I have been a psychotherapist specializing in men’s mental, emotional and relational health for over fifty years. Like many men, I have had challenges with my love life. Those who visit me on MenAlive see my welcome video, “Confessions of a Two Divorced Marriage Counselor.” Me recently interviewed a kindred spirit, Sean Hotchkissauthor of a new book, Hating Women: A Memoir of Male Rage and Recovery.
I was given an early copy of the book and found it to resonate with my own personal and professional experiences. Like Sean, I grew up without the support of a father and became very attached to my mother, who called me her “brave little man” after my father was hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt. For years I denied the impact of my early experiences on the reality that my relationship life was a disaster.
Sean shared some of his own experiences growing up and how he realized how early trauma affected his life and how writing the book helped him come to peace with himself and finally share what he learned with the world. Here’s what Sean says in the book about his healing journey:
“Hating women it tells the story of my struggles in romantic relationships over two decades,” he says. “It highlights a handful of key relationships that, with a little distance, all went down pretty much the same way: I’d fall in love with a woman and we’d launch into an intense connection. Eventually, either that connection would start to feel too limiting, and I’d walk away from it. Or, occasionally, the woman I was dating would run away from me. Rinsing. Repeat.
“My apparent inability to have a healthy relationship with a woman drove me crazy. I was always someone who claimed to want great love. But every time I felt myself getting closer, something flared up. I felt weak. Many times, the pattern seemed bigger than me. And every breakup, every betrayal, every loss, made me even more wary of commitment.
“In 2015 I began a deep dive into my past and my childhood trauma and it started to become much clearer to me why I had always struggled with relationships.
“First, my father was largely absent from my childhood. He and my mother divorced when I was 4, and I only saw him about eight days a month for the next ten years. When I was 22, he killed himself. I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone reading this to hear that the loss I experienced in that relationship was profound. I longed for that imprint of my father and never felt his love. death, I focused mainly on him in my treatment, his absence was so great and obvious, and I had a lot of unresolved grief and anger towards him for the way he lived and left.
“Secondly, after my parents divorced and my father disappeared, I became emotional support and a kind of surrogate partner for my mother, as many boys do. During the years when she was single and even when she had a boyfriend or husband, she and I had a relationship that felt equal parts comforting and strange. She confided in me about her problems. Few boundaries between us And because our bond seemed close on the surface, it took me a lot longer to see his shadow and how it affected all my relationships with women.
“This combination of feeling abandoned by my father and depression and scholarship from my mother created a very particular belief system in my mind and body: Intimacy was not safe. Sure, I would either be left or I would be suffocated. I’m not a big fan of attachment labels, but therapists would label me as fearful while avoiding me.
“Because these beliefs – and the raw grief and rage associated with them – were left untouched for many years, I found myself always recreating these conditions in relationships. (This is how our soul works: it wants us to heal, so it puts us in intimate (family) dynamic so buried emotions emerge and we have the opportunity to heal). But like many of us, instead of facing these feelings head on and trying to work on my relationships, I often ran to the next woman hoping for a different outcome.
“Things finally came to a head in the last few years: First, I was in a relationship with a woman who always seemed unattainable, like my dad. And then I got back into a relationship with a woman where there was a lot of love between us, but also a lot of dependence like with my mom. Thanks to these relationships, I was getting out of that pattern with my parents. relationship after the next, and to settle the feelings that arose when I was alone.
“I find that the coaching work I’ve done with men over the past six years is linked to the same childhood trauma, and that most, if not all, of the men who have come to my practice over the years have experienced the same set-up I have: emotionally or physically absent father, involved mother.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. As a society, we’re now between eight and eleven generations removed from the Industrial Revolution—an era largely credited by Men’s Movement writers like Robert Bly and James Hillman as the time when fathers began to spend less time at home. And it’s clear to me that this gradual (and increasing) presence of the father has depended on the gradual and increasing absence of mothers in the years of birth to boys, this dependence on our mothers is often entangled: with mothers relying on sons to make up for the lack of a male presence in the home, and sons clinging to mothers as the only source of love they receive.
You can pre-order Sean’s seminal book on Amazon. It will be released in July. After that you can order it where books are sold. Pre-orders help the author and the publisher. They also help us get books on important topics that may be controversial.
When I wrote my first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man, In 1983, I was told that women buy the most books and men are not interested in men’s memoirs about love, loss, and healing. I believed in the book and so did many others. Psychologist, Dr. Herb Goldberg said,
“To me this is the best kind of ‘Men’s Liberation’ book — a personal, honest, expressive account of a man’s inner life in the process of searching and changing.”
Natalie Rogers said,
“We know the personal is political—feminists have proven that—but few, (if any) men have had the courage to be as vulnerable as Jed Diamond. Women and men alike will find this book challenging and enlightening.”
I believe these quotes also apply to Sean Hotchkiss and his book, Hating Women: A Memoir of Male Rage and Recovery.
You can order the book here. You can learn more about Sean by visiting his Substack, One Man’s Heart, here.
You can watch and listen to mine interview with Sean here.
