play nice, eh? After the girls have been screeching for, and getting, all of the little boys toys for 40 years, now that they’ve got all of their toys AND our toys, they want everyone to hush up and play nice.
It’s just absurd, and infuriating to see the haughty attitudes of women like these above.
It is obvious that women do not have NEAR the ability to empathize with men as men do with women. In any regard where women are disadvantaged, BOTH men and women trip over themselves to help women. But if there is a situation where men are worse off, the LADIES most often show up and start admonishing the men to “suck it up” and to “be a man.” If you won’t, they will attack your sexuality, as in, by noticing how crappy women think you OUGHT to be treated compared to them, this means you are a misogynist! And you probably have a small penis too!
I don’t see the men admonishing the ladies to accept their traditional roles, “woman up,” make us some sandwiches, and not worry her pretty little head about such things as politics.
Only the men are told to adhere to their traditional roles – mainly, of not complaining and giving silent but eager chivalry for an ever increasingly ungrateful opposite sex.
It is a typical case of “men can be good and bad, but women are only good… or at least, it is impolite to talk about women as anything other than good.” And so, we only address how men negatively contribute to society (and pass laws against it) while completely ignoring anything except the “good” in women.
And if you can’t see the mathematical problem in that, then you should never have gotten passed junior high algebra.
It’s not a joke that women like the above continually show up and pull this stunt. It is something that is so consistent to both male and female stereotypical behaviour… it is becoming increasingly clear that THIS is what all of the “old misogynists” were worried about throughout history… and there appears to be some effacy to their theories.
We biologically place women in higher importance than men. This is all fine biologically – if we want to live like animals.
But if we want to live in a system that has justice, morality, and is one which is safe and prosperous AND FREE for our children, we are going to have to address this very obvious problem of men’s over-empathy for women versus women’s under-empathy for men. There are OBVIOUSLY some very severe political implications for this, and they are starting to unfold in society… things like, say, increased suicides, increased crime, increased violence and so on – not to mention the elephant in the room, our unsustainable birthrates that mathematically ensure our destruction – within many of our lifetimes too!
But notice very carefully, how often good “conservative women” like the ones above, will stomp right up and demand that men stop their whining and re-focus our attention back on the plight of women. It is becoming abundantly clear that women would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something.
And they get quite nasty if you refuse to be silent and stop threatening her ill-deserved position upon the pedastal… see above.
No wonder so many men who are at their wits end feel there is no where to turn.
There isn’t.
There is a whole class of women that are dedicated to making sure that men are not socially acceptable when they appear to have weaknesses.
Victimology is women’s game, not men’s. And they are just as vicious about an interloper on their livilihood as the prostitute who protects “her corner.”
After 40 years of sheer hatred from women, one wonders why they even think being called a misogyinist from such a contemptous gender ought to be something a man ought to feel shame for.
The most sexist notion of all is that only one gender is capable of sexism.
Ladies has it occurred to you that it’s inappropriate to come onto a forum dealing w/ male suicide and attempt to dominate the comments by incessantly talking about yourselves?
It’s kind of bizarre – a column about men committing suicide in part because of financial pressure from women – and lots of different women pop up saying how they are in wonderful relationships with men, and any men here discussing reality are whiners who probably have bad relationships with women.
These women are simultaneously saying how wonderful they are and applying passive-aggressive nagging and shaming techniques. Very manipulative, and it flies in the face of their assertions about how wonderful they are.
I contend that if the number of women committing suicide went up 10%, we would see emergency measures all over the place to find out why and stop it. Our society has been conditioned to think that women have been disadvantaged in health care but that has never been the case. Oh, we have heard about the so called “health care gap” for years but when the INH declared there was no health care gap, it was a well kept secert.
http://65.108.133.249/NIH%20Retracts%20Claim.htm
http://65.108.133.249/Health%20Care%20Gap.htm
Another factor is that men are placed in no win situations. If he does not work, he is a dead beat taking advantage of his wife. If he works too much, he is unattentive and thus abusing his wife. In short, men are given most of the responsiblity but often are not allowed to see rewards from his labors and yet we are called a patriatical society. Until we show we value each person for who they are and not what they do, I believe we will see more of this in our scoiety.
http://65.108.133.249/MurderSuicides.htm
Billy Bob,
Good point.
@AThinkingPerson
Fortunately the “white, feminist trained queen” you speak of are a minority in the US.
Open your eyes. An educated white male, now 59, a Christian, and an artist: I have lived in the south and now live in New Jersey where I grew up; I have experienced the “churchlady”, the educated peer, the country girl, and sales clerk: they are all the same: they ask the same questions: “Are you rough enough (are you a dick?)” and “Do or will you make enough (are you a wallet?).” My educated peers even told me I was too deep too intelligent. As God is my witness, The American female will select a out of work, disabled dick over a decent, hardworking, intelligent man.
Just about every man in this forum has blamed women for their woes. My contention is that it takes two to tango. The first thing I do when I listen to friends or relatives complain about their significant other is to ask them to put themselves in the other’s shoes and look at the marriage from his/her.
We pick our mates, they are not forced upon us unless you’re a Muslim woman.
Both women and men should quit the blame game. If she’s a materialistic screw now chances are she was when you met her. Blame yourself for picking the insensitive woman and try to understand WHY you keep picking them. People do not change much and there are plenty signs of character prior to marriage.
Yes, this is a column about male suicide, and all I read is about how it’s “someone else’s fault” by men. Harboring hate and resentment cannot be the
way to better improve one’s mental health or understand more about oneself.
What say you Dr. Helen? Are you not reading the same vitriolic comments? And might not these very sentiments be the ones which cause havoc.
Dr. Helen,
I and probably others would be interested in your thoughts on sentiments offered by #124, which appear to be the popular rally point of male readers of your columns.
We pick our mates, they are not forced upon us unless you’re a Muslim woman.
Even as a Christian, I look forward to the dreadful irony when this country is sufficiently Muslim and the American infidel male can go to a sharia court and demand a divorce. It will be even more fun when the “honor” killings start: and women will have brought it upon them selves: you will notice that such have already begun: can you hear the silence?.
#132 I have to say that men who would have such control over women, who would even “honor kill” them, are the very men who brought your “scourge upon all men” – “feminism” on yourselves. I do hope you see that. The problem isn’t with women, it is with yourself. Own your anger because it is yours and no one elses.
The summary of which is: “The way I am, the way I feel, is not my fault, but womens fault” albeit, taken to the extreme. Vicious cycle #132.
This is your audience Dr. Helen. Enjoy.
Intelligent and insightful post:
#29 AlanABQ:
I think depression in men goes largely unnoticed because men do not like to appear to be weak, even to the women & friends they trust. If, as a man, you find yourself feeling an overwhelming feeling of weakness, then the man you see in the bathroom mirror is a man drowning alone, because we see asking for help as admission of weakness.
We’re competitive & prideful. When we feel like we can’t compete, we lose that pride and when the self-ptying starts – and it will when you feel alone with your fear because you isolate your feelings within yourself – it opens the door for a host of negative behaviors, including drug & alcohol abuse, porn addiction, family neglect, and so on.
Men will find ways to to attempt to gratify themselves first to the extent of putting almost everything else second. It’s not necessarily a selfish act of “me first”; sometimes it’s a way to cope, but it is destructive nonetheless.
To parents out there, the way to nurture a boy into becoming a man is to counter all the negativity that surround males in this society: not every man is a chauvanist pig that started as a chauvanist piglet. Boys should be taught that despite the obvious differences between themselves & girls, the respect that boys ought to show girls should also be applied to themselves. If a boys sees value in himself early on, he will recognize it in others.
Never forget, gents. Someone like DDC could be your charming wife… and you will be arguing like this over everything from suicide to why you must give up your weekend case of beer to save money but why she shouldn’t give up her $85 herbal shampoos.
“What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours” has been around for a looooooong time already. Schopenhauer was talking about this female phenomenon back in the mid 19th century already.
Here she is again, even blaming men for feminism, because of some OBVIOUSLY innate character flaw that makes men treat women misogynistically.
What women like DDC never seem to be able to contemplate is that Islam is trying to stamp out a specific female trait… namely, the way women manipulate men both with their talk and their sexuality, for purposes that are nefarious to the well-being of society overall.
Now, of course, Islam goes to far.
But, perhaps we don’t go far enough, as our 16 year old girls change from their “zero to bitch in 2 seconds” T-shirts, and into their dental-floss thong bikinis for an afternoon of complaining to the girls at the beach how disgusing men are for staring at her near naked body.
Karl Marx & Freiderich Engels highly recommended to diminish the male role both in the family and in society to aid in bringing about totalitarianism. They felt society is easier manipulated through the female principle than the male principle… why is that?
Auguste Compte developed the Social Sciences, and developed a totalitarian system of how to create totalitarian rule through “soft science.” One of his foremost recomendations again, in order to bring about totalitarianism, is to diminish the male role in the family and society, and to lead through the female principle. Again, why is that?
In the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah are specifically noted as linguistically different from other cities, in that they were specifically the only two cities that were designated “female.” (Like how there is feminine and masculine in French). When one goes through ancient Hebrew, again, one will find that of the ancient demons discussed in religion, the worst were always portrayed as females.
Why did these ancient writers do that? Because of built in misogyny? Really? There could be NO other reason? It couldn’t be possible that there are also some deep and nasty aspects about the female psyche that made them very, very afraid?
Women have always been better off than men. It is a biological imperative, just as how children have always been better off than their parents. Always. They are today, and they were 5,000 years ago. Humanity does not function any other way.
During the fall of man from Paradise, and his subsequent curse, it is interesting to note that “Eve sinned because she was deceived,” but Adam, his sin was different. HE SINNED KNOWINGLY. Eve really didn’t understand that she was sinning. The Bible actually tells us how she used the relative truth to over-rule the absolute truth. (She saw the fruit was pleasing to the eye, was good for food, and was beneficial for gaining knowledge etc. etc.) But Adam, he saw Eve with the apple, and because she asked of him, he too took a bite of it – KNOWING THAT HE WAS DOING WRONG.
That is a big difference.
But aren’t we doing the same today?
And God cursed Adam in the following way, “BECAUSE YOU LISTENED TO YOUR WIFE and ate from the tree of which I commanded you…”
Why this “misogyny?”
Is God just another misogynist bastard? Feminists would have us believe so. Conservative Christian women somehow manage to convince men that God was “wrong.”
Quite frankly, if you look throughout history, you will find that women have never been able to empathize with men, while men have always empathized with women. (How do you think Potiphar’s wife knew she could get away with falsely accusing Joseph of rape if things were not in a similar fashion as they are today? In Judges 4:21, a woman kills her husband in his sleep by driving a tent peg through his head, just like Mary Winkler – these behaviours are not “new.”)
And so, women like DDC never ever tire of pointing out all of the short-comings of men. The fact that male suicides, while always a stereotypically male action, have skyrocketed since the advent of no-fault divorce and men’s vastly diminished role in society. That feminism and the policies that destroyed this role in the name of “women’s rights” is a concept that should be examined by any rational person – and yet, we don’t see this from the vast majority of women. They simply REFUSE to allow any discussion of them that doesn’t portray them as either angels or victims.
But, we all know that men and women are equal in sin, DON’T WE?
And, it is obvious that men and women have different ways of sinning.
One wonders how they do that.
Here is an excerpt of some research on the differences between male & female “aggression” – it is in regard to female children bullying other female children. Of course, there is no reference to female children bullying male children, nor of adult females using similar aggressive techniques against males (who would fund such studies?)… but, do you need a degree in rocket science to figure it out?
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Bullying styles are generally considered to fall under two categories, direct and indirect. Direct physical bullying is to, hit, shove, kick, trip, push, and pull. Direct verbal bullying can involve name-calling, insults, threatening to hurt the other. Indirect bullying, I>also known as social or relational aggression (Crick 1997) involves attacking the relationships of people and hurting the self-esteem. It is subtler and involves behaviours such as spreading nasty rumors, withholding friendships, ignoring, gossiping, or excluding a child from a small group of friends.
There is no doubt that stereotypically, males are more physical and direct in their bullying styles and females more manipulative and indirect (Olweus, 1997; Bjorkqvist, 1994; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist & Peltonen, 1988). Boys in our Western culture are encouraged to be tough and competitive and as they maturate slower and develop social intelligence at a slower rate they will use physical aggression longer than girls (Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, & Peltonen, 1988; Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, & Kauliaien, 1992). However there is no reason to believe that females should be less hostile and less prone to get into conflicts than males (Burbank, 1987, in Bjorkqvist 1994; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). As females are physically weaker, they develop early in life other bullying styles in order to achieve their goals. Indirect aggression in girls increases drastically at about the age of eleven years (Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz and Kaukiainen, 1992) whereas physical aggression among boys decreases during late adolescence, to be replaced mainly by verbal, but also indirect aggression (Bjorkqvist 1994).
There is a growing body of research in gender differences of bullying and other adolescent aggressive behaviours. There are hundreds of studies dedicated to the topic, many placing the emphasis on boys or the forms of aggression, more salient to boys. Forms of aggression more salient to girls has received comparatively little attention (Crick, 1997; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995).
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How come society only focuses on male aggression, while ignoring female aggression – and even worse, not even understanding how female aggression works? (It uses tactics like social shaming, attacking the self esteem, and often USING THIRD PARTIES TO DO THEIR DIRTY WORK).
How can we EVER achieve a balanced society when women flat out refuse to even let any of their shortcomings be discussed?
Of course men who need redress to their problems will start contemplating suicide if all they hear to their concerns is “man up,” and “stop whining,” and then topped of with sprinkles and screams of “MISOGYNIST!”
We certainly allow male shortcomings to be discussed, criminalized, punished, socially shamed, having advertisments expressing anger of them, have job opportunities disappear because of them… have children taken away because of them… and yet as unfair as these things are, NO MEN deny that some men have the capability to perpetrate these sins for real, whether he is really guilty of it or not.
Women, however, are simply not prepared to have their own dirty laundry examined.
Women are just as responsible for creating this society as men are. They have been since the very beginning. Even back when they were “oppressed” (but were really considered ‘more valuable’ than men back then too!).
The problem is that women flat out refuse to allow their own actions to be examined like men’s is examined everyday.
If they would, it would quickly become clear that women are quite as responsible for forming this society as men are – if not more so, since biologically, men are designed to give women exactly what they want in order to survive, and to ensure the survival of the children.
But, if women were just as responsible for society as men are, then women’s position throughout history would also be something they fully supported… and then that would mean they would have to give up the perpetual victim status.
And what would women do if they were no longer victims?
Sigh.
As is typical of Western Women, DDC blubbers out the typical Western Refrain: Women need sympathy, men need to be fixed.
Who could POSSIBLY have more of an effect on a man’s wellbeing than his emotional/sexual mate?
And yet, to women like DDC, examining the behaviour of the suicidal man’s spouse, or the way a man’s role has been diminished by hateful women for 4 decades, means that men are misogynists! Furthermore, they should “suck it up” because, ultimately, all the blame is on the man.
Small wonder an emotionally disturbed man blows his brains out, if DDC is the type of shrew his wife, or the women in his life, behaves like. Nothing like heaping the weight of the world onto a man’s shoulders who is already having a hard time standing because of the weight already there.
Atlas is shrugging… and it’s not just Obama’s tax policies he’s shrugging off.
DDC:-
If you would like an intellectual discourse on the effects of depression and how suicidal tendancies develop please read my posts and discuss.
Firstly – I am male
Secondly – It is irrational to blame suicides on women en mass. The actual reasons are many and varied.
Many of the comments here make me doubt that the commenter has any experience of talking with suicidal or depressed people.
Many people hide depression because of the stigma associated with it (regardless of gender).
Lastly – those people who are selfish and attention seeking tend to attempt suicide and call for help in some way. Those who do so because they are in emotional distress are much more likely to succeed.
PS Dr Helen – your article is well written and raises valid points. It is a pity the discourse is so vitriolic.
Fedders,
the sooner you realize the full extent of your hatred of women the sooner you’ll be open for help. Acceptance is half your battle.
Lol! Like I said, one wonders why women still think taunting men with unfounded charges of “misogyny” ought to have a shaming effect? No-one feels shame for dressing up their little girls in “Boys are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them” T-shirts – a call to physical violence against an innocent (a hate crime), and yet, men are supposed to feel stinging shame from being called a misogynist by a woman who simply refuses to acknowledge that women are equal to men in the realm of sin?
Fact is, suicides are up some 60% over the past 50 years.
Much of it can be directly attributed to the breakdown of people’s close relationships – namely, with their families – and, in a related fashion, their jobs. (Both family and job create identity).
We know that men are at significantly higher risk of committing suicide after a divorce. (When he has basically lost his family, everything what he owns, plus a large part of his identity). It is not just a small increase in risk either – it something like ten times greater risk.
So gee… it would only extend that, increasing the amount of divorce will lead to an increase in suicide.
Women file over 2/3 of divorces, the vast majority over the most frivolous of reasons, and this behaviour DIRECTLY leads to an increase in the suicide rates.
So, YES, women and feminism are “involved” in this – certainly from a greater societal aspect, in the same way that if everyone starts drinking and driving, it doesn’t mean that everyone will get into an accident, but I can GUARANTEE you that there will be more accidents if everyone is drunk than if everyone is sober.
And so it extends that children of divorced parents or children of single mothers themselves are at greater risk for suicide, statistically. Children of single mothers are at SIGNIFICANTLY greater risk of physical abuse, sexual abuse, juvenile delinquincy, teen pregnancy, and so on – and for EACH of these categories, you will also find an increase in suicide risk to these children – both in the present, and in the future when they are adults.
So again, men’s and women’s roles in the family and in society are DIRECTLY in the crosshairs of any legitimate discussion about suicide.
And yes, WOMEN are involved – at least as much as men – in being a cause of increased suicide rates.
And yet, we are unable to discuss it without the typical Western Woman to show up and start screeching “MISOGYNIST!”
It is just like Obama chastising father’s last Father’s Day for “abandoning their children” (when 70-90% are tossed from their homes by their wives) and on and on we go, passing laws against divorced men, openly criticizing men for all the shortcomings their children will face because of their failed marriage, and telling them to “man-up” – And then in the second breath, we go on to GLORIFY single mothers, and trip over ourselves to help them, and make it even EASIER to dismiss men from their children’s lives. And nary is it mentioned that single mothers themselves are contributing a great deal to the creation of a generation of feral street urchins. Oh no, it is not the glorified single mother’s fault – it is all the man’s fault. We are not permitted to speak in any other fashion.
And so it is with suicide.
Want to lower suicide rates? Strengthen men’s role in the family and in society.
That directly is going to challenge many of the assumptions that the feminist movement has shoved down society’s throats over the past decades – and women are gonna fight tooth and nail over every single aspect of it, claiming extreme victimhood the whole way along.
It’s the fact that so many women simply refuse to acknowledge that they play any role in society at all, and the results it produces, that starts to make men become misogynist. Keep that in mind, DDC. Misogynists are not born – they are made.
Hey, what does it matter anyway? We’ve only got about 30 or 40 years left anyways. It can be mathematically proven that our civilization cannot last any longer than that with our dwindling birthrates. Again, feminism and the destruction of the family has played an ENORMOUS role in this. Gee, maybe we coulda used them 40,000,000 aborted babies… and the offspring they also would have had by now.
Check it out (7 minute video on population):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWCWB3RwbO4
One wonders how much longer we ought to let women like DDC bludgeon us with PCness before we say “that’s enough” and start to really examine the issues with some common sense.
But, like I said, it seems quite obvious that women would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something.
DDC’s grandaughters will be wearing a Burka in their world of nothing.
And I’m sure that she will point out that it was all men’s fault.
There is no vitriol here. Nonsense hyperbole.
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Rob Fedders is brilliant (as am I). You, ddc et al, on the other hand are an over privileged self entitled dingbat.
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Democracy must be stopped, along with the jesus nonsense, so that the females can be stopped, along with stopping other forms of idiocy and delusion in general.
If that doesn’t happen, the neo cortex will become extinct. It is just a question of time.
no one pulls the trigger on a suicide but him or herself. Free will. It is sad but it is ultimately their choice. Help is readily available for those who want it. Men are too proud to seek help. Is that the fault of women or is it just a male thing? If this terrible feminism you blame for the downfall of mankind made men become more “sensitive” wouldn’t it stand to reason that man’s “macho/pride” would be a thing of the past and he would be more likely to seek help?
Sigh. The things the feminist movement achieved was to allow some thee right to vote, own property, get a fair wage…many of the same opportunities the Civil Rights movement achieved. Why begrudge any group from the things you enjoy?
Please see about getting the burqa and western women out of your head. It’ll never happen and the repeated mention of such shows a glaring need to be “in control” of another. If you need that in your life, convert and join the Taliban. They also fear and despise women.
You know, DDC, I am NOT going to allow you to have the last word. There have been enough times when men have taken the high-road, and written off women insisting on getting the last word as immature and not worth the trouble. Perhaps if those men had not been so weak willed, we would not have to deal with spiteful, hateful shrews like you, nor the manginas who rush to your defence without justification.
No-one is being a misogynist for demanding that women accept equal responsibility for our social system in this “day of equality.” In fact, the very arguments you use to excoriate men for all of society’s ills, while refusing to acknowledge that women are equal participants in this circus show, indeed, shows that the old misogynists were correct when they identified women as “the most responsible teenager in the house.”
The fact is, you want all the glory without any of the sweat.
Western men don’t need to be identified with the Taliban by some spiteful shrew.
We are not the Taliban.
We are simply pointing out that with TRILLIONS of dollars added to the national debt, while living in a society that has only 1.6 births per couple, means that sooner or later CAPITALISM WILL FAIL – and so will all of the great freedoms it affords us. Again, this is just math, lady, not misogyny. If 10 people collectively borrow 1,000,000, that puts each of them on the hook for $100,000. If half of them die without any replacements, then 5 people will be on the hook for $200,000 each. Why does it have to be rocket science for you to understand that under this model, increasing debts into the TRILLIONS with a first ever DECREASING populations, virtually ensures the END OF CAPITALISM!
And of course, it will all be men’s fault.
In fact, the men who point it out are just as bad as the Taliban/Islamist who are reproducing at 8.1 children per couple but are INVITED HERE TO HELP PAY OFF OUR UNSTAINABLE DEBTS!
Keep your head in the sand, DDC.
There is scholarly study out there called “Sex and Culture” which documents over 80 cultures who have risen and fallen throughout history. A consistent finding in all 80 cultures was that they started out heavily misogynist, and as they matured granted women more and more rights, until societies (like Babylon) were granting women no-fault divorce, custody rights, alimony and child support… sexuality then became out of control, and soon after, the civilization collapsed… OVER EIGHTY TIMES IN HISTORY! And then society reset itself back into a misogynist fashion.
And yet, we are “misogynist” for pointing this out.
And other men will come by with their soft penises in their hands, telling the world how much they believe in “women’s rights.” And then, as in the case of all the previous 80 cultures, society collapses because it is unstainable, either to be overtaken by a more misogynist culture, or that there is no other option for women but to choose to scrub the floor of a man’s cabin in order to recieve the basic necessities of life.
We humans have a built in “lemming feature.” Granted, it can take centuries to play out, but make no mistake, it is there!
Go blow it out your ass, Amazon Psycho.
No-one has to tolerate your filthy crap as you try to mirror image THE most female friendly males on earth with the enemy Taliban.
You are sick.
And I will not allow you the last word.
By the way,
Landless men held the vote for a mere FIFTY YEARS while women did not, and yet, you women have been bitching at men about this for for NINETY YEARS! Isn’t it time to STFU about this ill informed issue?
The United States is NOT supposed to be a universal democracy in the first place. Not for men OR women. It is supposed to be a Republic. Maybe you should spend a bit more time reading and little less time talking.
Furthermore, the United Kingdom was THE most influential nation at that time, and in the UK, women who owned property could vote – although, sometimes they were forced to vote by proxy – but the argument was that since women paid taxes on that property, they ought to have a vote in where that tax money went. MEN supported this wholeheartedly. I doubt they would have had they known the plethoras of ungrateful “you’s” that were to pop up.
And furthermore, the FACT that only men were called upon to die in defence of their country SURELY ought to negate the glories of being the gender of who got to choose which enemy would put a bullet between your eyes. In those days, all the government really controlled was the military and the mail anyways. How horrible of men, to not allow women the right to dictate how MEN should die… oh, and the price of a stamp.
Second of all, and as I have already stated, women COULD own property. Please quit trying to sway the argument with blatant ignorance.
What women could not do was secure a loan without an income – exactly as are the banking practices of the modern day. In fact, today, we are similarly as sexist in that we rarely allow a woman OR man take out a loan without the other spouse also signing on the loan – for the reason that in divorce, after the settlements, if the main breadwinner is not on the loan, then he/she might RIGHTFULLY ignore things like car payments in the event of divorce when the property gets assigned to the other person. So, get your damn fact straight before you embrace bigotry.
Thirdly, the “fair wage” argument has been proven to be false so many times over that all it now proves is that you are a female supremacist desperately grasping at straws.
Men don’t have to take your trumped up bullshit, and I, for one, refuse to do so anymore.
fedders,
You are completely unhinged. Enough said. My last word.
Mr. H
Your second para was refreshing. Intellectual debate on such a topic is a welcomed change.
I have hAd experience with suicide, most recently my younger brother, late 30′s It was over a breakup. The long and short of it: we live on opposite coasts so he came to stay with us for 2 week intervals every other month. In the span of a year, my husband and I allowed him to talk, cry, vent angryly, threaten to kill himself. At the time, I’d read a book on depression, what it suggested was that the cycle to recovery is similar to that of the mourning process. In no specific order; bargaining, acceptance, anger(the need to blame), which he did with considerable hatred. I watched and listened, held him and tried to help. He eventually took a leave of absence from work and sought therapy. We spoke every day. In that year, he transformed remarkably. He went from hopeless, to accepting his part in the choice he made in choosing this person who cheated on him. What he found out about himself is something he acknowledges daily with the new person in his life. Through watching and listening, I saw him go from a destructive man bent on revenge to a seriously better version of himself. He no longer speaks about his ex with vengence and has even concidered one day speaking to her as a friend. He did not get stuck in the cycle of hate and I am forever grateful and proud of him for wanting to feel better about himself…And his therapist (and anti-depressants he was on for 6 months). He had to change. He went from a person who jumped immediately into relationships based on sexual attraction and his need to control to his present one in which they began as friends which blossomed into love and trust
. His is a success story.
What I got from our talks is the process the therapist took with him. The most important being that which made him look inside (later on in the course of the year) to see where HE could improve himself and thereby chances for happiness. Our choices reflect in everything we do, we simply have to understand why we make them.
Russ was determined to feel better and never once scoffed at the idea of asking for help. It’ all about our own choices in life.
Well, I told you I wouldn’t give you the last word.
Is all that you can do is insult me for being misogynist?
Not one sane argument against the plethora of valid arguments I have put forth?
Only insults of misogyny and refusual of women to take ANY responsibility for the condition of society?
How egalitarian you present yourself to be.
You are a hypocrite and a supremacist. No man should have tolerate BS from women like you in society – and especially we should not have to defend against charges of what some OTHER men did 100 or 1,000 years ago, and nor do we men in the West have to defend against accusations of the actions of men in the Middle East. For you to try and insinaute that it is valid to try and guilt men with these ridiculous notions, shows that indeed, you are a small minded person with absolutely ZERO empathy for men. Women like you ought to have zero say in how men are treated in society.
Meow.
DDC,
You are a bitter old woman who can’t stand the idea that men are people too.
DDC:
What your younger brother is likely to have suffered is
depression following a life stressor. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page that describes the current thinking on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjustment_disorder#Subtypes_.28DSM-IV.29
Not sure I agree with all of it but its what came up when I googled the symptoms.
Your brother was lucky that he had you & your spouse to talk to & was able to afford to visit a therapist.
Having seen first hand the effect that a stressor can have on someone and you can see that it can be worked through to a happy conclusion.
Would you agree that without the input from both family and professonal sources the likely outcome wouldn’t have been the same?
If so can you see that the loss of a job is often the worst sort of stressor – as there is no money for a therapist and most everyone around the sufferer is also anxious and wants them to keep their eye on the ball of getting a new job – rather than dealing with their depression?
It is difficult to see an obvious solution – but I would appreciate your thoughts on how this could be addressed?
ddc said in post 140:
no one pulls the trigger on a suicide but him or herself. Free will. It is sad but it is ultimately their choice. Help is readily available for those who want it. Men are too proud to seek help.
ddc, is it not possible that a suicide may really be a….homicide? I have read many news articles of people “taking their own lives” but the only witness was what we now call and intimate partner. I have long noticed that if a man dies in this way, authorities are quick to rule it a ‘suicide” but if it is a woman, they look for reasons to call it a homicide. Why the double standard? In fact, many of the so called natural deaths of men are in fact murder. I believe there are a lot more “Black Widows” then most of us realize.
As to sucide, which goes along with the above, one of our female leaders in Shattered Men had been talking to her pastor about speaking out on domestic abuse and reminding him that men are abused as often as are women. After several months, one of the elders in her church approached her and asked if it were true that she helped men who were in abusive relationships. She talked with this man for several hours and he stated that he knew of several men in this church who were being abused. (Perhaps a dozen) and he left with plans on meeting with her and several of these men. Later that week, she was told that he took his own life. WHY? He now had hope, he found someone that would believe him (and Shattered Men has kept about 3 dozen from suicide simply because we listened to them and believed them) Why would he suddenly take his own life? Personally, I believe there is a much better chance he was murdered to silence him.
Suicide is done at last resort. It is done by those who feel hopeless and have nothing to look forward to. It is often done when one has been abused and often verbally so. I know of several who have been encouraged to take their own life with things like being told it would be the only good thing they would do in their life. I wonder how many are told they are worthless too often before they actually do it. NO my friend…sometimes I think people are driven to suicide and I doubt that those who do drive others to suicide will have any regret, they are beyond conscience because often they are told that they are the victim, not the one they were abusing for so long.
ddc: Sigh. The things the feminist movement achieved was to allow some thee right to vote, own property, get a fair wage…many of the same opportunities the Civil Rights movement achieved. Why begrudge any group from the things you enjoy?
Can you tell me why the same feminist who tell us women can do anything a man can do (and often as they add “only better” with a grin on their face) have to have affirmative actions in every area to do all these things? If they do not have affirmative action, they demand lower standards for things such as female fire fighters and police officers.
Can you tell me why Congress currently spends approx. $1 billion (!) annually on domestic violence programs, and the recent economic stimulus bill just added another $325 million. Additionally, domestic violence programs often receive sizeable private donations as well as state and local funding.
RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) reports that Congressional spending this year works out to approximately $2,948 per female domestic violence victim. (http://www.mediarad ar.org/alert2009 0420.php)
The 2010 demand for a funding increase amounts to an additional $623 per female domestic violence victim every year. Meanwhile, federal funding for male victims is negligible.
Can you tell me why only feminist were allowed to help these domestic abuse laws? This would be like asking only the KKK to write racial relation laws.
Can you tell me why the National Organization of Women and other feminist groups fought tooth and nail to keep the VAWA with the “W” and not have a family violence act which would protect all victims of abuse as they have their parades often with tax payer money with their signs “Stop violence to WOMEN” instead of “Stop Violence!
Can you tell me why feminist have a war on fathers and want to drive them out of their homes as they almost worship single motherhood in spite of all of the damage it causes to both our boys and girls.
And to bring this back to Dr. Helen’s message here about suicide, we do know that more men take their own lives after a divorce and the feminist actually brag about this saying men are weak…BUT it is not the breakup with his wife that drives these men to suicide…it is the fact that many of them have their children STOLEN from them with false accusations of abuse that drives them to it.
Read this to get an idea of how it feels to have your children stolen from you:
http://shatterdmen.com/Fire.htm
Mr. H,
There are any numbers of suicide hotlines a man, woman or child can call free of charge, if they are contemplating suicide and would rather not tell a family/friend about what they are experiencing. The issue seems to be one of two things: the will to seek help, and the knowledge that one does, in fact, NEED help.
For those who haven’t the funds and no not mind speaking to actual people far to face, there are many group meetings also, many which charge nothing at all.
Another quick personal acct. Leading me to believe that the way men treT each other contibutes to this feeling of “men don’t show feeling.” coaches, at the mr. High and HS level berate boys on the field. As a mother of 2 sons we e perienced this first hand. “be a man, suck it up, etc” my husband went balistic on one such coach. Boys are competitive by nature. When a male figurenthey look up to berated their ability to compete at an early age this is harmful. Obviously he can’t take him on, he’s bigger. Men do to men also what women are being accused of. And it happens much earlier in life. Yet a man will hardly
acknowledge such. Another recent instance, our 8 year old nephew, on the way back from the beach talked to us about his football coach. He had fallen hard on his elbow and started to cry during on game and sure enough the. Coach had told him to stop crying “guys don’t cry” I told him that he should never allow anyone to tell him not to cry when he was in pain.
The fault lay with the way a young boy is nurtured by those he is influenced by. Dad, mother, teachers, coaches, grandparents and friends. If a man has come unglued to the point of suicide as a husband chances are the seeds were planted years prior. The largest segment of suicides as not middle-aged divorced or unemplyed men, it is boys teenage to 20′s and elderly men. Any stats on Suicides will verify those facts.
Gee, and suicides have risen 60% since the 1960′s… and yet, older men have been toughening up the younger men & boys for thousands of years, with no adverse affect on the suicide rate. What significant changes have happened since the 1960′s? (Also, certainly any techniques for dealing with suicide in the past decades ought to be scrapped, as they are obviously functional failures if the divorce rates INCREASE.)
This is just like trying to show that teenage crime really took off in the early 1980′s – the first generation of post Roe vs. Wade kids hit puberty… and of course we are not supposed to blame it on boys living with single/divorced mothers… even though it is the leading indicator of a criminal record.
Men’s role in education has been attacked, men’s role in the family has been attacked, and men’s role in the workplace has been attacked – and the biggest alterations that have occurred in all these areas have been at the hands of the screeching feminists… and you blame-deniers yourselves admit that a person’s role in their family, their job and society is a leading contributor to suicide. DDC’s own brother was set off by an ending relationship. Why does the phrase “forest for the trees” come to mind?
No matter how hard you want to believe otherwise, in the end, you will always come to the same underlying causes as to why the suicide rates have increased so much – same as the increased crime and violence rates. The root cause is the upheaval and complete ignorance (or not) of the feminist movement. How can one ever look to solve a problem when one ignores such a glaring contributor? In the same way, our educators refuse to look at boy’s problems in education as having anything to do with how feminism has restructured our schools. They will come up with hundreds of excuses, but one they will never examine is the massive changes they made AGAINST boys in the name of feminism.
Men have heard “look in the mirror” for long enough. It is not unreasonable for them to ask others to check in the mirror too.
Oops – sorry, I said post Roe vs. Wade in my post, and I meant “No Fault Divorce”. Too many society crashing changes too keep straight.
Very interesting website written by a man for men (and women) about men and suicide/depression/male menopause/irritable male syndrome/the future of men.
http://www.menalive.com
Another good one, Rob. (131).
But it won’t work.
DDC:
You seem to have the combination of being absolutely clueless about the pressures on men or what it’s like to be a man … and a very strong know-it-all attitude.
That’s not good.
#155,
There are pressures on both men and women, we both deal with these pressures differently. One, due to biology – how we’re wired. And two, how society has told us how to see ourselves as men and as women.
Yes, the world is changing, evolution happens just as it has from day one. If we don’t adapt where does that live us? Revert back surely isn’t the answer. One has only to look at strict patriarcal societies to see each one is embroiled in strife and war from Africa, to the middle east to Latin America. In countries where women have equality eg., western Europe, North America there is an interesting absence of war/brutal ideology.
To blame women en masse for men’s problems isn’t the solution. Men do need help. They need help understanding themselves, that they go through menopause just like women, that testosterone levels rising and falling create a real problem for me that women have nothing to do with.
These are real physical things that occur in men. Rather than lashing out against women which is totally counterproductive step backward, men would be better served to really research why they feel the way they do. A large part of it, as I have been researching, is hormonal. A relatively new concept that may not be widely known OR accepted by the average man. The more you know…
Christianity and democracy must be stopped.
Then Eugenics –ie testing in childhood and sterilization– must be imposed. (Test(s) should look for intellect, health and sanity. Medical technology can be used to make one better prepared to ‘pass’ the test(s).)
If not the neo-cortex becomes extinct.
Simple.
The website assumes men are/have the problem and should thus change in order to ‘save their relationships’.
That is purely an opinion.
And in this day and age and society –given what it is regarding politics and gender– it is ‘prejudiced’ and oppressive. (Nobody would tolerate the reverse diagnosis: “women bad to men, should thus change”.)
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Number two. “Adaption” and “Evolution”
Nothing “adapts”. That is not the way evolution works.
Natural selection is the way “evolution” works and it aint pretty. (There are other complexity system too–none of them are touchy feel-y either.)
“Adaption” is classic liberal wordplay to trick people away from the truth of how “evolution” works, because liberals don’t like the facts as much as christers don’t.
When creatures ‘evolve’ from one form to another, what happens is environments change and consequently most pups die/drown, while some freaks/runts who normally didn’t thrive go on to be the new top dog strains of that new niche.
_And no utopias happen in the offing._ Amphibians are every bit as cruel as the deep blue past was; As Romans were every bit a deadly as cromags; …as the lingering cavalry fort [ie the city] is every bit as deadly and oppressive as the Indians were.
So if society is “evolving”, no one is magical adpating. We are simply creating a world hostile to certain types (ie killing strains that don’t fit anymore) so that other types can thrive. The sewer, of have-n-have-not brutallity, that are the cities is the new ‘utopia’.
Welcomme to what liberlaism’s progress really means.
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And note that I don’t care what your professors or pastors think: they are wrong and should be in political reeducation camps. So don’t post some nonsense response about how “they aint got no profes for ebolution –and give me back my stems!”
You conservatives –ie natural born dunces– need to get your heads out of the philososphical and pyschological hole you hide in.
As an exercise towards that end, stop fighting liberalism’s wars for it. You dunce conservatives are doing it to yourselves again right now as I type (cause you’re stubborn) –fighting to marginalize your ethos and strengthen your master /enemy.
Keep up the good work, this site is amazing