Strong Men Celebrate Strong Women

("Eleanor" is a composite of several young women and their experiences. I have chosen to write to a composite person rather than a particular individual to protect privacy. Nevertheless, all information in the following is based on fact.)


Eleanor:

First, I want to thank you for the hospitality you provided Diana and me earlier this month.

The more important purpose of this letter is to offer you something you have not requested: advice on your love life.

I will summarize, in the event you do not have time to read all that is below. Only a man of inner strength will be interested in you as a life partner.I encourage you to look for strong men in the places you are most likely to find them: where other strong women are also present. This subject has, for you, religious implications, and I realize that faith is a private matter. Perhaps I am intruding in an unwelcome way. If so, I trust you will ignore what I say here, and continue to see me as a friend.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Our visit with you earlier this month marked the first time we had seen one another since I retired and moved back to Virginia, and you finished at the University Of Illinois and moved to Charlotte. You have accomplished amazing things in these few years; two major promotions, much international travel, and almost infinite possibilities for continued advancement! You have demonstrated that your skills are wide-ranging. We applaud the way you have decorated your new condominium. Hearty congratulations accompany this letter!

 Thanks, also, for trusting us enough to share your major frustration: your inability, thus far, to find a lasting, romantic interest. A home, husband, and children are part of your life dream, and without these the remainder offer decreasing satisfactions.

I was especially interested in your description of the “near misses” you have encountered. You have briefly dated at least three young men who were caring and competent. You met all three at your local church. Each seemed interested, then disappeared without explanation.

As you described your dating frustrations, you made an off-hand remark thatinvites further exploration. “Maybe I intimidate guys,” you said. Then you related the story of a young man who seemed interested in you until he insisted you tell him how much money you earn. He mumbled that your salary was half again as much as his and never called for another date. Perhaps you do frighten some men with your success. I hate to acknowledge that possibility, for it is a sad commentary on half of humanity (my half!). Yet, the fragility of many male egos is a reality. This letter is an effort to probe some reasons why this is so.

You noted that most of your dating begins in your local church. And what a church it is! You recall the time we shared at Community Church in Illinois, when a good Sunday was one in which two-thirds of our sanctuary (seating capacity of about 250) was filled. Your church meets in a converted warehouse that accommodates over five hundred, and it is filled twice each Sabbath. The congregation, as I observed it, was predominately young families with well-scrubbed children. Sprinkled in was a generous number of singles, both male and female. In a burst of honesty, you acknowledged that those single men were more important in your choice of that church than its conservative theology.

I have done some research on your congregation since returning home. While they advertise themselves as non-denominational, they are associated with several other mega-churches in other, mostly southern, cities. The governing body of this group is made up of twelve men (their Constitution insists that only males may govern). The governing board is self-perpetuating. When one member leaves, the remaining members choose the person who will fill the vacancy. Church members never have a chance to choose their leadership. They are not consulted about the style of worship, and certainly not about matters of theology. How different this is from Community Church, where the Board of Deacons, elected by the congregation (and usually at least fifty percent female) had a voice in every major change in the service of worship. How different from our campus ministry, where Karen, the campus pastor, insisted you students take responsibility for your spiritual growth.

I noted, when we attended worship with you, that one woman sang with the small ensemble that provided music, and another gave the announcements. No woman offered what I would define as leadership of worship.

Your congregation is not associated with the Southern Baptists, but its theology is similar to theirs. Your local church seems to be putting into practice the Baptist’s recent proclamation that men are to be in charge both at home and at church, and women are to be “graciously submissive.”

The question, then, is this: what kind of young, single man is likely to be found in such a church? The answer (and I hope this does not sound unkind) is that most of the eligible men who choose such a congregation are, consciously or unconsciously, looking for a Stepford wife. They are seeking institutional support for their desire to be an alpha male. They meet you, and discover quickly that you are not likely to be any man’s robotic servant. This mismatch may help explain your aborted relationships.

My experience in pre-marriage counseling might be helpful to you. Over several decades I insisted that any couple whose wedding I performed take a personality inventory, one prepared by a respected psychological testing company. This inventory measured, among other things, an individual’s tendency to be either dominant or submissive.

Administering and interpreting this inventory taught me something about myself. I had absorbed the cultural norm that men are supposed to be dominant. Having heard many snide comments about “hen-pecked husbands", I found it difficult, at first, to say to a prospective groom, “Your dominance score is lower than the woman’s you are about to marry.” Indeed, in a very few instances, a man angrily resisted this idea.

In a surprising number of cases, however, I discovered that a man was entirely comfortable with evidence of his submissiveness. Often these were males who had grown up with strong mothers and sisters. These men were fully competent individuals with clear goals. They wanted to be consulted about decisions affecting their lives, but were pleased to have the final power for the details of those decisions in other hands.

I began to see,that these men were submissive, but not weak. Their lack of desire to make decisions for others existed independently of a healthy ego. Their strength arose from the fact that they were fully comfortable with themselves. They wanted to put their energy into goals of their own design—professional or relational. They saw no need to meet a societal norm of male dominance, and to expend energy trying to be in charge, since being in charge was not, for them, a priority.

I learned to formulate some new, more precise, categories for men. The first of these is the one I have just been describing: submissive/strong. I began to sense in many "submissive" men an admirable ego strength. Submissive/strong men tended to have clear goals, and in relation to these goals could be surprisingly assertive. The ones I saw wanted strong marriages, and would expend whatever energy was needed to achieve that goal; yet they were pleased when their fiancées were willing to work out the details of how a marriage should be constructed.

Strong women sometimes turn away from submissive/strong men, because they assume, at first glance, that the men are inadequate. Wise strong women take a second look.

A second category of men is submissive/weak. These are the persons who fulfill, and help perpetuate, the societal view of submissive men as non-assertive and easily overpowered by others. Low in self-confidence, lacking in willpower, submissive/weak men wait for someone (usually a mother or wife) to take charge of their lives. You are too young to remember a comic page character named Casper Milquetoast, drawn by Harold Webster. As his name implied, Casper Milquetoast invited others to take advantage of his lack of assertiveness. Webster helped us laugh at the bit of Milquetoast in all of us. But when Casper Milquetoast takes over an entire personality, the result is anything but funny. For you, he is a real danger. When Casper recognizes your competence, he will want to latch on to you. He wants to use your strength, not love you. Avoid this type of man.

You can see by now where this is going, but I am on a roll, and will complete the cycle. A third category of men is dominant/strong.These men possess the psychic strength to push others aside in pursuit of deeply felt goals. Occasionally, they do just that. Interestingly, however, dominance for its own sake is, for them, seldom a central aim. . Being in charge is a comfortable condition, but is not a role to which they feel driven. Their self-confidence tends to be high. They believe they make good decisions, and expect others to recognize that fact. The more mature of the dominant/strong males I encountered were aware that they occasionally made mistakes. Thus they related easily to other strong individuals, male or female, and welcomed their input. Relating to another strong individual put a restraint on their tendency to bully and offered a corrective to any errors. Since they do not fear being anyone else’s doormat, they easily embrace the idea of having a strong woman as their life partner. The healthiest of these men were averse to female submission. They even welcomed an occasional clash with their fiancées, knowing that out of that conflict could come decisions with which both could live. The woman who marries a dominant/strong male may not have the last word in most disputes, but her opinions, if she voices them effectively, will be heard with respect.

Which brings us to the fourth category, one I hope you will note with special care: dominant/weak. These men seem to be in charge of the women in their lives. They bark orders, often in a disagreeable manner. They have absorbed the notion that they, because they have XY chromosomes, should make all basic decisions. Yet they have few experiences that could train them for dominance. They try to fulfill a role that is foreign to them. Of such ingredients, tyrants are made. Bombast covers their lack of self-confidence and masks their feelings of powerlessness. These men might date a strong woman to test whether she can be controlled. Eventually, they avoid relationships with women who can call their bluff. Most of the dominant/weak men with whom I worked in pre-marriage counseling were members of local conservative congregations where they found institutional support for their desire to be in control. I sincerely hope you will learn to recognize dominant/weak men, and when you encounter one, to run for your life. I mean that literally.

I write this to you in hopes that you might avoid a mistake I made through much of my early adulthood. I confused dominance with strength, and submission with weakness. You want a strong man in your life, so you worship in a church that talks about and practices an outward style of patriarchy. The result of so much religious talk of male dominance is, I fear, counterproductive. The single men who are attracted to your congregation are likely to be those who are seeking theological compensation for feelings of inadequacy in a role for which they are unprepared.

Here are two characteristics of genuinely strong men that I came to recognize in preparing couples for marriage. First, they are comfortable in their own skins. They accept themselves. Some are dominant by nature, others are submissive by nature. Their strength is in their ability to live in ways for which they are suited, rather than feeling driven to fulfill a societal (or religious) role that is foreign to them.

Second, and more important to you, strong men celebrate the strengths of their wives and daughters. A man of genuine strength who finds that your income exceeds his will raise a toast to you, not seek an early exit. He measures himself by his own lights, and not by comparing himself to you. The kind of man you are seeking knows that ego strength is not a zero sum game—if men have it, women must lose it. They know, instead, that ego strength, when it is genuine, includes a multiplier: men who are comfortable with themselves encourage their wives and daughters to be equally so. And vice-versa.

Now to the crux of the matter. Where do you find a man comfortable with himself, one who will celebrate your many strengths?

If you want to increase your chances of finding a strong man, you will try to place yourself in settings where strong women also gather. The presence of other women like yourself will have already something important to you: they will have frightened away most of the men who see you as a threat, or whose poisonous weakness is a threat to you.

Religiously, this means seeking a congregation where women are welcome in all roles. In most mainline denominations, women are members of the vestry, they are deacons, or members of the official board. All across the city of Charlotte you will find thriving churches under the leadership of effective female pastors or priests.

The churches I am describing are smaller than the one you now attend. This means that the number of single men is smaller. I am confident, however, that your chances of finding an appropriate life partner will increase as the total number from which to choose goes down. This is because the men who are a part of these congregations have no fear of relating to women of strength.

Eleanor, you know that I am dealing here in generalities. People are fascinating, and one of their most interesting characteristics is their ability to break out of whatever boxes people like me design to contain them. Each human being is a complex creature. Most of the people I know well, including myself, can go from Milquetoast to tyrant in a matter of hours. Nonetheless, most people, over a period of time, settle into a particular pattern. That pattern is the important concern when establishing a lasting relationship.

People are complex, also, in their motivations. By the time you receive this, you may have begun a dating relationship with a man of genuine strength who, for reasons quite apart from the analysis I have offered, attends your current congregation. If so, I will rejoice with you. Probabilities, nonetheless, are important. I write because I care for you, and I am confident that the probability of your finding an appropriate life partner in a religious setting that does not utilize the strengths of women is low. It is exceedingly low.

To repeat: strong men celebrate the strengths of their wives and daughters. I embrace your hope that such a man will someday share your life.

Again, thank you for your hospitality. And thank you for allowing me to continue to be a part of your life. Please stay in touch.

Your former pastor. Jack