No, Tiberon, you dont need a support group, but they sure can be helpful sometime.
Believer, my former therapist, a man with two PhDs in psychology would disagree with your idea that T needs to be in a mixed-gender support group. When dealing with some issues, mixed-genter groups cannot and will not work. You put men in a room with women and try to get them to open up and they will tend to shut up tighter than a clam. They are much more likely to open up if the women aren't there. I've participated in groups of both types and I know this to be true. I do agree that T needs to be around women, but not for this.
You say that in time of crisis women circle the wagons and men are loaners. This is true, but it is more a product of socialization than anything else. Men are expected - by women - to be strong and capable of handing their own problems without help. The truth is that we are just as needful of support as women, but we've been taught from infancy that "big boys don't cry." This is why a men's support group can be very helpful. It provides a "safe" place for men to open up and to one another (also frowned upon in our society) in a healthy, non-threatening way. When a man sees another in pain, he feels just as much empathy as a woman would, but he is afraid to reach out to him. Too often, this gets lost in unhealthy "guy stuff". A men only group, properly moderated, allows men to be empathetic and to ask for help. Women get this as a matter of course; a woman can find a women only support group for just about anything in a few minutes, so why shouldn't men?
I see "women circling the wagons" almost daily. It's great that you women reach out to one another so readily, but you don't really do a terribly good job at it either. Most people haven't learned the lessons so many here have learned and when a woman in crisis reaches out to others, she is likely to get very bad advice. I have heard women advise friends to divorce their husband for the most minor of problems. Recently, I overheard a woman tell another that the best way to get over the emptiness she was feeling was to have an affair. So women, too, need a safe, moderated venue to discuss their issues.
JL is correct that men take divorce much harder than women. This makes perfect sense if we think about it. It is much harder to get a man to commit to a relationship, especially marriage, but when he does it, he does it for keeps. I believe that, generally, a man's committment is much deeper than a woman's. It wasn't always this way; this is a rather recent phenomenon. When a marriage hits the wall (and they all do at some point), women tend to cut and run. Men are far more likely to stay in a troubled marriage for much longer, which isn't to say that they do a terribly good job at trying to make the marriage better. The statisics on divorce in the U.S. support this statement. The overwhelming majority of divorce cases (as high as 78% according to some researchers) are brought by women. We all know that it isn't possible that 78% of the men in this country are deserving of divorce.
Your ascertion that men don't do well without women has some validity, since women have served throughout the eons to stabilize society. But women need men, too. It's all about balance. Somehow we've lost track of this, deny a necessary co-dependancy, which is why we have a divorce epidemic. So fundamentally, I totally agree with your premise that Tiberon needs to be around women and see things from their point of view. But there are times when we need something else as well.
