Rick hadn’t been intimate with his wife for almost a year. They’d been married for fifteen. “Once in a blue moon, she’ll let me touch her breasts,” Rick said, as if reluctantly accepting a consolation prize. His options, in his view, were to stay in a sexless marriage or leave and risk losing his family. The double bind of Damned if you do, […]
A man is struggling in his marriage. But he doesn’t know that there are options for him to improve things. Options beyond HIDING OUT on his phone, ESCAPING through work, getting his physical needs met through porn, or RUNNING from reality into booze or pot. In truth, he feels crappy about acting like this. He hides his behaviors from his kids and wife, and at times, has them out […]
At least several times per month I hear a version of this from guys who contact me. “She’s always bossing me around. It’s constant,” Bill, a father of two, says. “She tells me, ‘You never listen to me. You didn’t do this. You didn’t do that. And what about that other thing I asked you to do?’” Do YOU EVER feel like you’re […]
Sol was an account executive with a broadband company. He worked his ass off at work. You know, the whole “climb the ladder” thing. But even better for him, he loved what he did. Much of his work served the developed world. A mission he believed in. At home, it was good and all but… there’s always a but. Anyway, he came to me […]
Social distancing? Or sexual distancing? For many couples, it’s been one in the same. You might be in the same physical space. But are you in the same relational or sexual space? Are you seeing one another? Working as a team? Helping one another get through this COVID madness all the better for it? If you are, you’re likely having more […]
I keep hearing stories… … my kids are driving me nuts. … my wife is killing me. …. how am I gonna get through this Corona madness with my family? Social distancing has created relational claustrophobia. And with that, comes COVID-19 psychosis. Not actual psychosis, but feels like it. Clients are asking me how to deal. And more often than not, […]
My world is quiet. It’s early morning. The homes opposite me are blanketed in snow. I am homebound here in Colorado. Homebound, probably just like you. Who’d have ever thought it would all come to this? Sure, maybe years ago you made it through Y2k unscathed like me, with a few extra propane tanks in your garage. But now. Now […]
He can never make her happy. Nothing is ever enough. What can he do? And then one day she says she wants a divorce. He is stunned. More and more men are having this experience today. Women are initiating 70% and even more of divorces these days. Keith saw the writing on the wall in his marriage. He had hit a threshold. His […]
We think we’re not enough. It’s why we don’t ask for what we want in marriage. And within the not enough script inside of us, subtle psychological mechanisms are at work– in how we repeat old relational patterns, how we sabotage ourselves, and how we neglect our most precious relationships. Freud called it the thanatos “death drive,” the opposing force […]
When men approach the threshold of marital change, be it considering separation, divorce, or reinvention, I immediately acknowledge the immensity of where they are. That place of big change, the cracking open of new life. They often do not see it. How could they? It is not in our cultural language. I emphasize the importance of taking it slowly, one step at […]
