Men and immature competitive behavior due to insecurity?

Question

My husband and I have been having a bit of a relationship crisis and we've been doing a lot of talking about it and what he has been feeling. One of the things he has been talking about is how he feels at work. There are a lot of male engineers there and some female engineers and managers. It sounds like they (the guys) spend a lot of time in a kind of competitive way, trying to "beat their chests," as he put it, trying to be funny or witty or whatever, competing for female attention and I guess just a "who's on top" kind of thing. Razzing each other, pulling jokes on each other and stuff. I think he has gotten caught up in this (I've seen him do this before when we used to work in the same place). Some of these men sound to me like they are not very nice. They can be sarcastic and say mean things about people. I don't think my husband gets mean like that. But I do think it all sounds kind of immature. He just turned 40 years old this year. I think he is insecure inside. Do you think this is immature for 40? Shouldn't he be thinking more about internal qualities like kindness, giving to others, honesty, being ethical and hard-working, etc.? Why can't he feel good about these things in himself and stop giving a c**p what these other a******s think, and their ridiculous behavior?

Answer 1

This is what guys do to try and impress the present female, and establish who gets the role of Alpha male. Immature? Perhaps... but insecurity is not the issue...

Answer 2

All it takes is one to stand up and the others will follow. I bet the others don't like it either. But once that ball gets rolling you know how it can be. If he really wants to stop he can. He has the power.  

Answer 3

YOU know it's immature. Even more important, you know it's not something you like to see in your husband. Fabulous. You have a great opportunity to do what each of you should always be doing for each other, helping each other become better. That's a big deal. Nothing worse for someone than a partner who accepts bad behavior. If they do, why change? Oh, it's nice when people spontaneously change for themselves, but they often need first to change for someone important to them. Keep talking. Keep assuring him that you're pretty sure he's better than that. It helps to talk about human nature in general and just about the things people do.

Engineers (as you very well know by now :) ) are somewhat odd. They are by nature a mix of nerd and competitor. So the competition often comes out nerdy.