“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. […]
Ok, I know, another email about the 1 thing on this or the #1 thing on that. We’re inundated by it all the time. And so forgive me for the clickbait title. But this one really is a game-changer. Something big that I’ve consistently seen in 15 years of coaching men in relationship that blows apart marriage after marriage when […]
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, […]
A guy wants sex. His wife doesn’t. He asks himself, “What’s the point of being married if I can’t have sex with my own wife? Will it be like this forever?” He feels trapped. Have you ever felt trapped like this in a sexless relationship? I have. I even went to a sex addiction therapist at one point in my […]
She says, I’m not enough for her. She says, I don’t listen. And she says, I’m not present. Any guy knows that his wife is a master at picking apart who he is and what he doesn’t do. So much so, unlike anyone else in his life, that it’s her superpower or maybe better said, her shadow power. And while […]
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 […]
“I want her to be happy. But man, she has no idea the value of a dollar. She blows ten bucks on gourmet cookies and doesn’t even eat them,” my client Todd said. Sounds like the words of a guy who is financially stressed. Anyone who’s been married a while can tell you that arguments about money and marriage go […]
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 […]
