Robert Garfield

Breaking the Male Code touched upon an issueI had been concerned and thinking about for a few years, friendships between guys.
I felt like the book developed the background about how male friendships face roadblocks that make them less than they could be. Guys don’t want to express any emotions except, perhaps, to cheer for their favorite sports teams. But everyone needs close friend outside their regular relationships to help them process difficult issues, sometimes involving the spouse and sometimes needing an objective perspective that a spouse cannot provide. In fact, in marriages or other committed relationships, both partners need these outlets yet many do not have them.
In reading this book, I pretty much read things I had read elsewhere, both in books and in shorter articles and this book really added nothing new to what I had already read and felt. But, I will admit that reading the book brought everything I had previously read together in one place. I decided, the last time I saw my closest friend (yesterday), to breach the issues of men having trouble having deep, intimate and confidential conversations, particularly those focusing on emotions. In having this conversation with my friend, we both saw that we, too, had the need to open up but had been restraining ourselves—for a LOT of years. We lowered those barriers yesterday.
I don’t feel there was anything in particular in the book that led to that, but I do feel that focusing as I was on the issue by spending so much time reading the book, I felt more comfortable opening up. I believe the friendship between my old friend and me is now on an altogether better, higher plane.… (más)

Breaking the Male Code touched upon an issueI had been concerned and thinking about for a few years, friendships between guys.
I felt like the book developed the background about how male friendships face roadblocks that make them less than they could be. Guys don’t want to express any emotions except, perhaps, to cheer for their favorite sports teams. But everyone needs close friend outside their regular relationships to help them process difficult issues, sometimes involving the spouse and sometimes needing an objective perspective that a spouse cannot provide. In fact, in marriages or other committed relationships, both partners need these outlets yet many do not have them.
In reading this book, I pretty much read things I had read elsewhere, both in books and in shorter articles and this book really added nothing new to what I had already read and felt. But, I will admit that reading the book brought everything I had previously read together in one place. I decided, the last time I saw my closest friend (yesterday), to breach the issues of men having trouble having deep, intimate and confidential conversations, particularly those focusing on emotions. In having this conversation with my friend, we both saw that we, too, had the need to open up but had been restraining ourselves—for a LOT of years. We lowered those barriers yesterday.
I don’t feel there was anything in particular in the book that led to that, but I do feel that focusing as I was on the issue by spending so much time reading the book, I felt more comfortable opening up. I believe the friendship between my old friend and me is now on an altogether better, higher plane.… (más)