Author Has It Wrong About ‘Mr. Right’
Perhaps Terry McMillan needs to re-examine the dilemma of men who can’t commit from a man’s point of view.
She describes as “little wusses” those men who, behind closed doors, let down their guard and show their weaknesses. That’s where the fear of commitment goes on, she says.
We keep hearing such comments despite the fact that the marriage rate is going up, not down. And half the people who marry are men. They just do not marry women who speak like McMillan’s characters.
I have worked as a therapist with many men, and I am hearing a different description from men who withdraw.
It goes more like: “I think I have finally found a woman I can love, who I can say anything to and let down this guard I show the world.
“So what happens when I show her who I am, my worries, my fears? She gets scared. She pulls away. She looks at me like I’m a wimp. So I close up.”
Women have difficulty with the reality that men have many dependency needs; that men want a woman to accept, affirm, understand the child within the man, the weaker or anxious underside. It is not that men can’t commit.
I hear from many men that they are seeking a committed, lifelong relationship. It is that in the quid-pro-quo of marriage, they don’t feel women will accept and take care of their needs.
MARION F. SOLOMON
Los Angeles