Recently, a young woman told me that she was breaking up with her boyfriend, and when I asked her why, she said it was because he never did anything on his own. He never took the initiative, either in their relationship or in the rest of his life. He was always a follower, never a doer, never proactive about anything. She was the one who always had to suggest things to do and places to go. He was always attentive and caring, considerate and coop­erative, but he never came up with. a new idea and asked her to come along. Slowly she lost respect for him as a man, and in the end, she pitied him. He had no male energy to challenge and energize her own energy.

I know a number of women who pity their husbands. They cannot admire them because they never do anything to arouse their wives' admiration. The men go to work and come home dutifully every day. They take out the garbage and do whatever the wives ask them to do, but that's the extent of their energy. I have no idea how the men are in bed, but I suspect they don't surprise their wives there either. Perhaps the men's initiative has been

beaten down or driven out of them, but it's not there. So the wives love them, but they do not respect them, and there is probably a disappointment in their children, too. Sons especially want their dads to take them into new, different and challenging worlds, not just build picket fences around them. (Richard Rohr, From Wild Man to Wise Man).