When I was younger, much younger, I didn’t have the courage or confidence to take responsibility for what I wanted and needed. The result was that I became a master manipulator. If I didn’t feel a relationship was serving me, whether a friendship or a romantic relationship, I didn’t have the courage to just tell the other person the truth. Instead, I would behave in such a way that would make the other person terminate the relationship for me. It allowed me to appear to be the “wounded party,” when in fact I was anything but the wounded party. While it was true that the relationship had run its course, I should have said so and taken my lumps.

Sadly, this isn’t an uncommon scenario among men of all ages. Being a real man isn’t about owning a gun, smoking Marlboro reds, spitting and swearing a lot, or any other superficial quality. It’s about being authentic, and when we recognize we aren’t authentic it becomes about getting ourselves some therapy.