Excerpt from Coping with Erectile Dysfunction

It is easier and healthier to deal with physical and psychological changes together rather than in isolation. This is particularly true of ED, which affects you, your partner, and your relationship. To pretend otherwise is to violate a major tenet of mental health: Do not fool yourself. ED is truly your common foe. The likelihood of overcoming ED increases significantly if you work as a team.

excerpt from When Good Men Behave Badly

The healthy awareness of the need for twinship would allow you to say to your wife or partner, You know, I feel really lost sometimes with out all the special times we used to have together. It just seems like having kids and get ting used to each other and money problems have really taken their toll. I guess you must feel the same way. Here you, as a man, shift from needing your partner to be a mirror reflecting you to recognizing the ways in which the two of you are profoundly alike. She is no longer the enemy, but rather a comrade along the difficult road of life. A comrade who is inevitably flawed, but no more fundamentally flawed than you.

Excerpt from Is He Depressed or What?

To put it very simply, women tend to think and process their feelings when they are depressed, and men tend to act. A man who takes action in the face of depression can either be extremely adaptive (such as going out to look for a job if he is feeling depressed about being unemployed) or extremely maladaptive (such as picking a fight and getting drunk to escape feeling bad about himself). Research studies report that when women describe what they actually do when they are depressed, they say, “I try to find out why I feel the way I do,” or “I try to analyze my mood” (Nolen-Hoeksema 1993). For men, the patterns are typically quite different. Most men report that they turn to an activity they enjoy or simply decide to distract themselves from the bad feelings: “I decide not to concern myself with my mood.” Of course, many people (especially men) are likely to respond with “What do you mean, depressed?”

by guest blogger Dr. C. Peter Bankart, author of Freeing the Angry Mind

The only answer that I have been able to come up with that makes any sense to me anyway is to demand of yourself to pay close attention; to be mindful and respectful of the natural world, to cultivate a wide universe of relationships, and to hold dear to your heart the philosophical and religious truths that sustain you. It is equally hard to let go of the illusion of permanence when things are good, as it is to recognize that the future is full of infinite possibilities, when everything seems stuck in the middle of a black and white winter.

Excerpt from Stop Running From Love

"Distancing" is a big category. Distancers come in many shapes and sizes. They can be single or in long-term couple relationships, gay or straight, women or men, young or old. Here are a few brief glimpses of typical distancers: