July - The hidden lover: what women need to know that men cant tell them

Table of Contents

DEDICATED TO LOVERS the worlds destiny is in our hands

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; thenI shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:12

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First I thank God for flowing creative inspiration through my soul.

To my wife, Jamey, the muse God put into my life: Thank you for keeping me inspired when Im tired and ready to move to the moon. Truly the woman Solomon spoke of in the book of Proverbs,... more precious than rubies.

Thanks to some of the musicians who oiled my thoughts as they streamed through my mind while writing: Azymuth, for their Brazilian-flavored jazz, the incomparable Steely Dan, Al Jarreaus voical magic, and the late great Grover Washington, Jr.smoothest of the smooth. It will be another millennium before someone else like Mr. Magic comes along.

More thanks than I can express goes to my mother and father for programming me for success as a child with love, respect and room to grow; and a good no when necessary.

A shout out to all of the kids Ive taught in the Writers in the Schools Program. I love you all and youve made me very proud!

A big thanks to audiences nationwide at colleges, churches and events whove come out to listen and interact with me at the discussions and lectures.

Thanks to every person who has bought my books. Thank you for keeping me in print! I also thank the bookstores who keep me on the shelves year round.

I cant say enough good things about my editor, the one and only Janet Hill. Truly an original. I believe they broke the mold when they made her. Also a huge thanks to Toisan Craigg and Roberta Spivak, who both invested many hours of hard work into shaping this book. Many, many thanks to my publicity machine, especially Erin Curtin. I also extend a sincere thanks to the many individuals at Doubleday Ive never met who make my books successfulthe copy editors, people in the mailroom, marketing, the sales force, the legal department, the royalties department and everyone else behind the scenes in taking a book from the thought in my head to bookshelves.

INTRODUCTION

Ive devoted a lot of time and energy to the subject of relationships because Im fascinated by the dynamics that seem to pull us in and out of one anothers lives. That fascination didnt begin as a carefree hobby, but rather as a quest to discover what relationships meant to me as I constantly went in and out of them. Those thoughts and reflections then grew into written expressions from my heart, which eventually became the books I now write.

In discovering the lover within, I also discovered many things about myself as a man and what we perceive to be manhood in America. Many of the masculine traits we celebrate are indeed admirable and important, such as decisiveness, single-minded focus, determination, independence and strength. On the other hand, when these traits are taken to the extreme and become hyper-masculine distortions, they become self-destructive. When a man becomes hyper masculine, he begins to rot away inside, a process which manifests itself through broken relationships, addictions or overly aggressive behavior. Thinking on these things and talking at length with other men, I began to see how such distortions of manhood work to ruin our relationships with women. Those observations led to my previous book, Understanding the TinMan: Why So Many Men Avoid Intimacy.

Upon completing Understanding the Tin Man, I felt there was another dimension to the issue that needed to be discussed at length. There is another type of man similar to the tin man who actually operates exclusively within relationships. Like the tin man, he has problems with intimacy. But unlike the tin man, this man, the hidden lover, has a different dilemma with intimacy. He isnt avoiding intimacy like the tin man. The hidden lover feels drawn toward intimacy but has trouble making the connection because he feels blocked when it comes to expressing what he feels inside.

Thats why this book was written. There are many things that men havent said to women about how they feel. Most men, despite their stoic exterior, have a full range of feelings operating under the hood. They have passionate feelings and emotions that they may not be expressing to women because they arent yet comfortable doing so. This book aims to bring some of those issues to the surface.

Bringing those issues to the surface wasnt easy. In doing my research for this book, I encountered hundreds of women who were more than willing to share their opinions, anecdotes and experiences in relationships. But men, the subject of the book, werent so forthcoming. In fact, sometimes I felt like Indiana Jones when I was trying to find men who would speak up about the things they wanted women to know. I should clarify that it wasnt difficult to get men to complain about things. But to get men to go to the next level and talk about the fears and vulnerabilities behind those complaints was a different thing altogether.

In an odd way, it was actually funny sometimes. One moment a guy would be brash, outspoken and strongly opinionated. But when I tried to go from general generic issues into more personal subjects, hed freeze. Getting men to talk about their fears and vulnerabilities in relationships can be like pulling teeth.

On the other hand, there were men who had long been looking for an opportunity to talk about the issues that most affect them emotionally. Those men found my probing to be a release because they wanted to talk about these things. These men had pent-up feelings and emotions to vent, so for them just getting a listening ear was soothing. Thats the goal of this book. I want men to get an opportunity to expose their most guarded feelings to women in a safe environment. In turn, I want women to hear some of the fears and vulnerabilities of men without all of the emotions that are usually erupting when a mans feelings finally surface.

My hope is that reading this book will lead men and women into dialogues of their own at the breakfast table or in the bedroomwherever their discussion needs to take place. To that end, I invite you not only to read this book but also to try the self-exploratory journal exercises at the end of each chapter. I hope youll find this book a catalyst for your own conversations in helping you reach more fullfillment in your relationships and personal life.

CHAPTER 1

REAL LOVER OR HIDDEN LOVER

Which One Is He?

Lover. It must be one of the most misunderstood and abused words in the English language. Often we take the meaning of lover to be only romantic or sexual. But lets take a new look at the word lover. When we do so, we discover that hidden within that word is a new meaning that we can apply to our relationships to make them better.

First, lets look at the word love as defined by Websters dictionary:

Lovea profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. An intense personal attachment or affection.

Lovea devoted attachment or passionate affection for another person.

Note, the word sex is nowhere to be found in this definition of the word love.

Now lets look at the definition of the suffix er as defined by the American Heritage dictionary*:

-erone that performs a specified action.

Combining the word love with the suffix er, we get the true definition of the word lover. To paraphrase,