CHAPTER 1

The Making of a Man

I didn't have any business being married at twenty-four.Yes, I believed wholeheartedly in the idea of marriage;after all, my parents had been married for sixty-four yearsbefore my mother passed away. And I had every intention ofduplicating what they had: a stable relationship in a home filledwith love, strength, perseverance and wisdom. It was all Iknew to do. So it made all the sense in the world to give a ringto the woman I loved and say, "I do."

And that was where the problem began.

In the weeks leading up to my marriage, I didn't have asteady paycheck to support my soon to be wife. In my heart ofhearts, I knew this wasn't right. I'd even said as much to mymother; I told her I was going to call off the wedding because Iwasn't working and it didn't feel right. My mother, being awoman who wanted to see her child married and knew howdevastating it would have been to my fiancée to call off herdream wedding, talked me out of canceling the big day. Invitationshad been sent out. People were looking for the show.

Who was I to rain on this festive parade?

Years later, my mother apologized and admitted she wouldnever have talked me into getting married if she'd known howunprepared I was to be a good husband. By then, we were ableto put our finger on what was missing - what was dooming myfirst marriage even before the spit on the stamps we put onthose invitations was dry: I didn't know who I was, what Iwould do with my life, and how much I was going to makedoing it. As I explained in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,everything a man does is filtered through his title (who he is),how he gets that title (what he does), and the reward he gets forthe effort (how much he makes). These are the three thingsevery man has to achieve before he feels like he's truly fulfillinghis destiny as a man and if any one of those things is missing,he will be much too busy trying to find it to focus on you. Hewon't have it in him to settle down, have children, or build alife with anyone.

In my first marriage, I didn't have these things lined up byany stretch. I had dropped out of college and went to work atFord Motor Company. Later I was laid off and didn't get a jobuntil a month after we married. It was a way to make somecash, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted out of life - that itwasn't my calling. And I was frustrated by it. How could I geta wife to buy into me and my plans for the future when even Iwasn't enthused by them myself ? How could she know me if Ididn't know myself ? How could she benefit from what I didand how much I made if I wasn't doing or making anything? Iwas frustrated, our financial outlook was in shambles, and wewere always at it - always fighting about something.

Because I wasn't a man.

Sure, she'd married a member of the male species and I hadsome good traits. I was kind and trusting; I was a very goodprotector; and I made no qualms about professing to anybodycoming and going that she was mine and I was hers. And somegood, a lot of good, came from our union: my daughters Karliand Brandi and my son Steve. But I wasn't fully a man. And itcost us.

I wish my father would have warned me, would have sat medown and schooled me on the particulars of marriage. Perhapshe could've told me that a time comes when one needs to cutout all the foolishness - the screwing up in school, the foolingaround with a bunch of different women. I wish he would'vetold me that if I didn't stop acting foolish by a certain age, therewould be a cost associated with my lack of focus, with deferringmy dreams of being an entertainer. Had he done so, a lot ofpain would have been spared for everyone all around. He didn'tshare with me his thoughts on when a boy needs to focus onmaturing into a man. He didn't tell me, "Steve, listen: you gota couple years to date a few women while you figure this thingout, and once you decide who you are, what you want to do,and how you want to make your money, go get a partner whocan help you accomplish these things."

That would have been a great lesson for my father to teachhis son. But this isn't the way of men.

We are neither the greatest communicators nor sharers ofinformation. There's no manual that says we should knowsometime between ages twenty-five and twenty-seven what wewant to do with our lives and by ages twenty-eight throughthirty, we should be settling down with a woman who is ascommitted to helping us achieve our goals and dreams as we areto helping her achieve hers. What we constantly hear, instead,is "You're young - sow your oats, enjoy yourself, have a goodtime, don't get tied down, don't get serious with any girls." Andby the time we finish setting ourselves up financially and convinceourselves we're ready to settle down, we've fumbledthrough countless "relationships," leaving women by the wayside,some of them shattered and bitter because we thought itmore important to add a notch to our player belts than to acthonorably. We've gone for that gold star some men award eachother when they have more than one woman at a time. And foryour trouble? We get pats on the back - told over and over againthat this is what we're supposed to do if we're real men.

Men hardly get pats on the back when they get married.Even more, married men, whether they're happily marriedor not, are constantly sharing the horrors of marriage with us,forever pointing out that all the freedoms single men enjoycome to a screeching halt when the ole' "ball and chain" getsattached to a man's ankle - that marriage is some kind of deathsentence. Indeed, among men, conversations related to theins and outs of marriage become conversations based on bravadoand jokes, rather than the truth, which is that a marriage - onebuilt on love, respect, loyalty, and trust - is the best thing thatcould ever happen to a man. Hill Harper pointed this out on arelationships roundtable we did together on Nightline; Hill, anactor who's written a few outstanding books on communicationbetween men and women, insisted that single men wouldbenefit greatly if married men admitted publicly that behindclosed doors, they are saying to themselves and their wives,"Thank God for marriage. Thank God for my family. ThankGod somebody supports me and patches me together so I cango to work the next day. This marriage thing is pretty all right."It is, for sure, the completion of manhood.

And it's high time we started teaching this to our youngmen early. We need to pull them aside and explain that therecomes a time in which they need to cut out the foolishness.Because once we do we can get back to the business of findingone another, falling in love, creating a family, and spending alifetime supporting and dreaming and growing - together. Thisis not something a woman can teach; a man who is twenty-twoor twenty-three years old cannot have his mother sitting himdown and talking to him about what it takes to be a man; shehas no idea of the competition level on which we operate, whatdrives us, and what we face every time we head toward thefront door and out into the world - no more than a man canpossibly fathom what it means to be a young woman. We loveand admire our mothers to death, but they can't walk in ourshoes; men and women are much too different, and she willmiss the mark - from the simplest things, like how to shakeafter you pee, to the most complex situations, like how tosquare off against another man and, without anyone gettinghurt in the process, still be able to walk away with your...