Jake’s a big-shot engineer. An engineer who travels the country and lectures internationally. The rock star of engineers who trains other big-shot engineers. He’s brilliant. But like so many other successful men I speak with, his marriage is falling apart. Jake can’t reconcile himself to his own failure at home. He loves his kids, but he refuses to fully acknowledge […]
The most common questions I hear men voicing about their marriage. Why does she complain so much about me? And what can I do about it? Maybe you’ve been married or in a relationship for many years – 5, 10, or 20 years. Do you ever wonder when will her complaining stop? Maybe you think to yourself, I do my […]
“I feel like I’m in the doghouse with my partner.” Ever hear a guy say that? That’s code for I’m not getting any sex. Have you been in the doghouse with your partner? Are you there now? Every month, I hear from a handful of guys who say they’re not sexually fulfilled in their relationship. They act like they’ve been […]
“I’m in love with you” versus “I love you.” What’s the difference? And why would you care? Chances are you don’t care unless you heard or fear this; your partner says, “I love you but I’m not in love with you.” What’s she really saying when she says that? Is she saying that she’s done with the relationship? She wants […]
“When it’s good, it’s good. When it’s bad, it can feel like hell.” Tom, a successful CEO, was not talking about his company but about, you guessed it, his marriage of 18 years. Does your marriage sometimes feel like hell? Maybe you can relate to Tom’s experience. “It’s just like we cross wires. I say one thing. She totally misinterprets […]
Most of us have our own version of this story. Do you? You met your wife x number of years ago. At first, it was great. Sweet connection. Wonderful sex. The urge to merge. You got engaged and then married. And then you had a family and things changed over time. You were no longer each other’s priority. Kids came. […]
She talks. I listen. She talks some more. I listen some more. On a good day, her words are about someone or something else and I can help her figure things out. On a bad day, her words are about me and what I don’t do right and what I do wrong. I want to do better but after a […]
Serve, protect, provide. This is the mantra, conscious or not, that drives the behaviors of many married men. Ultimately, most men want to make their wives happy. So in that effort, he’s willing to overlook a lot of challenging behaviors from her. Do you seek to make your wife happy? If so, that’s great. But ask yourself for a moment, […]
Your wife is not happy. Her job is frustrating as heck. The kids aren’t listening to her. And you’re not enough for her. Just hearing all this makes my stomach cringe. To be married to a woman laden with problems is overwhelming for a guy. Often his natural response is to take on the burden of her unhappiness and compound […]
Dave was a big-shot commercial developer. Multimillion-dollar deals and big financial risks. Yet at home, he was risk-averse, often crippled by the slightest rejection from his wife. In 15 years of coaching married men, I’ve seen this dynamic of financial success and marital failure in a man many times. But with Dave, it was extreme. His wife didn’t seem to […]
