Gentlemen Only Wear Suits to Funerals

While watching a movie about college basketball in the 1960s, I noticed most of the men in the crowd were wearing suits and ties. In 2025 can you even imagine dressing up to attend a sporting event? I hate the confined feeling of a suit jacket, and I’ve never understood the purpose of a piece of colorful silk dangling from my neck. If it was there for me to clean the spaghetti sauce from my mouth, at least there would be a plausible purpose. I’m certainly not proposing a return to wearing church clothes to basketball games. I like to say, “Once you find hoodie-town, you’ll never wear a button down.” (I’ve actually never said that, but maybe I’ll start now.) The point is that when the camera scanned the crowd at that cinematic basketball game, I was certain that every man in those stands held the door for someone else entering the arena. I’m equally certain that hands were shaken firmly, people stood graciously to let the people seated in the middle of the rows pass, and pleases and thank yous were abundant.

It is hard to argue but that we’ve devolved.

Peggy Noonan is a journalist and columnist perhaps best known as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. In her 2024 book, A Certain Idea of America, she laments that gone are the days of the gentleman in this country. I find it ironic that some of the only people who still wear suits when they are not going to a funeral are the least gentlemanly among us. You might be bracing yourself for a political rant. I’ve got a doozy broiled up inside me. But I can’t imagine that anyone cares what I think about politics. No one seems to care what anyone else thinks about politics anymore, so I’ll keep my expectations realistic and my political opinions to myself for now.

I also find it ironic that in this unique time in human history when women least need men we are taking our cues from objectively ungentlemanly role models. There is a large and growing gender gap favoring women in higher education, the #metoo movement has brought much needed attention to sexual harassment, assault, and abuse, and the most famous entertainer in the world is a woman. And yet, it is as though men still think we can berate and disparage women into procreating with us.

When we most need to raise the bar of respect in order to remain relevant to women, we seem content to keep taking out our frustrations on them and expecting them to keep taking it.

Roughly 70% of divorces in America are initiated by women. The most prevalent masculine reaction to this statistic is to blame women for being unrealistically needy, greedy, and unforgiving. My experience, both personal and professional, is quite the opposite. The women I encounter forgive far beyond any reasonable expectations for exoneration, and the only things they are in need of are peace and consistency. That 70% of divorces are initiated by women does not surprise me. I am stunned, however, to hear men find blame in the women who muster the courage to demand respect.

Let me make this personal.

For a very long time, I thought I was smarter than my wife. I had a little more formal education, I was quicker to form stubborn opinions, and alcohol gave me false confidence that drowned out alternative ideas and experiences without consideration. My wife either agreed with me, or she was wrong. With a relationship like that, I could not help but feel superior.

Then came the shocking day when I learned that my wife didn’t like me.

She loved me, and I knew it. I also naively thought “love” more important than “like.” Our lives were intertwined financially, we had four kids together, and I mistook her being stuck for her being eagerly in partnership.

She was stuck. She was with me because as hard as it was to stay, it would have been harder to leave. But I was actively adding negative experiences to the “it’s hard to stay” side of the balance scale with my arrogance, my insensitivity, my selfishness, and (most of all) my lack of consistency.

You already mentioned alcohol, you might be thinking. It was your addiction that was driving your wife away.

I was years sober when I came to the realization that my wife didn’t like me. It wasn’t the alcohol. It was me.

My opinion of myself declined precipitously when I learned of my wife’s opinion of me. I am all about filling my own bucket. I believe there is nothing more important than self-esteem for growth, recovery, and a happy life. So while in the long-term I can’t let my wife’s opinion of me determine my opinion of myself, learning that she didn’t like me did serve as a wakeup call that inspired introspection like nothing I had experienced before. She made me examine the things that were unlikeable.

I have spent a little part of every day since considering how I can be more attractive to my wife. Lucky for me with my excess midsection padding and increasingly exposed forehead, my wife is not concerned with physical attraction.

She reacts positively when she is emotionally attracted to me.

So what the hell does that mean? Emotional attraction? The trial and error process I engaged in reminds me of the movie, Groundhog Day, when Bill Murray’s character tries day after day to solve the romantic puzzle of winning over Andie MacDowell’s character. And just like in the movie, for me, the key to emotional attraction is empathy, listening, respect and consistency.

This whole process of learning that my wife didn’t like me, and trying to be a more likeable husband, led to some fascinating discoveries. At the top of that list is learning how incredibly smart my wife is. Her instincts are much, much better than mine. She knows (and cares) how people are feeling. She is protective of people she loves, she nurtures like it is her job, and her opinions are not only valid, but they are based in logic, experience, and the consideration of all possible outcomes. My wife, my partner, was an incredible asset all along, and I treated her as an appendage that would always be there dragging behind me like I was a caveman with a fistfull of hair.

I’m still only going to wear suits to funerals. My suits are decades old and have too much shoulder pad anyway, a fact that my wife takes great delight in pointing at and chuckling about on the somber occasion that I put one on.

She can point at me and laugh when someone has died. Obviously not a close family member or friend, but you know, a peripheral person – important enough to dust off a suit for but not the kind of relationship where laughter is impossible. The point is, she can laugh at me without fear of retribution. She can be herself. She can trust again. She is fearless about my reaction in almost any situation.

That’s the result of consistency. That’s the result of emotional safety. I still burp and fart in front of her, but I also listen attentively and don’t scream at the TV about politics anymore. Some of what I do might even be labelled as gentlemanly.

Peggy Noonan might be proud, and my wife definitely likes me again.

I told you she was smart.

If you and your partner are ready to work on relationship recovery that values emotional safety and consistency, please consider joining us in the Marriagevolution.

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