William is a high-powered exec in his day job but a humiliated servant at home. His wife steamrolls over him when it comes to just about anything. On top of that, she wants him to step up and be more manly.

And while he has a sense of what it means to be more “manly,” he wonders, how the hell can I be more manly when she’s stepping on my throat?

If he tries to get her off of him, things seem to just get worse. “Then, she really gets escalated,” he says. He’s confused.

He feels stuck and alone. He doesn’t feel comfortable talking to friends or family about it, fearing he’ll be burdening them with his problems. He’s not so sure what to do.

Are you struggling to know what to do about your marriage challenges?

So like many guys, William fills out a form on a coach’s website, figuring he has little to lose since the guy on the other end of the form doesn’t know much about him. And who knows, maybe he’ll even find some direction.

When a man has no one to talk to about his relationship challenges without fear of being weak, he creates a dangerous dynamic for himself and his relationship.

Heck, even just saying a sentence to a stranger on a machine helps with that lonely all-bottled-up feeling. This was true for William.

I get his form via email and I reply, asking him to elaborate further on the dynamic between him and his wife. In an exchange of several emails, he tells me his story.

Having coached men in challenged marriages for the last 15 years, I have a strong sense of what he’s going through. I went through it myself.

In his final email, he says he wants to jump on a Zoom call. On the scheduled day, I crank up the Zoom interface. He appears.

There’s a moment of intrigue for me, knowing his story but having no visual or auditory cues on him.

I honor a man’s courage to show up on an initial call with me. It’s brave for him to trust me, a stranger, with his story.

I see William as a man walking with courage and vulnerability at the same time.

After asking him some questions, I get to really understand his world, and then by the end of the call, turn it over to him to see if and what kind of action he wants to step into.

Somewhere in the middle of the call, I ask him a critical question that gives me a great sense of the world he’s living in. His response is what I see from 60% or more of the men I talk with.

I ask William, “Do you have friends or family members with whom you can share your marital problems?”

He scans his mental Rolodex of family members, siblings, friends, and others, and shakes his head.

Do you have others you can talk with about your relationship challenges without fear of burden or judgment?

“Ok,” I say, without judgment, just empathy.

Whether he knows it or not, when a man has no one to talk to about his problems besides his wife, he puts a huge burden on her.

William feels this. It’s part of why he’s reaching out to me. Still, the thought of sharing his challenges with others besides some stranger feels threatening. It might crack his wall of projected strength.

And yet to be an empowered relational man, that wall must be cracked. Over time, it becomes a healthy boundary instead—a place where he can honor his need for safety and his desire for strength.

But in the absence of safety or strength, both go into shadow. A dark place where neither is in strong supply. And his wife feels the absences.

Learn more about how to avoid this dangerous dynamic with your wife in the video below.

Going it alone in his life, William thought, was natural or “it’s just what we men do.”

He knew he was fortunate to have a wife with whom he could share his challenges. But he also acknowledged that when they were in conflict, she was no longer available to him, and then he had no one.

When a man isolates to just his partner for his emotional needs, he’s in what I call the “man cage.”

The danger of the “man cage” is that it can cause serious loneliness and isolation for a man, and at worst, suicidal thoughts.

Did you know that 60% of individuals reporting loneliness are married? And of that number, 80% are men.

Just by contacting me, William broke out of his “man cage.” In a few months, he broke even further out by joining with other men holding courage and vulnerability at the same time.

And that had huge dividends for him to show up more confidently in his marriage, to gently pull his wife’s foot off of his throat to breathe again, and create the loving marriage he wanted.

Are you ready to expand your support system to create the marriage you want?

If so, take the first step. Join a group of men tackling their relationship challenges head, online every Tuesday at 12pm ET on the Men’s Relationship Tools calls.

First call is free. Reach out via email to get a zoom link.