Part 2: The Tough Man

Locking yourself in: The walls of Jericho

- Joshua 6: 1

When we are traumatized the one thing we won’t give is ourselves (our hearts)… We stop feeling, as a defense mechanism against pain… So, we lay bricks, build walls to protect our hearts. And just for a moment, it does seem to work. We manage to keep the pain or ugliness out, but no pleasure or beauty will go in as well. We keep people out, but we lock ourselves in… This is the pattern of the second type of man: the tough man.

“He who does not love gives no hostage to fortune”

The tough man is the one that was exposed to neglect, people relating to them via anger instead of pleasure, rigorous discipline, emotionally absent fathers, and non-nurturing mothers. For him, no relational connection ever existed no matter how much he wanted it. We always crave what we did not receive, so he started craving emotional touch, emotional connection.

He decided, whether consciously or not, that it is indeed better to slaughter that yearning for intimacy rather than embracing the hurt that may come with it. He instead started pushing people away, keeping them at arm’s length to avoid any form of connection. The tough man is the man who says, “Please believe in me, but do so from a distance, love me from afar, and don’t give me any trouble.”

Admitting the need for intimacy terrorizes the tough man. So, he fills his life with tasks rather than people, chase after goals that require little to no intimacy with people, depends on his own abilities, and becomes hard, distant, and emotionally blunted. This all leads to his yearning for relationships to be smothered. Which is how he prefers it, after all, distance breeds safety. Why subject oneself to the soul-crushing terror of wanting and needing what you may never have.

Tough men are driven to act that way because of:

1. Insecurity: Insecurities are always lurching around in the background. They are sometimes the ones pulling the strings. A tough man is uncertain about his manhood, so he compensates by exerting their power to display what they are not sure they possess.

2. Superficiality: If you break past the charms of a tough man, you will notice that he may not be that interesting. He is not aware of what goes on in himself or others. He feels nothing deeply other than lust for control and power.

3. Confusion: He mistakes vulnerability and sensitivities for weakness. A tough man is a man you want in a fight, to play sports with, but not the person you would run to, to open yourself and share your emotions.

A man that is tough fails to call life in people. It seems like all flowers around him seem to fade. His silence is choking the life around him. He does not exert his strength and power to encourage and influence people around him. He ends up deeply hurting and affecting people around him.

In relationships, the outcome is the same as the one of the needy man; death. Although it takes a different route. A needy man relationship may take a while and slowly die a slow and excruciating death, as it may take a while for its impact to be reflected. For the tough man, the relationship is usually more stable, but very superficial.

That stability is not built on solid ground. It may just be walls erected on sand that can come tumbling at any time. The relationship is a façade. If ever confronted, if ever asked to do more, to go further than the shallow waters, the relationship explodes like a hot volcano. Confrontations are usually supposed to improve relationships, but with the tough man, it rarely does. It's either the person requesting change surrenders, settles, accepts that they will not have more, and accept their position in shallow waters or the relationship slowly degenerates after a string of violent conflicts.

A tough man is like an impenetrable fortress, a wall, a carapace you cannot get through. And whatever you cannot change, usually ends up changing you. Whatever you can’t break usually ends up breaking you.

When a man builds a wall around his heart, it inevitably leads to a loss of passion. He is driven by his determination to succeed in other areas. That determination, that drive smothers his sensitivity and awareness of what is happening around him, and sometimes within himself. When that happens, he sacrifices his willingness to move into the life of others. Often, whatever contact is left with the world of passion is sex, which becomes an addiction.

For the tough man to heal from his addiction it requires more than self-control. Self-control is not the reason why he indulged in the first place. For him to be healed he needs to be ready to accept his hurt, accept criticism, accept to be vulnerable which for him feels like laying his head on the chopping block. That is why it is important when dealing with a tough man to continuously give him honest feedback and criticism. Tough men rarely change without facing their destructive impact. In absence of clear feedback, he will move further away from the man God called him to be, so much so, that he will become ruled and powerfully controlled by his need to be tough.

Tough men destroy people around them by requiring people to perform without nourishing and nurturing their souls. Women in relationships with a tough man often feel:

1. Unloved and Undesired: Silence usually leads to people assuming the worse about themselves, especially for women. They end up assuming: ”Maybe I am ugly, that would explain why he treats me this way. Maybe I am not good enough for him. Maybe if I did this more or that more it will be better…”

2. Desperate for someone or something to touch them deeply enough to fill the void of loneliness

These women are prone to:

1. Depression - As they think no one wants them.

2. Anxiety - As they are trying to stay in control.

3. Addiction - As they cannot stay from what will relieve the pain, for a moment.

Neediness and toughness are two extremes of a continuum. Both are as needy, only in different ways. The needy man requires love and affirmation up close, the tough man requires the same from a distance. Both are equally as damaging to people around them. Life is a balancing act for men, navigating between neediness and toughness. Navigating between sensitivity and strength. Porn addicts are a good illustration of sensitivities without strength. Needy men are prone to compulsive masturbation, passive perversion, and fantasies of women submitted to them. They can only fantasize as they do not have the strength to obtain what they want.

Rapists are on the end of the extreme. They have too much strength, but no sensitivities. Because they can overpower women via their strength, they just help themselves. Men without awareness and sensitivities tend to navigate toward aggressive perversion, sadism, seduction, wealth, and possession.

Personally, I believe we oscillate between the two. I believe there has been a time where I believe that my happiness was outside of myself. I demanded of people to act right, to treat me a certain way for me to finally be happy. If I were not happy, it is because they would not change. Then I realized that this was not correct. Unfortunately, though, in recovery, we tend to move from one extreme to the other. So, I moved and became the tough man walling my heart around. We can be more than one of these categories at once. But it is more important to go beyond recognizing your category but doing the work to become men that reflect Godly characters.

What man are you? Are you the kind of man that demands and manipulates? The kind of man that gets into a relationship solely for what he can receive? Or are you the tough man? The man that keeps everyone at bay unable and afraid to confront his terror of the past, unable to face his need for intimacy?