Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One

by Terry Crews

  I’d made myself into the superhero I’d longed to be as a kid, and it had been hell on my family and friends, and, worst of all, on myself. Coming out of therapy, I had to realize that my attempts to be a superhero had actually hurt me, not made me stronger. Because I was not superhuman; I was just a human, and my attempts to be this superman, this Teflon star, someone infallible who everyone could look at as the perfect man, were eventually my downfall.

  Of course, I still write down my goals. I still see the value in being fit and doing my job well. But trying to be perfect will leave you empty-handed, whereas trying to do your best will keep you fulfilled. The best you can do is always good. I realized you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be faithful in your attempts.

  Ever since Rebecca and I went through D-day, my focus has been all about rebuilding from the ground up, and not only our marriage, but also the man I am.

  Most of 2010 was devoted to righting circumstances at home and finishing up my commitment to Are We There Yet? The show had gone from being a strain to becoming almost unbearable. Rebecca had come to associate it with our marital woes, simply because we had been apart on D-day because of my obligations to the show. Not to mention that the stress of shooting three episodes a week during such a chaotic moment in my personal life was a substantial challenge. At the same time, we shot a second season of The Family Crews. It was a lot to manage.

  In 2011, I flew to Bulgaria to shoot The Expendables 2. At first, we had thought about having Rebecca come visit me on the set. Given everything we’d just been through, she was understandably nervous about having me away from home for so long. But I decided, instead, to use our time apart to do what in therapy circles is commonly referred to as a reset. It involved going ninety days without any sexual activity whatsoever. The year before, Rebecca and I had tried it, and we’d lasted seventy days before I broke down. Ever since then, I’d really wanted to complete the exercise, and I knew this was our chance. So we had a ninety-day fast.

  The reset began on October 1, and it went all the way to the New Year, even after I returned home to Los Angeles in early December. It was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. I didn’t realize until then that, as men, we see our wives as sexual beings, and sometimes this means we don’t see them as people, or value them as real human beings beyond the bedroom.

  At this point, Rebecca and I had been married for twenty-two years, and yet I found we still had so much to discover about each other. It was almost like a courting period all over again. We had long talks, and I came to know her in a deeper way, and to love her even more.

  It was another major epiphany for me when I realized I didn’t need sex for intimacy, and I didn’t need sex to be happy. I started to see how it was possible to take the physical act out of the equation but still be very close. I started to understand all of the ways that sex had become so loaded for me. When I was stressed out, I wanted sex to make me feel better. It had become a way of acting out and relieving stress. I started to look at my relationship with Rebecca differently. Like many men, I’d always believed it was my wife’s responsibility to give me sex when I wanted it. But, no, her responsibility was to be intimate, and then, out of that, sometimes, sex will happen. And my responsibility was to be close to her, and to be her sounding board, that one person she could really trust. After twenty-two years, it was like a whole new marriage, and it was blowing my mind.

  Ever since then, I break it down for my kids as such: “You’re going to leave home someday. But I’m closer to my wife than I am to you, and I made you.”

  Through all of this, I’ve come to realize that closeness is not about physical commonality. It’s really about the connection you forge. When a person knows everything about you, and she still loves you, that’s the closest you can be to another human. And for years, Rebecca and I had always been held back as a couple because of my secrets and the part of myself I was hiding from her. We’d lasted for years, sure, but by the time of D-day, we had finally run out of steam.

  And it wasn’t until I came clean that I realized what marriage really is. Until your relationship gets to the point where you can tell that other person everything about who you are, everything about what you’ve done, everything, it can never reach a level of real, true intimacy. Now, you might be stuck together, you might stay together by choice, and it might be okay, but it’ll never be great. And it wasn’t until after D-day, and until after our ninety days of celibacy, that we finally were closer than we’d ever been. It was like a real lasting breakthrough had happened.

  Now, none of this was a cure-all. I could create an amazing relationship with my wife in the present, but I couldn’t undo the past. After what I’d done, and what I’d hidden for all of those years, Rebecca didn’t trust me, and for good reason. In early 2012, she asked me to take a lie detector test, and I was glad to do it. Not that I enjoyed the process; I had all of the usual fears that the test would go wrong and make it seem like I was lying when I wasn’t. But I passed with flying colors, and I was ready to take such a test once a year for the rest of our marriage, if that was what it would take to put her at ease.

  AS I CONTINUED TO LEARN ABOUT MYSELF, I started apologizing for small mistakes I’d made over the years. And I remained hungry to learn even more. One day, just for fun, I took an online test about narcissism. Well, I was shocked by the results. It said I was a narcissist. I couldn’t believe it was true. I went downstairs right away and strode into the living room, where Rebecca was hanging out with the younger kids.

  “I just took this online test and it said I’m a narcissist,” I said.

  “You think?” Rebecca said.

  The kids all laughed. Not meanly, but in this kind of sweet way, like they were watching a baby deer learn to walk by falling down every few steps.

  I thought back to how I’d made Rebecca trade in the car she liked for one I just knew was better for her. Looking back, I realized that she’d never really liked that new car because she’d never really wanted that new car. She’d liked the one she had better than the one I’d chosen. But I’d picked it out for her, and told her it was what she should drive, without ever asking her what she wanted. I’d thought nothing about just going out and being totally responsible for her. And not just about the car, about meals, about vacations, about everything. I’d always made all of the decisions and expected my family to like it because it was what I wanted.

  Ugh, I get embarrassed just thinking about it. Let’s just say I apologized a lot during that time, and I’m still apologizing today.

  It was a moment of big personal and professional change. We reached the end of Are We There Yet? I had worked really hard on that show, even during extremely difficult circumstances at home, and I didn’t feel like it was anything more than a moneymaker for many of the people involved. And then they just stopped airing it, mid-season. I was upset, but overall, it was a relief to be done with that arduous period in my life.

  We’d come to really love living in Connecticut, and we were thinking about relocating there permanently, when I got the chance to audition for Aaron Sorkin’s new TV show, The Newsroom. Everything about that show, from the audition through the filming process, was hard. Even though it was set in New York City, they filmed in Los Angeles, and so when I finally got the part, I had to relocate in advance of my family, while earning almost no money, to do a part that required extreme precision at all moments. And I loved every minute of it. I knew it would only make me better as an actor, which it did. And it was an extreme pleasure to work with people who were so completely devoted to making great art. I’d found my kind of people, and I wanted more of that all of the time.

  Through The Newsroom, I had the chance to do Arrested Development, which was a similar experience. I also pushed myself physically that year on the reality show Stars Earn Stripes, and I broke into new territory with my first voiceover job on the animated feature Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.

  The whole
family was back in Los Angeles, and it finally felt like we were coming out on the other side of what had been a very difficult time for us all. But I still felt like I was looking for that next project that would continue to push me to grow as an actor, and to take my career to all-new places.

  In early 2013, I was actually offered three different pilots because of my work on The Newsroom and Arrested Development. After my experience on those shows, I was all about whatever would be the best experience creatively. One of the shows was an Andy Samberg project. I’d never met Andy, but I’d always been a fan, and I really felt like he was the future of comedy. I had a meeting with the show’s creators, Dan Goor and Mike Schur, who’d also created Parks and Recreation. I wasn’t sure what show I was going to choose, and then Dan and Mike kept calling me. That wasn’t unheard of, but there was something special about their calls.

  “We named the character after you,” Dan said. “You have an advantage in negotiations now because whoever does take this role is going to be named Terry.”

  I just laughed when I heard that. I loved their energy, and I knew the show would be a great ensemble. This was what I felt like I needed right then, so I could learn and get better by working with talented people, rather than just wanting to be the star, which, like the attempt to be a superhero or to achieve perfection, is just not a worthwhile goal. I realized that I’d actually learned this long ago, from football. When someone was always hogging the ball, or the spotlight, maybe they were seen as the star, but it backfired on them. In the end, it was the team guys who were really appreciated the most. I wanted to be that dude, that team player, and I felt a show like Brooklyn Nine-Nine was the show that would give me that opportunity. It went back even further for me, too, back to The Carol Burnett Show, and those great TV ensembles. And so I signed on with Brooklyn Nine-Nine in the middle of 2013. Well, all I can say is it’s been an absolute pleasure from the beginning, and then to have it be received so well has just been the ultimate reward. So well received, in fact, that in January 2014, we won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy from the Hollywood Foreign Press. As I stood on that stage with the rest of the cast, looking over the Beverly Hilton ballroom into the faces of U2, Michael Douglas, Meryl Streep, and Leonardo DiCaprio—all I could feel was thankfulness.

  In addition to working harder to be an even better actor and comedian, I now value, more than anything else, the work I’ve done to become a better man. Once I began to have compassion for myself, and my family, and everyone I encounter, it changed everything. I’ve learned to validate another person’s feelings, and validate who they are, without losing anything of myself or letting my boundaries be compromised. And it has changed literally everything for me: my relationships, my health, my strength, and my life.

  I realized that I’d been so lacking in compassion, I hadn’t ever shown it to my family before. I’d judged them and condemned them, because I was so hard on myself, and I thought it should be the same for them. But now I can see how wrong that behavior was. Like I said, I’ve apologized so many times and reminded them that it’s still a work in progress.

  I can’t tell you how happy I am that it wasn’t too late to change and be forgiven. Many men have lost their wives and families because they weren’t willing to really look at themselves and take responsibility for their beliefs and their actions. Instead, they went and found a new wife, and a new family, thinking it would be better. But the problem wasn’t their wife or family. It never was. They were the problem. But they never realized it, and so they ended up seventy and alone, like when I saw my grandfather get slapped in the face by his own daughter—a lifetime of selfish, ignorant behavior come to roost. And it was only then, when it was too late, that it finally dawned on them: Oh yeah, the problem was me all along.

  For some men, pride will never let them admit they were wrong. That’s why pride is the gift that keeps on taking. And why I’m here to tell all of the men out there, crack that shell, even just a little bit, and it will bust wide open. Once you let in real feelings, and let people get close to the real you, that’s where the good stuff is.

  Rebecca has been the best example of strength I’ve ever seen. She illustrated the importance of strength founded on compassion, and I’m so grateful to her for her willingness to show me these qualities in our marriage. She had compassion for me when there was a real reason to have nothing but anger and hate. When she gave me another chance, and told me that she believed in who I am, no matter what I’d done, it broke me down in the best possible way and allowed me to rebuild a better man in the place of who I’d been before. Now, that was compassion at work.

  I thank God every day that Rebecca made the choice to stay, because legally, and by every measure with which we judge a relationship, she had good reason to leave. And the truth is, even with the many joyous occasions that happened during our first twenty years of marriage, the marriage she was fighting for in the aftermath of D-day wasn’t anything as deep as the marriage we have now. I’ve gotten so much out of this whole experience that I never even knew was possible.

  When I look back at the way I was living before, it reminds me of those Godzilla movies I loved when I was a kid. It seems like all of these monsters are coming out of nowhere, destroying Japan, but the truth is, the monsters were there all along, moving around among the people, only they were small enough that everyone ignored them. It wasn’t until they became 200 feet tall, and were tearing up buildings, and nearly unstoppable, that the citizens finally had to fight them. And then they were much harder to defeat than they would have been when they were just baby monsters. That’s how I came up with the motto by which I now run my life: Destroy All Monsters. I have vowed to never again let my monsters grow so big. My mantra is: Humble yourself. Discover what your monsters are. Be honest with yourself.

  These changes started with my wife, and they expanded to my children, and I’ve taken them outward from there into all areas of my life. My old friend Ken and I talk about it all the time. We can laugh about it now, as we recall the path I had to stumble down in order to grow, and how I once got so mad at him for refusing to help me anymore after he’d already given me so much.

  “You’re going to call your production company Gold Coin Productions,” he teased me.

  I very well could have, because those gold coins were a symbol of the lifeline he sent out to me, and the moment when I finally had to grow up and start doing for myself, and, really, the first humbling of many I’ve received to get where I am.

  I have since built a tremendous relationship with my mother, as we laid everything out on the table and rebuilt from the ground up. It was hard. Angry words were spoken, and for a while we found it impossible to talk to each other. As time passed I was able to put my anger aside and just love my mother for what she did do for me, rather than being angry for what she didn’t. I asked her to forgive me for my sense of entitlement and for holding on to offense, and she asked me to forgive her for any wrong she’d done. I told her I realized she’d done the best she could with what she’d been given, and I’m thankful for her and the beautiful woman she is. My mother was the only one to take care of Mama Z, my grandmother, my grandfather, Sister Estes, and many others before they died. The truth is, I could always count on her, even to this day, and my love for her has no bounds.

  From there, my personal growth has expanded to one of the most challenging relationships in my life, my relationship with Big Terry. There were times after the Christmas from Hell when I couldn’t bring myself to answer his calls for months at a time. And then something would shift within me, and one day, he’d call, and I’d pick up. But we never seemed to make any real progress, no matter how much we talked.

  “Terry, I never had a father to show me how to be one,” he said. “I got a lot of pain, and all I tried to do was give you guys better than what I had. I didn’t know what else to do. I knew to give you a roof.”

  I could hear the truth in that. But there were other times when he deluded hi
mself, and I couldn’t stand to let him run off at the mouth like that.

  “I taught you guys everything you know,” he said.

  “No, Big T, that’s not how it went down,” I said.

  He paused then, and sat quietly for a minute.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” he said.

  After another pause, he couldn’t quietly let it go, though.

  “But I did teach you to be your own man,” he said.

  “Uh, I guess.”

  In all of these conversations, I always felt dissatisfied. I think I was waiting for him to apologize, to really see how things had been, and talk to me about it. And then it finally hit me that if he was ever really going to get it, the moment of clarity had to start from me. I had to tell him, honestly, what was up. But this wasn’t in the way most people would think. As I made myself really look at what had happened all those years ago, I started to see him differently, and then I started to see all of the things I’d been through differently. I’d always looked at my past as this horrible experience that I had to forget, as if it was just a bad feeling that I had to move past.

  But no, I needed to sit in it and take those experiences for what they really were. It had been bad, sure, but it had made me who I am. This didn’t mean that some of the things that had happened weren’t wrong, but they had truly made me stronger, and not just in the fantastical way of superheroes. Life had made me stronger only because I had learned from it. Once I saw Big Terry differently, I was able to identify the aspects of my childhood that I appreciated, which was much different than the way I’d looked back on my past before. Much like I’d done on various sets, and with various work relationships, I reframed my past, and my relationship with my father: You knew your father. He was at home, and he cared enough about you to clothe you, to feed you. He never beat you. He never left the family. He could have cheated and run off with some girl.