Identify what it is you need to step up in your life.

Readership: Men
Theme: Giving the gift of yourself to others.
Author’s Note: This post expands a brief list of pointers for developing masculinity that I gave as a comment.
Length: 1,100 words
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Masculine Effectiveness

To be effective, a man needs to have a purpose, a social framework in which to operate, and the right attitude.

Purpose is unique to each man, as is the social framework he engages in. As for attitude, I’ll recount some major points here.

You will need to be honest and humble enough about yourself to see what you can do to make yourself better, and not in some generic way, but in a way that furthers your purpose and increases your chances of getting what you want from life. For example, if you want to be a doctor but have bad MCAT scores, then you know the area you need to improve.

Since we are addressing marriage and relationships, we have to accept that femininity is attracted to masculinity. It’s the way we are made. So if a man expects to have a wife and family, he needs to be developing a masculine attitude and masculine traits in himself.

Depending a man’s self-assessment of where he is and where he wants to be, there could be multiple specific areas to work on.

The issue that I have is that it is hard to quantify what masculinity is succinctly in principle. It’s also difficult to identify which of those traits I am lacking and need to work on.

There are many attributes of masculinity that we have discussed on this forum, such as outcome independence, and it may be that looking at attributes or examples is the best way to attempt to communicate the concept in the comment section. So in these next two case studies, I’ll recount two areas that I’ve found to be crucial.

img-1783684452-6a50dd64b13e08.42694086.jpgClint Eastwood and Eduardo Minett star in Cry Macho (2021).

Case Study 1 — Conquering the fear of others’ opinions

For me, and for Mike Davis who recommended the book to me, Robert Glover’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy” was helpful. Specifically, getting over fear/worry/anxiety about the way people would react (AKA outcome independence) if I said what was on my mind or did what I really wanted to do. Overcoming this fear was a big hurdle for me. There are still times when I get that anxious feeling in my gut and once in a while, I’ll still revert to past tendencies, but I’ve made progress in this area and will continue to push myself here, as it has been one of the most important changes for me personally and professionally. That one little change in my behavior makes me appear more confident to people, along with the internal relief I get from not keeping things bottled up. It’s applicable to all my relationships, not just my marriage.

This is one example of an area I needed to work on, and continue to work on, to better exercise dominion over the area of the world God gave me to manage. Other areas I have a better handle on and so I maintain those, while there are still aspects of myself I know need further improvement. It should be noted that discernment allows a man to be aware of these things and thus, permit opportunities to improve upon them.

Case Study 2 — Having faith in yourself

Lastmod provided a good example of masculine traits in a comment under another post. Here, he mentioned coming up with and presenting a new idea or ways to improve the way property management is done at his place of work. He had the idea, he developed it, and he presented it to people at work. There are aspects of creativity/creation and improvement that tend to be masculine traits, but what I pick up on is what it took on the inside to make the presentation happen. There was always the possibility that his proposal could be rejected, but it was presented nonetheless. Many would brush this off as a simple work project, but the same concepts of taking risk, believing in something enough to try to implement it, and not letting the fear of criticism and rejection stop him from doing what you think is best, are at the core of masculinity.

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Effects of Masculinity in Marriage

From a Christian standpoint, a man must understand how the Bible sets up the authority hierarchy in marriage. The authority belongs to the husband because the responsibility for the family is ultimately his, and God will hold him accountable for what he does with what He gave him (wife, children, assets, etc.). This is Headship.

  1. The first step in enforcing Headship is to act like you have the authority in marriage that God gave you, because you do. If a boss tells you what to do, or if you tell a subordinate what to do, there is an expectation that it will get done. This calm expectation that your instructions will be followed is the mindset and attitude that reinforces authority. Adopting and putting this mindset into action is the first step, and this works with most basic instructions for what you want done.
  2. Many men desire emotional intimacy with their wives, but find this difficult to achieve. Masculinity allows a man to be much more open with his wife, because those boundaries and her confidence that he’ll hold them means she can see intimate details of his life without inverting Headship.
  3. Acting masculine allows tenderness towards your wife.  This is due to the boundaries exercised by a man who is secure in himself.  She respects those boundaries or she knows he’ll act to defend them and what those actions will be.  A man cannot go back on his word regarding these so they must be set very carefully.
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Epilogue

To sum this up, whether you are a single, dating, or married man you still need to have a vision for what you want in life. You don’t need church, work, or to be some leader of men to get started on this, but you can expect greater authority in these areas to come along in due process. Focusing on those areas of masculine characteristics where self-improvement will further your efforts to get what you want out of life has dual benefits. You’ll get more of what you want, and in improving yourself, you’ll increase your attractiveness to women (if that’s part of your plan). It’s not fool proof, but it certainly improves the odds.

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